An Authentic Gun Guy: Petrolino Talks With Montana AG Austin Knudsen

During the 2025 National Shooting Sports Foundation SHOT Show, we had an opportunity to get some one-on-one time with Montana Attorney General (and SNW contributor) Austin Knudsen. Knudsen is not just your run-of-the-mill politician. He’s a real gun guy. The AG talked with us about his past support of the Second Amendment, briefs he’s filed, and more. Portions of this interview have been cleaned up for clarity and readability.

Petrolino: Today we’re talking with Attorney General Austin Knudsen from the great state of Montana. Austin, welcome today. How are you?

Knudsen: Hi, John. Yeah, I’m great. 

Petrolino: We’re at the 2025 SHOT Show, and you’re here attending. How do you feel about the show so far?

Knudsen: It’s great. We’ve been coming for years, and we always have a great time at SHOT Show. But this is…it just keeps getting bigger every year. It amazes me.

Petrolino: 2024 was a great year for America. I think we could all agree about that. There was a lot of really good big news in 2024. You got reelected, right? 

Knudsen: I did.

Petrolino: …Attorney General, and handedly at that. And, you also gained percentage points over your last race. Is that correct?

Knudsen: That’s what they tell me. Yeah, I pull up a squeaker. I only won by 20 points.

Petrolino: Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah.

Knudsen: Just barely. 

Petrolino: Just to get everyone up to speed, the Office of Attorney General in Montana, it is a partisan office. 

Knudsen: It is.

Petrolino: And you have what, two, four year terms? 

Knudsen: Correct. Same as the presidential, same as our governor. Yeah, four, four and four. Yeah, I was first elected in 2020. Just finished that up. My first four year term, and the people saw fit to reelect me.

Petrolino: And you’ve been into a lot of really cool stuff that I could tell – a number of lawsuits and a number of briefs, right? You want to talk a little bit about what you have going on [and] that you did in the past?

Knudsen: I’m a gun guy. 

Petrolino: Sure. 

Knudsen: We don’t just show up and say, “I’m pro 2A.” And [then] 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 is like coming to CandyLand for me.

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. Right from the start, we’ve had four years of Joe Biden and his ATF just going hog wild like we knew that they would. We’ve known who Joe Biden is for 40 years. He’s the most anti-gun president, anti-black rifle president we’ve ever had.

Petrolino: Sure.

Knudsen: 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, they jerked the rug out from under people and tried to turn law-abiding gun owners into felons overnight,

Petrolino: I think one of the interesting things that you brought up was you said how Montana was traditionally kind of on the sidelines, “We’ll see what’s going on.” Historically your right of center, or we’ll say liberty-loving people, or conservatives – generally say, “Hey, get off my lawn. I’ll stay off of your lawn.” I kind of understand that, but you appreciate and see the importance for not just the state of Montana, but why this is important for all Americans…

Knudsen: Absolutely. 

Petrolino: …to get involved.

Knudsen: Yeah. 

Petrolino: I absolutely commend you for stepping up to the plate and saying, “Hey, you know we’re gonna get involved.” And you had what, four lawsuits, that you were heavily involved in? Was it Vanderstock? You filed a brief? What else? Some of the Garlands? The Garland cases?

Knudsen: Those all had to do with accessories. The really big one is 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…

Petrolino: Right. 

Knudsen: But secondly, they had the gall to blame their atrocious violence, murder rate, and cartel crime on the American gun industry.

Now, it’s not the cartels, it’s not the rampant corruption, it’s not the disarmed populace. It’s Smith & Weston’s fault? Idiocy. I mean, just, just complete idiocy. 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.

Petrolino: That makes sense. 

Knudsen: Distilled down, that’s basically what that law does.

Petrolino: And I think it makes good sense. 

A lot of the stuff that I see you’re doing, and I think it’s fabulous. This is reactionary. There’s a call, for lack of a better term, a call to arms, “Hey, somebody’s got to step up. We got to be part of this.”

Now, I see things on the other end. You and I talked earlier. I’m from New Jersey, right? We had our little conversation about cured meats and gabagool? From New Jersey, I’m used to dealing with an incredibly progressive administration. I don’t have to tell you what Matthew Platkin and his ilk are up to. They’re going after Glock and they’re going really hard. 

From a state level, and I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I think this is a good dialog to have from your perspective as the chief law enforcement guy in Montana, are there any plans to kind of step in and say, “Hey, there’s other adults in the room.” And we’ll pull New Jersey out of the hat, or you can pick any of the hateful eight. Those Bruen response states that just don’t want to respect the Second Amendment. Say, “Hey, you know what, I think my guys should be able to carry their guns in your state.”

Are there any plans to maybe try to leverage a little bit there. Are we going to see anything out of Montana that says, “Why aren’t our paperworks and our bona fides being respected in your state? Because, we respect yours, but you won’t respect ours.”

Knudsen: First of all I think national reciprocity is a great idea, and we’re starting to see that legislation move federally. Hopefully, sure, you know, now we can actually get that done, because I would like my permit to be good in New Jersey – No offense, I’m never coming to New Jersey.

Petrolino: No, you come to New Jersey. I’ll hook you up with the right people. We got training. The permits are good for two years. It’s only $200. It’s a deal.

Knudsen: We’ve actually been fairly aggressive in other states and I get asked this a lot in Montana, “What? Why are you, why are you filing stuff in Hawaii? Why are you filing stuff in Maryland?” Those are two that come to mind right away. It’s because they were ignoring the Bruen decision.

My fear … we’re in the Ninth Circuit, right? We’re in one of the most liberal circuit appellate courts in the country, but those circuit courts follow each other. A bad ruling in the First Circuit or the Fourth Circuit or the Fifth Circuit – the others start looking at that. We’ve been very active in the Spirit of Aloha case in Hawaii.

We filed on that one where Maryland was full-out trying to get around Bruen. They were trying to say, “You know, sensitive places, those have a historic analog under Bruen.” Because that’s the magic language. Well, no, no, they don’t. I mean polling places and federal buildings were literally the only two examples that the Bruen court actually gave. It wasn’t beaches, it wasn’t public parks, it wasn’t sensitive places.

Petrolino: And maybe legislative chambers – but it’s places where government actually takes place. Not schools. Not any of these other places.

We have 2024 is behind us. You got reelected. That’s awesome. What are we looking at for the next four years going forward? Do you have any other plans or pushes?

Knudsen: It’s a different ballgame now, right? With Joe Biden, you saw Republican attorneys general be really aggressive and on the offensive. We knew who Joe Biden was, we knew what we were in for, and we were watching the daily register, or the federal register every day. 

Now, we’ve got an ally in the White House. The White House is actually talking to red states. They’re talking to Republican AGs, which is a breath of fresh air.

We’re definitely going to have to play defense against the Democrats. We know that the Democrat AGs are going to take a page out of our playbook. They’re going to try to throw lawsuits and roadblocks at this administration, particularly on the executive orders. Just the flurry of executive orders we saw on Monday when President Trump took office, some really great stuff there, but I think there’s definitely some of those that the Dems are going to try to attack. 

We want to help the President. We want to assist him as much as we can. And if there’s an opportunity for us to maybe play a little offense on our side, we’re definitely gonna jump at that.

Petrolino: Now I don’t want to put the cart before the horse, and we’re “here and now” kind of people –  we need to take care of what’s going on today. But what’s going on after 2029?

Knudsen: Four years of Donald Trump, God willing we get JD Vance or somebody else to run, and we keep the country moving in this direction. 

I hope Americans don’t forget why they rejected Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and went back to Donald Trump. This country, I don’t think can take the level of progressivism that that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden brought, but I’m excited.

I think President Trump’s gonna swing for the bleachers. He’s only got four years. I think they’re gonna do a lot of great work. ‘29, I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball, but…

Petrolino: And what about for you? 2029?

Knudsen: I get asked this a lot. 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. We’re gonna run this office to the best of our ability and try not to step on our foot. And we’ll, we’ll see what happens in four years.

Petrolino: Well, Austin, do you have any final comments for anybody that’s listening in or watching or reading?

Knudsen: I’ll leave your listeners and watchers and readers with this. I’m truly a gun guy. This is my passion. This is my hobby. I watch gun YouTube videos. I reload all my own ammo. I gunsmith on my stuff. Some people watch football on Sunday, I’m usually at my reloading bench. We, my wife and I, we eat, sleep and breathe this stuff – big defenders of the Second Amendment and this industry. Without this thriving firearms industry that brings us to SHOT Show every year, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the freedoms and the passions that we have.

Petrolino: And then how can people reach out to you in an official capacity and or war chest? I want you to plug everything that you have. If you have a war chest…

Knudsen: Montana is a goofy state. I cannot fundraise for anything unless I’ve actually declared for an office. We were done with that for a little while. 

You want to know what we’re up to, go to DOJmt.gov. That’s our official website for the State Department of Justice in Montana. There’s press releases there. There’s contact info. It’s all on there. We’ve got a Facebook presence. We’ve got an X, not Twitter anymore, X presence. We don’t do a lot of the other social media, because, frankly, nobody in Montana is on them, but yeah, reach out and see what we’re up to.

Petrolino: Sounds good. Thank you so much for your time. 

Knudsen: Happy to do it, thanks.

If you’d like to watch the interview in its entirety, you can check it out HERE or in the embed below.