While in Las Vegas for the 2025 Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Show®, attendees could bump into all kinds of “gun people.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the group responsible for organizing the SHOT Show, attracts a wide range of folks, beyond just those looking to make deals with suppliers/manufacturers for the ensuing year. Some of the attendees include politicians who are deeply committed to and involved in Second Amendment related causes. Austin Knudsen, Montana’s attorney general, was one such person to attend and we had a chance to have a one-on-one chat with him on January 23.

The Montana attorney general’s office is a partisan office. The AG is elected on the same cycle as the national presidential and Montana gubernatorial elections. Knudsen was recently reelected for his second and final term in 2024. The election was won handily, and Knudsen joked, “I pull up a squeaker. I only won by 20 points.” Knudsen’s victory came on the heels of his first term with him gaining points over his run in 2020.

“I'm a gun guy,” is how Knudsen started off when discussing his work to preserve the Second Amendment. “We don't just show up and say ‘I'm pro 2A’ and I don't know the muzzle from a butt stock. I do. We, my wife and I have shot three gun. I've been reloading since I was a teenager. We're gun people. So this [SHOT Show], is like coming to Candy Land for me.”

That zeal and love for the Second Amendment and firearms moved Knudsen to immediately work to preserve it once he took office. He explained:

When I took over as attorney general, I made the decision that we were going to be really aggressive on the Second Amendment. On defending the industry. And I'm really proud of the work we've done. Montana was traditionally always a “backbencher state.” Maybe we'll sign on to a brief here or there, but really lick our fingers, stick it in the air, see which way the wind’s blowing. And we've completely abandoned that. We lead. And, we especially lead on the Second Amendment stuff.

While serving in his official capacity, Knudsen led several important legal efforts through briefs. Some of what the attorney general got involved in includes; Smith & Wesson v Mexico, National Association for Gun Rights v Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland v Jennifer VanDerStok, and NRA v Vullo. Those cases respectively concerned Mexico’s attack on Smith and Wesson and industry members, the forced reset trigger prohibition attempts, a challenge to the frame and receiver rule, and the NRA’s challenge to New York’s violation of their First Amendment rights.

As far as dealing with the last administration, Knudsen painted a fairly accurate picture. He noted that Biden and the ATF under his command were going to go “hog wild,” as many knew they would. Former President Biden has not hidden or obscured who he was over the last 40 years, Knudsen observed, and said that Biden was “the most anti-gun president, anti-black rifle president we've ever had.”

“Whether it was the ATF trying to go after bump stocks or forced reset triggers or pistol braces, all stuff that they said they were not going to do, and all stuff that was subject to existing, long standing ATF rules,” Knudsen mused, “they jerked the rug out from under people and tr[ied] to turn law-abiding gun owners into felons overnight.”

One of the vehicles that Knudsen saw to use and preserve during his first term was the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act. Through his brief in Smith & Wesson v Mexico, he made his arguments.

The really big [...case] is the Mexico versus Smith and Wesson et.al. The country of Mexico sued Smith and Wesson. They sued Ruger. They sued Sig Sauer. Basically, any of the big American weapons manufacturers. And it's idiocy. You've got a foreign country trying to come into American courts. First of all, walk me through that...But secondly, they had the gall to blame their atrocious violence, murder rate, cartel crime on the American gun industry?

It's not the cartels, it's not the rampant corruption, it's not the disarmed populace…? It's Smith and Weston's fault? Idiocy. I mean, just, just complete idiocy. So that's a case that actually at the district court level, was dismissed correctly, under the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act. Basically that's federal law, it says if you are a firearms manufacturer and your product works as it's intended, you can't be sued for a bad guy's actions.

As far as measures to help expand the rights of the residents of Montana, and by extension all those eligible in the U.S., Knudsen is a proponent of national reciprocity. While Knudsen admitted, with no offense, that he’s not planning on taking any trips to New Jersey in the future, national reciprocity would remove any prohibitions on Montanans being able to protect themselves should they visit the Garden State -- or any other state.

Politically speaking, Knudsen is hopeful that Americans don’t have a short memory concerning the recent victory for liberty. “I hope Americans don't forget why they rejected Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and went back to Donald Trump,” Knudsen said. “This country, I don't think can take the level of progressive that that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden brought. But I'm excited. I think President Trump's gonna swing for the bleachers.”

Knudsen’s second term as attorney general only just started, but it’s also his final term. He was asked about his plans come 2029, when he’ll be basically out of a job. He wasn’t ready to commit to anything, and due to campaign finance laws in Montana, there’s no “war chest” to contribute to. However, it’s safe to say that Knudsen is probably not going to just ride off into the sunset.

“I'll tell you what I tell my kids. We hate to make plans like that, or any kind of plans, because you never know what God's got in store for you,” Knudsen said. “We're gonna run this office to the best of our ability and try not to step on our foot. And, we'll see what happens in four years.”

We’re appreciative of the time that Attorney General Austin Knudsen gave us at SHOT Show 2025. “You want to know what we're up to?” Knudsen noted. “Go to DOJmt.gov. That's our official website for the State Department of Justice in Montana.” 

It’s going to be interesting to see such a force like Austin Knudsen be able to work in an environment that might not be as hostile as the one the last administration created. We’ll be following what Knudsen is up to and checking in with him from time to time.

If you’re interested in catching the full interview with Attorney General Austin Knudsen from Montana, you can check it out HERE or in the embed below.