A convicted child molester who also pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife can't get back 29 guns seized from him by the police, a state appeals court panel has ruled.

Eric S. Whistler's mother can't have them, either, Senior Judge William H. Platt wrote in the Superior Court's opinion on the case.

The ruling marks the second time Whistler, now an inmate in the state prison at Waymart, has missed his legal target. Platt's opinion upholds an earlier decision by Cumberland County Judge Albert H. Masland.

Whistler, 30, of Shippensburg, acted as his own lawyer in the gun retrieval bid. He should have known it was a vain hope.

As Platt noted, Whistler pleaded guilty to simple assault for a domestic violence incident in 2011. Four years later he was charged with sexually assaulting 13-year-old girl. That's when state police at Carlisle seized Whistler's guns from his girlfriend's house.

Police took the weapons because Whistler's domestic violence conviction barred him from owning, or even touching, a gun, Platt noted.

Whistler was sentenced to 8 to 24 years in state prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to charges of statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and illegally possessing firearms.

He filed his petition for return of his guns in July 2017. If he couldn't have the guns, at least they could be transferred to the ownership of his mother, he insisted.

Platt found that Whistler's mom has no legal right to the weapons since she never owned them. Plus, the judge noted, Whistler's mother said she didn't want the firearms. Whistler had put her name on his petition without seeking her consent, Platt wrote.