Were the St. Louis Homeowners Just ‘Standing Their Ground’?

Standoff with protesters prompts legal questions.

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A scene from a standoff at a protest in St. Louis raced across the internet Sunday night: A middle-aged couple, standing outside their expensive home, brandishing and pointing guns at protesters walking past on the sidewalk while shouting back and forth with them.

Videos shot at the scene provoked instant partisan reactions. Many liberals denounced the homeowners as racists, or gun nuts, or both; many conservatives pointed out the protesters were trespassing on a private street—had in fact damaged a gate to enter a private neighborhood—and applauded the couple for taking action to protect their home. 

To unpack some of the legal issues at play here, we spoke with Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon—one of the country’s best reporters on firearms issues.

Andrew Egger: If you’re a homeowner in this couple’s shoes, what are your rights and what would be crossing the line?

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jake

    Any firearms instructor that believes this is the right way to handle the situation should be fired.

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  2. G Holcombe

    They were foolish to wave firearms around and to point weapons at anyone. Bad handling. So no excuses for that. I would, however, like to add some context. I grew up in St Louis. St. Louis has more private streets per capita than anywhere else in the country—historical reasons. This street and its neighbor (Portland Place and Westmoreland) are the creme de la creme of St Louis’ private streets. Nothing but very high end historical mansions here. Not McMansions—but legit mansions. And it’s definitely not on the way to the mayor’s house. They chose to trespass here to make a point—that no one is safe from their anger. This is likely the first time this couple has seen anyone they didn’t know in front of their house, ever, much less a loud, rowdy group of protesters.

    Does all this mean that the couple acted wisely? No. They didn’t. But neither did the protesters by intentionally trespassing in this very private enclave. They were asking for trouble and shouldn’t have been surprised that someone stupidly overreacted. Very glad no one got hurt.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Adam Bridge

    I'm deeply troubled by "stand your ground" laws since they encourage escalation rather than having folks back off. The same is true for allowing the use of lethal force OUTSIDE the home. Not being an NRA member, only viewing from outside, these laws seem designed to encourage the carrying and use of firearms. I'd suggest that's a bad idea. You can't kill someone with something you don't have. I doubt that very few people are trained to carry firearms and use them appropriately in the heat of the moment. Not something you can teach at the range.

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    1. Luke Thompson

      Concealed carry permit holders commit crimes at a rate far lower than the general population. And Stand Your Ground doesn't encourage escalation at all. In fact, no SYG law, in any state, would protect the person if they actually escalated the conflict.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Marty

    The Dispatch has the most thoughtful, articulate, intelligent, civilized commenters on the Internet. (Yes, there are some loudmouths and trolls, but they are blessedly few and far between.) Thanks to each and every one of you who posted on this forum, regardless of your point of view. It's particularly useful for someone like me, who has never owned a gun (and never wants to), to read what responsible gun owners have to say about this incident.

    Congratulations and many thanks to the co-founders of the Dispatch for having the vision and the drive to create a site where the news is trustworthy, the columns are thought-provoking but never inflammatory, and conservatives and liberals can have a (mostly) respectful conversation, learn something from each other, and agree to disagree without nastiness and name-calling (again, mostly). And congratulations to the editors, staff writers, reporters etc. who do a bang-up job every day.

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    Chris Jenkins

    More Stephen Gutowski, please.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Aylene Wright

      I would certainly listen to him on a podcast: hint, hint!

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  6. Jack Nicolay

    This is a lose-lose scenario. The home owners make it clear they need training in the firearms they are displaying/brandishing. But, there were people calling to kill them in the crowd. it takes only a second- some kind of fuse- to turn a group into a mob. We have watched people bludgeoned to death or disability over the last month by mobs all over the country. I suggest if you see someone who is protecting their property, you move along and continue your business somewhere else.

    I live in a very "rural" area. Folks around here think it would be hilarious if antifa would stop by. Believe me, there are many hoping they might be the first to fire on a violent group of people, and bring whatever culture war they have been fighting out into the open where bullets, not bullshit counts. I hope everyone takes a deep breath and a step back before something really bad happens.

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    1. @Fakejohn

      I haven't actually seen video that captures someone making death threats. If you have a link to that can you share? I'm not inclined to take the homeowners at their word w.r.t. them getting death threats

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  7. Avatar photo
    Visibly

    I am so happy to live in a civilized country where guns are not considered an extension of your d...

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  8. Avatar photo
    Scarlette Tarte

    First of all, this road is not really private property as we understand it. The neighborhood is historic (the couple's house was built in 1909) and the homeowners petitioned the city to have the street closed to vehicular traffic, which was done. It is STILL open to PEDESTRIAN traffic, and since the taxpayers built the road AND maintain the road, these rich people should not get to decide who goes down it.

    That being said, the protesters were just walking by. This couple only needed to stay indoors and watch to make sure all was ok. Their property (and remember, it is only property and you should not be able to kill someone over it) was never in any danger. And their lives were most certainly not.

    And this is the problem with having "expanded castle doctrines" or "stand your ground laws". So much of this relies on subjectivity and not objective evidence.

    Scared homeowners (scared people in general) are much more likely to claim "my life was in danger" even if it really wasn't, because they were SCARED. They are much more likely to shoot as well.

    This couple is EXACTLY what we on the left are talking about. I would say most gun owners are like this couple They don't know gun safety, they don't know how to properly handle a firearm, they are easily scared (which is why they have a gun in the first place) and they are ripe for "accidentally" shooting someone.

    I own guns. I live in a rural area, my husband used to hunt, we now skeet shoot, and cull wild hogs with them. We have our concealed carry license although we never carry, but just in case we ever need to. Our guns have always been locked away in a gun safe (we had two sons, we didn't want them or their friends tempted to do something stupid) we never leave them lying around, or under the bed, or wherever, like many people we KNOW, DO.

    I would like to see gun ownership require licensing. You have to take a gun safety class, you must keep the weapon locked away if their are ever children in the home, you have to renew every 5 years.

    This is just a common sense thing to do. Otherwise, look at these people...these are people just like your neighbors. Would you trust your kid was safe if they were visiting friends at this couples house? I would not. One look at how they are handling those guns tells me ALL I need to know about them.

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    1. Vermin8

      That is good information. The impression I had from the article was that this was a private street in a neighborhood owed by an HOA which means that the residents do own the street, even if they share it with all other residents. A public sidewalk, however, just closed to vehicular traffic, is another matter.
      Who maintains the road? Is it an HOA or is it the city or county that has jurisdiction?

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    2. @Fakejohn

      Scarlette, I had not read that this was a public road that just didn't allow vehicle traffic. Do you have a source for that information? I'm not asking to be a dick but I think it is material (in my eyes at least) to how "in the wrong" the homeowners are. If it is a public road, what's the story with the gate?

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      1. Avatar photo
        Scarlette Tarte

        In St Louis, they have areas that are called "Private Places". They are monuments to White supremacy. These are areas that are walled off from the rest of the city, and that also do not have follow local laws. Did you know that? It's true. Also called "self governing enclaves". They make it a royal pain in the rear to navigate the city. They were laid out by Julius Pitzman. The streets were built by the city, and the services are provided by the city as well (garbage, sewer, water, gas, electric, etc). He designed 47! of these "private places" for the city of St Louis.

        This one this couple lives in (Portland Place) used to allow vehicular traffic to traverse from one area of the city to another. The residents (all wealthy and white) decided that they did not want "those people" to be able to drive down their street anymore to get from busy area to another, and so the street was closed to vehicular traffic. But it is still open to pedestrian traffic.

        I have a friend who lives in Washington Terrace, another "private place". The homeowners used to own the streets themselves, but as maintenance became an expensive burden, they entered into an agreement with the city that the city would provide the upkeep.

        I do not know the particulars of that agreement. But in my mind, if the city is paying the upkeep of these roads, then they are PUBLIC roads. And in particular, the Mayor lives on this street. She is paid by the taxpayers. These protesters were trying to take the fight to her house, to show her what it like to be "doxxed" since she did that to so many of the protesters.

        The gate was not damaged by at least the first group of protesters that came thru. It was unlocked, they just walked in. It is UNKNOWN how the gate became damaged, but video taken near the start of the march show it being opened and people passing thru.

        Let's say for arguments sake that the street is "private" with no city involvement. Still, a group of people walking into a private neighborhood does not need to be confronted with firearms when they are just walking thru. If the homeowners wanted to find out what was going on, they should have just walked outside and spoken to the march organizers. Then, if it was still a problem to them, they should have just called the police. And asked that they police NOT harm the protesters in any way, but inform them of the "law" that applies.

        It is pretty telling that no other homeowners reacted like this. In fact, I don't think any of them even called the police.

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    3. Avatar photo
      Dante Longfellow

      One way these homeowners could have not been scared would be if people wern´t walking outside their house shouting that they were going to kill them.

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      1. @Fakejohn

        I haven't seen any video that shows any of the protesters threatening to kill the homeowners so we basically have to take them at their word that those threats were made. I think, under the circumstances, it is reasonable to question the veracity of their statement.

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    4. Luke Thompson

      "And this is the problem with having "expanded castle doctrines" or "stand your ground laws". So much of this relies on subjectivity and not objective evidence."

      That's actually the opposite of the truth. The point of those laws is to remove the subjectivity. Stand Your Ground, in particular, since the duty to retreat creates a subjective standard where a jury has to decide whether the accused had a safe way to retreat, should have known that, etc. It second-guesses split-second situations where the shooter is never the aggressor anyway (because that's covered under another provision).

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      1. Avatar photo
        Scarlette Tarte

        We had a man in Houston who shot a man running away with his NEIGHBOR's TV and got away with it under "Stand your ground".

        Stand your ground says "if you feel like your life was in danger, you can shoot". ANYONE can say "Oh, they were coming at me, I felt my life was in danger" or if they see someone breaking into a garage to steal a car, the homeowner could say "Oh, I felt my life was in danger I had to shoot".

        It is BS. It is a COVER to kill people and get away with it. Mostly in protection of property. Property theft or damage is not a capital crime, and no one should be killed because they stole your tv. A bunch of right wingers who wanted to be able to kill people over their PROPERTY is behind these stupid laws.

        ANYONE can claim anything. Like in the Trayvon Martin case, it was actually Trayvon who was defending himself. You had a overzealous neighborhood watch "wannabe cop" who thought he was a superman preventing a crime, when it was actually just a teenager going back to his dad's house. He stalked Trayvon, and when Trayvon defended himself, Zimmerman shot him (because Trayvon was kicking his rear end in a royal manner).

        We all know the outcome...Zimmerman got away with that under Stand your ground" when it should have been Trayvon using Stand your Ground. And that POS has done all kinds of the same kind of stuff ever since then. He has been charged with domestic abuse THREE times (threatening with a gun) . He sold a supposed "original painting" on Ebay for 100,000 dollars, and later it was found out that the lifted the image from shutterstock. Then he started selling confederate flag paintings, at the store in Florida that has the owner that hates muslims, that art critics called "murderabilia".

        He has since called President Obama a baboon, he tweeted out a picture of Trayvon's body and in May, 2016 tried to hold an auction of the gun he killed Martin with. The original site took the listing down, but he listed it on another site and some sicko bought it for 250,000.

        Why all this history on Zimmerman? Because we KNEW who this guy was and what he was about BACK THEN. Yet this piece of scum is walking free under Stand your Ground".

        THAT is your "objective" case right there.

        Stand your Ground laws are a disaster. They are dangerous. They amp up the chance of violence, and are now associated with a 45 percent increase in gun homicide rates in Florida alone among white people and a 23 percent increase in homicide rates among black residents. They are not applied equally either. These are bad, bad laws that allow the wrong people to murder others without penalty. https://everytownresearch.org/fact-sheet-stand-your-ground/#:~:text=The%20Stand%20Your%20Ground%20law,percent%20increase%20among%20black%20residents.&text=Stand%20Your%20Ground%20encourages%20escalated,protects%20people%20with%20violent%20backgrounds.

        https://scholars.org/contribution/why-stand-your-ground-laws-are-dangerous

        And surprise, surpise - Ayn Rand's "objectivist" group, finds the same...https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/09/stand-your-ground-laws-increase-violence.html

        https://www.vox.com/2019/9/27/20887403/stand-your-ground-laws-homicides-crime-self-defense

        https://www.journalacs.org/article/S1072-7515(19)32168-4/fulltext

        Every study shows that states with Stand your Ground laws have higher rates of gun deaths at break ins and "property defense" than states that do not have these laws.

        These laws are just plain bad and need to go.

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        1. Luke Thompson

          I want a case citation for your first paragraph. Not an article, an actual case.

          Zimmerman had nothing at all to do with Stand Your Ground. He didn't invoke Florida's law, and literally no stand your ground law in the country would have applied to his situation. When you're ambushed by someone who knocks you to the ground, beats you up, and then reaches for your gun, you're the victim in every state. The claim that he did anything wrong in that situation is a complete myth. That he's gone off the rails since then is unfortunate, but it's certainly understandable that someone who has been so widely attacked for an event where he did nothing wrong whatsoever would lose his sanity.

          "Every study shows that states with Stand your Ground laws have higher rates of gun deaths at break ins and "property defense" than states that do not have these laws."

          I'd like to see one, because neither of those things are even relevant to Stand Your Ground laws. I'm pretty confident you don't know what Stand Your Ground laws are.

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          1. Luke Thompson

            Also, having done my own dives into everytown's data, I start with the assumption that if they say something, the opposite is true. It's yet to be wrong.

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        2. Avatar photo
          Jeff C

          With all due respect, I disagree. Without some type of stand your ground doctrine you essentially do not have a right to self defense. People have been jailed for shooting an intruder who was intending harm because a jury decided(with hind site and clever argument from a zealous prosecutor) they could have retreated to another room of the house.
          So while I agree that the application of these laws is sometimes flawed and even the laws themselves may be overly broad, but the concept is essential. You should not be forced to divine an attackers intent and retreat from your own home when threatened. That applies whether the weapon of defense is a fist, a shovel or a gun.
          The alternative is “duty to retreat” which is insane when applied to a home or even certain circumstances outside the home.
          So let’s support improving stand your ground laws and not gutting the principle.
          All this does not excuse the behavior of the couple in St. Louis.
          Oh, and FYI, the RAND corporation has nothing to do with Ayn Rand or Objectivism.

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    5. Avatar photo
      Visibly

      And open carry should be forbidden!!

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      1. VcL

        Why do you believe this? I'm not being contrary, but I live in a part of the country where having a sidearm is just a part of life. Ranchers go to Walmart, and the pistol goes too. I also grew up on military bases where carrying while in uniform was common. I can't recall any incidents or accidents as a result.

        I would rather know that some of my fellow citizens are armed -- especially since these are generally people who grew up with guns and who know proper gun safety -- it actually makes me feel safer.

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  9. @Fakejohn

    I know the point of this interview was to talk specifically about the legality of what the homeowners did but, wow, there is so much stupid in this situation it is almost mind boggling. For the homeowners, the absolute best outcome they could hope to achieve from their actions was to become in internet meme for the next five years and the worst possible outcome is a catastrophic and tragic one. Just go inside.
    For the protesters here's a pro tip: If you are on the wrong end of an assault rifle and a pistol, say "excuse me, I was just leaving" and walk away. Do not engage and further escalate the situation by arguing with people weird enough to grab and brandish weapons the moment they saw you.

    Yesterday someone that lives a block away from me posted on Nextdoor that a homeowner threatened to shoot her because her dog pooped in her driveway... After she had already cleaned up the mess. (Nextdoor: helping neighbors hate one another since 2008). I can imagine she took the threat seriously since someone was shot and killed in Denver a few weeks' prior for the same offense. We are collectively losing our minds as a country and it is scary as hell.

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    1. David Gaskin

      Part of being a responsible gun owner is having a clear sense of situational awareness. A person's response with a firearm should be proportional to a the threat, and education is key to a person's ability in assessing that. I would echo many of the criticisms here of the homeowners, but as yet I not seen video capturing the behavior of the protesters and how belligerent (or not so) they really were.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Scarlette Tarte

        Agreed. Not every situation requires pulling out the pistol. Too many scared people with guns.

        I have a concealed carry license, but have never felt the need to carry. I got it because my husband wanted to take the class. He does not carry either, but we have the license if needed. I have never had to pull a gun on anyone, and I grew up and lived in New Orleans for most of my life, (now retired in the country) and the city had a fairly high crime rate.

        Yet many of the people I knew were like Barney Fife with his pistol. They were always pulling that gun...once over a kid climbing their fence to try to get a kitten that went into their yard, I kid you not. (yes, the kid was black, and yes, I believe they were racist).

        Your property can be replaced, and please remember, there is no death penalty for those that steal your tv or your car. You don't shoot someone over PROPERTY, no matter how much it means to you. Your response to someone threatening your property must be in proportion to the threat.

        I am sure this couple worked themselves into a tizzy with fear. That is the problem...fear. When you act when you are afraid, you are likely to make a big mistake. Remain calm. Assess the situation. Try to defuse it, or try to leave. Once the guns come out, it usually ratchets up only one way, because now both sides are afraid. And that fear leads to deathly mistakes.

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      2. @Fakejohn

        I hope both the police and local journalists are going to investigate this further but they likely won't. Legally it's going to boil down to he said she said and from a news perspective, the video is what grabs everyone's attention not what actually happened. No reason to actually find the truth, just let everyone bring their biases to the story and let them come up with their own truth. Sucks.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Rccater

    Scared people often act impulsively. This kind of thing is going to continue escalating until people get shot. Hell, people are already getting shot. Can't the people of this country see where this is going?

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