The Couple Who Pointed Guns At Black Lives Matter Protesters Came To The Republican Convention To Fear-Monger About The Suburbs

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who were charged with unlawful use of a weapon after they were filmed pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters who marched past their home in June, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention that focused on suburban voters and villainized the Black Lives Matter movement.

"What you saw happen to us could just as easily happen to any of you who are watching from quiet neighborhoods around our country. And that's what we want to speak to you about tonight," Patricia told the Republican National Convention.

The speech largely focused on scaring suburban voters, a crucial voting bloc in the upcoming election that helped Democrats flip congressional districts during the 2018 midterm elections.

"The radicals are not content just marching in the streets. They want to walk the halls of Congress. They want power. This is Joe Biden's party. These are the people who will be in charge of your future and the future of your children," Mark told the convention after mentioning that Cori Bush, a nurse and Black Lives Matter activist who became a leader in the movement after the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, had won a congressional primary this summer. Mark referred to Bush as a "Marxist revolutionary."

"They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness, and low-quality apartments into now thriving suburban neighborhoods," Patricia told the convention.

The line mirrors an attack that President Donald Trump has been making for weeks against Biden in speeches and on Twitter where the president tweeted that Sen. Cory Booker and Biden would build low-income housing in suburban neighborhoods in a not-so-quiet dog whistle.

"The 'suburban housewife' will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood," Trump tweeted in early August. The attacks focus on Trump's rollback of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule that was enacted by the Obama administration and urged suburban communities to allow low-income housing construction in their neighborhoods.

"No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America," Patricia said.

The McCloskeys are personal injury attorneys who live in a private community and are notorious in their community for being extremely litigious - even filing a lawsuit to prevent the sale of the home, where they pointed guns at protesters, to another buyer. They became famous in conservative circles after pictures of their standoff with protesters went viral in late June.