The Montana Shooting Sports Association sounded off on Thursday about the City of Missoula’s lawsuit to overturn an Attorney General opinion that negated its 2017 gun ordinance.

Association President Gary Marbut said the MSSA is very concerned about the purpose of the lawsuit.

“We’re very frustrated that gun control is being spun in a very Orwellian way as gun safety,” said Marbut. “While MSSA and responsible gun owners have spent decades in the trenches teaching gun safety, and all of a sudden these people who want to invoke gun control pop up and say ‘we’re for gun safety’, when they’ve never been involved in gun safety. I think this is an Orwellian twist by the people in New York City who the mayor says will support their lawsuit.”

Marbut said he does not believe the city will be successful in its effort to overrule the Attorney General’s opinion.

“I don’t think there will be any chance whatsoever it will be successful,” he said. “There are all sorts of problems. Nobody has heard of any precedents about a city suing the Attorney General, there are separation of powers issues in asking the courts to overturn something done by the executive branch, so I don’t think its going to go anywhere at all, especially when the public wakes up to the fact that we have people from New York City trying to dictate New York City culture to Montanans.”

Marbut said if the city paid the $25,000 they have set aside for a Missoula law firm to the Montana Shooting Sports Association instead, they could have offered firearms safety programs to a large number of people.

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