Very little chance of a conviction here folks...

Missouri couple charged with two felonies

“The government chooses to persecute us for doing no more than exercising our right to defend ourselves, our home, our property and our family and now we’re getting drug here time after time after time and for what?”

There are politically motivated prosecutions, and then there are politically motivated prosecutions. The first rule of a prosecution is that you only prosecute cases that you believe you have a good chance to win. Prosecutions are not designed to "make a point" or otherwise used for any other reason than to put someone in jail. 

This couple does not belong behind bars. They technically did everything that the law states they are allowed to do. The only way you can convict them of this particular crime is to demand that the State understands the motivation of the couple better than the couple does. The high burden of proof in this case is to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that the couple's "intention" was not protecting their property, but rather to harass and cause "fear" in the minds of the protesters. 

But in reality, this appears to be a matter of semantics and an attempt at turning the table and making the intruders the victim (which seems to be the point of liberal law enforcement lately). If you are allowed (as you are in Missouri) to own guns and to use them to protect yourself and your home, the question that is begged by these charges is how to do that without "striking fear" in the minds of the person(s) you believe are attempting to cause harm to you. 

In other words, the prosecution (as a matter of logic) is stating that you can only wield your weapon with the intent to shoot someone in self defense. But if you were to pull a gun on a burglar and demand that he leave, then you would be in violation of the law in the same manner that the McCloskey couple is being charged with. The reason being is that you are using the gun "illegally" to strike fear in the minds of he burglar. The fact that this is part of the point of owning a gun to protect yourself seems to be missed by the prosecution. 

So making it illegal to use your gun to scare someone off, only leaves the alternative to shoot that person instead.  Is that really what the prosecution is attempting to 

Moreover, this slippery slope could be applied to other similar situations. Perhaps putting up a sign that warns a potential burglar that you have a security system might cause similar fear of retribution if they attempted to burglarize your home. Same might be said for a beware of dog sign. A potential criminal might be fearful of being bitten or otherwise attacked by a dog, putting the homeowner in jeopardy of being charged with unlawful use of having a dog.  

The reality here is that there is no way that you will convince 12 jurors that the McCloskey couple did not feel threatened or that the weapons were not being wielded in self defense (as in stay away from our property). People do not have the "right" to break into anyone else's property and they certainly have to right to so do without "fear". If this is what law and order will be like under liberal rule, then it will drive people away from the Democratic Party in waves.