A video showing a couple in a rich St Louis neighborhood scaring BLM protesters away from their porch with guns has quickly become an online hit. The pair have been both attacked and praised for their actions on social media.
The Missourians who became an internet sensation were revealed to be local lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey. After the video of them brandishing guns in front of protesters surfaced online, the couple was doxxed, and their family law center has been hit with a wave of negative reviews and comments on their behavior.
“My husband keeps ‘accidentally’ pointing his assault weapon at me. What should I do?” was one of the questions posed in jest to the McCloskey Law Center on Google. A collective effort was made to mark the building as a “public toilet” online.
Some netizens got their hands on photographs of inside the house, and started mocking the “monstrosity” for its perceived gaudiness.
The image of affluent middle-aged people defending their property with firearms turned out to be a striking one for Twitter users. The couple was dubbed “Ken and Karen” and they attracted some action movie comparisons.
Podcaster Matt Christman compared Mark’s appearance to a “tuck a salmon golf shirt into dockers” Elmer Fudd, and his house to a Cheesecake Factory.
There were also those who found the McCloskeys taking a stand empowering. They clapped back with their own memes of the armed couple, making posters reading “Okay Zoomer” and superimposing the two onto the “don’t tread on me”Gadsden flag.
As well as all the attempts to make light of the situation, the couple sparked waves of online debate, with both ‘AR-15’ and ‘Private Property’ trending high on Twitter.
Some derided the McCloskeys as being emblematic of the American gun culture that they wish to abolish. Others empathized with the man who “defended his family” using an AR-15.
There has, unexpectedly, been a small consensus between both sides of the US political aisle, with people suggesting the lawyer couple could use some gun safety training.
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