A court order was issued over a year ago for the McCloskeys’ firearms to be destroyed, despite this court order the wheels of the government have turned slowly and the firearms are still in the hands of the police and now the McCloskeys want them back.
As reported in The ST. Louis Post-Dispatch:
ST. LOUIS — The guns seized from Mark and Patricia McCloskey in 2020 remain in police and sheriff’s department custody despite a court order to destroy them last year.
Robert Dierker of the City Counselor’s Office said in a virtual court hearing Wednesday that the city has yet to dispose of the guns.
“Obviously with our customary efficiency, we should have destroyed (the weapons) months ago,” Dierker said. “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.”
Mark McCloskey, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, wants the weapons back immediately and has sued St. Louis, the sheriff and state to get them. But the city says he and his wife forfeited them as part of their plea agreements to misdemeanors for waving the guns at protesters in June 2020 outside the couple’s mansion on Portland Place, a private and gated street.
While this is a very noble effort from the McCloskeys they did in fact wave their right to get the firearms back in the plea deal. It should also be said that the these firearms were already supposed to be destroyed, it is unfortunate that the government has worked so slowly that this is even being discussed. It is very easy to sympathize with the McCloskeys here, I too would want my firearms back but they ultimately did take the plea deal and getting them back should not even be possible.
