Billings Gazette: Watershed gun decision cheered in Montana
HELENA — Montana leaders lauded a U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday upholding individual gun rights, but one of the state’s top gun rights activists said the ruling is not as important here, as Montana already has strong gun rights protections.
“We’re not as desperate as they might be in Illinois or Massachusetts,” said Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association and one of the state’s leading gun rights advocates.
In McDonald v. Chicago, the high court ruled 5-4 Monday that state and local governments cannot pass laws or ordinances that infringe upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., one of two key sponsors of pending legislation that would end some local gun control measures in Washington, D.C., called the decision a “major victory for America’s gun owners.”
Tester and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, were the co-authors of the friend-of-the-court brief that Congress filed with the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago.
