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| - A lawyer from Missouri who found fame after brandishing a rifle at Black Lives Matter protesters near his home last year is running for the US Senate, he announced Tuesday. Mark McCloskey made world headlines in late June when he and his wife Patricia pointed guns at a crowd marching peacefully past their columned mansion on a private St. Louis street as part of demonstrations against racial injustice. Video of the barefoot couple went viral, and the McCloskeys, both in their early sixties, were charged with felony unlawful use of weapons. "Our nation is under attack. Big tech, big business, the swamp in DC, are all working together to destroy our God-given freedom, our culture and our heritage," the minor conservative celebrity said in a video launching his bid. He will run as a Republican for the Senate seat currently held by Roy Blunt, of the same party, who will not seek reelection in the November 2022 poll. The confrontation which made McCloskey's name happened during a wave of demonstrations over police brutality and racism prompted by the police killing in Minneapolis of an unarmed black man, George Floyd. "God came knocking on my door last summer, disguised as an angry mob. It really did wake me up," McCloskey told Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tuesday. He said the American people were "sick and tired of cancel culture... and the big lie of systemic racism, all backed up by the threat of mob violence." McCloskey will face competition for the Republican nomination from former Missouri governor Eric Greitens and the state's attorney general, Eric Schmitt. State senator Scott Sifton is running for the Democratic nod, as is Marine veteran Lucas Kunce. In August, the McCloskeys addressed Republicans in a video at the party convention, painting a dark vision of America, where suburbanites would be under threat if President Donald Trump was not re-elected. "What you saw happen to us could just as easily happen to any of you who are watching from quiet neighborhoods around our country," Patricia McCloskey, sitting next to her husband, warned viewers in video remarks. "Make no mistake: No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America." Trump lost the White House to Joe Biden in November. bur-leg/rbu
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