ST. LOUIS, Mo. – It appears that Mark and Patricia McCloskey will not be getting his guns back. A court order filed Wednesday says that the couple’s pardon did not include the return of their weapons.
The couple made headlines in 2020 by waving the weapons at racial injustice protesters. The city of St. Louis seized the weapons before Missouri Governor Mike Parson pardoned them.
The McCloskeys created a plea deal on the initial case, with them pleading to a lesser charge and agreeing to surrender their weapons, which would then be destroyed. After the deal, Governor Parson pardoned them.
They returned to court to argue the pardon should enable them to get their weapons back. The Court rules the pardon only removed the conviction, and not the plea to surrender weapons.
It is still not clear when the weapons will be destroyed. FOX 2 has reached out to St. Louis police for a comment. The McCloskey’s may ask a higher court for a decision in the matter.
The McCloskeys, both lawyers in their 60s, said they felt threatened in 2020 by demonstrators who walked onto their private street during global protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mark McCloskey emerged from his home with an AR-15-style rifle, and Patricia McCloskey waved a semi-automatic pistol.
Photos and cellphone video captured the confrontation, which drew widespread attention and made the couple heroes to some and villains to others. No shots were fired, and no one was hurt.
In January 2022, the City Counselor’s Office said that Parson’s pardon obliterated the conviction, but not the plea agreement in which McCloskey forfeited the guns.
