Two years after Mark McCloskey relocated to Central West End, he purchased an assault rifle.
“I bought that gun in 1989 and it’s near and dear to my heart,” McCloskey told the St. Louis Record.
At the time, McCloskey was 33 years old. Today, he’s 66 and campaigning for a Senate seat after being the center of a Black Lives Matter controversy.
“I never thought I would lose that gun unless somebody took it from me by force just like the city of St. Louis did,” he said.
McCloskey and his wife Patricia gained national attention two years ago in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests for brandishing the AR and a semi-automatic pistol in front of their St. Louis home while demonstrators marched towards former Mayor Lyda Krewson’s nearby home.
“I was using my guns in self-defense and the government has no right to have them,” he said.
The McCloskeys both pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanors and forfeited the two guns as part of a plea agreement, but now that Gov. Mike Parson has pardoned the couple, they want the fines they paid refunded and their guns returned.
“That AR is worth much more today because it's an old model and no longer available," McCloskey said. "It has significant historical value now as does the pistol."
McCloskey, who sued St. Louis, the city sheriff, and the state as a way to regain possession of his guns, argued in virtual court last week that Gov. Parson's pardon entitles him and his wife to a refund of the fines they paid and a return of the guns. But St. Louis City counselor Robert Dierker argued before Circuit Judge Joan Moriarty that the pardon doesn’t apply to the gun forfeiture under the plea agreement, according to media reports.
Dierker previously worked for three decades as a circuit judge in St. Louis before joining Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office.
“The judge took the case under submission but also ordered that my guns not be destroyed,” McCloskey added. “I thought it was funny that Dierker mentioned that the bureaucratic inefficiency of the city had worked to our benefit because the guns are still in existence.”
In vying for the Senate seat that is being vacated by Sen. Roy Blunt in the 2022 election, McCloskey is competing against fellow Republican contenders including former Gov. Eric Greitens, Attorney General Eric Schmitt, and Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler.
"It's going great," he added. "We've had more than 27,000 individual donations to the campaign, which is way more than anybody else. We're speaking every place we can speak. I did an interview with Fox this morning. I'm doing a live Newsmax program in about an hour. I'm getting out there and being heard and I think the people are ready for a true constitutional conservative who doesn't have any ties, doesn't have any baggage, and isn't afraid to go up there and risk whatever is necessary in the way of personal, economic or social status, to tell the truth, straighten out the country and get our freedoms back."