Five years after a firestorm of media attention, a mountain of legal troubles, and a run for office, Mark McCloskey has finally collected.
In 2020, McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, went viral in the media after Mark wielded an AR-15 on his porch alongside his pistol-packing wife as a large group of Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrated down their private street.
The protesters broke down an iron gate leading into the McCloskeys’ neighborhood, leading the couple to say they were “in fear of [their] lives” at the time.
‘You have to let them know that you will never back down, you’ll never give up.’
Mr. McCloskey eventually surrendered the couple’s guns as part of an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault and his wife pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment, both misdemeanors, after being originally charged with felonies.
Former Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) pardoned all of the McCloskeys’ charges in the summer of 2021. Now, some of their property has finally been returned.
“It only took 3 lawsuits, 2 trips to the Court of Appeals and 1,847 days, but I got my AR15 back!” McCloskey wrote on X. The home owner compared 2020 photos of him and his wife brandishing their guns alongside a new photo of himself with the AR-15 in front of his house.
“We defended our home, were persecuted by the left, smeared by the press, and threatened with death, but we never backed down,” he continued. “What’s missing — Patty and the Bryco (soon),” he added, referring to the Bryco .380-caliber pistol his wife was holding in 2020.
Mark McCloskey, a Republican candidate for US Senate in Missouri, and his wife, Patricia McCloskey (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
McCloskey also posted a video of himself picking up the AR-15 from a police property room on Friday afternoon.
“That gun may have only been worth $1,500 or something, and it cost me a lot of time and a lot of effort to get it back, but you have to do that,” McCloskey told Fox News. “You have to let them know that you will never back down, you’ll never give up.”
The personal injury attorney also expressed that each American has a “personal responsibility” to defend freedom and added that “if you’ve been wronged, if you’ve been overreached by the leftist government — you can’t give up. You can’t let them get an inch.”
McCloskey parlayed his legal and moral fight into a 2022 Senate run in the Missouri Republican Party.
RELATED: Missouri governor pardons McCloskeys of all charges related to BLM protest incident
ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI – MAY 7, 2022: Missouri Senate hopeful Mark McCloskey’s campaign vehicle parked outside in St. Joseph, Missouri. (Photo by Dominick Williams for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
One of McCloskey’s stances was a firm belief that abortion was not justifiable, even in cases of rape or incest of young teens.
McCloskey eventually lost the primary to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
He told Fox News that he expects to get the Bryco pistol within the next week.
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