The gun-toting Missouri couple who pointed their firearms at Black Lives Matters protesters are suing to get their weapons back after they were pardoned for charges related to the now-infamous incident.
A city official conceded Wednesday that the automatic rifle and pistol wielded by Mark and Patricia McCloskey to intimidate protesters passing by their luxury St. Louis home have yet to be destroyed.
The Colt AR-15 rifle, which retails for about $1,000, and the Bryco .380-caliber pistol, which costs about $100 used, were supposed to be destroyed after the couple turned them over to the state.
The revelation that the firearms still exist came during a legal hearing to determine whether they should be returned to their original owners, who were pardoned by Governor Mike Parson last August.
Mark McCloskey - who is suing the city, state and sheriffs to have the firearms returned - told DailyMail.com on Thursday that getting the guns back is a matter of principle.
'It's a matter of the Second Amendment; it's a matter of the government not having a right to take private property without just cause and without compensation,' he said. 'That's a constitutional right on a variety of levels.
'But mostly, it's just that I was being punished by a woke, Soros-funded prosecutor for doing no more than defending myself and exercising my second amendment rights, for which I should suffer no penalty whatsoever.'
Mark and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanors last year after pointing their guns at Blacks Lives Matter protestors outside their St. Louis home on June 28, 2020. The state's governor pardoned the couple last August
City attorney Robert Dierker said during a virtual court hearing yesterday that officials aren't keen to hand the weapons back over, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
City attorney Robert Dierker says he's surprised the guns have not been destroyed
'Obviously with our customary efficiency, we should have destroyed (the weapons) months ago,' Dierker told a judge. 'We haven't. So McCloskey's a beneficiary of bureaucratic, I want to say, ineptitude. But in any event, it's fortuitous that the weapons still exist.'
The fate of the firearms is expected to be decided during a February 22 hearing.
The lawsuit was filed by Mark McCloskey and his wife is representing him.
Mark McCloskey, who is running as a Republican candidate for the US Senate in the midterm elections, told the court he was legally entitled to have the weapons returned after being pardoned.
'The loss of that property would certainly be a legal disqualification, impediment or other legal disadvantage, of
