Missoula’s Gun Ordinance Spawns Legal Action, Possible New State Legislation

Montana Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen announced today, September 28, that he is in the process of requesting an official opinion from Montana Attorney General Tim Fox on the constitutionality of Missoula’s new background check ordinance.

"There's a process I have to go through in order to request an opinion, it's a little more complicated," Knudsen said. "I can't just pick up the phone and call Attorney General Fox and ask him to write an opinion for me... I have to go through a process, there has to be a legal memo attached to my request with some arguments laid out with it. So I have to do a little homework, but I'm hoping to have something to his office this week."

Knudsen says he has been concerned with Missoula’s proposed ordinance for over a year, and that the issue may come up in the next legislative session.

"The Second amendment and Firearms are a very big deal to me personally and I think that this is an important issue," Knudsen said. "Any time you start messing with people's Second Amendment rights, not only under thee Second Amendment to the U.S. Constiution, but also under the Montana Constitution, people have the right to keep and bear arms...when you start messing with that, people get upset. I think there is definitely a possibility that the legislature could do something."

No matter what Knudsen puts in his legal memo, Attorney General Tim Fox is likely to take some type of action against the city of Missoula’s ordinance as Fox has already said the ordinance “is prohibited by state law.”