Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen made his monthly appearance on KGVO’s Talk Back show on Friday and filled the phone lines with questions and comments from callers.

One of the first questions dealt with how recording credit card sales of guns, which Knudsen said could have a chilling effect on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

“What we've got going on right now is another liberal Democrat playbook trick,” began Knudsen. “They can't get their radical gun control agenda through Congress, so they can't get the laws changed. So what do they do? They go to private industry and private companies and bully them and pressure them into adopting their woke strategy.”

Knudsen said this practice, once adopted, could be ‘weaponized’ into a nationwide registry of gun owners.

“This is going to be weaponized,” he said. “This is what the Democrats want. They’ve wanted a list of gun owners for decades. Well, the problem with that is that it’s not allowed by federal law. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau is not allowed to keep a registry, or a list of gun owners in the U.S., and so to get around that law, this is what this administration is doing. They're pressuring the credit card companies to do it for them.”

One caller, speaking in support of Montana Supreme Court candidate James Brown, asked Knudsen about the recent Supreme Court decisions that have struck down bills passed in the 2021 legislature to provide more structure and protection for the state’s election laws.

“We had some election laws that got struck down,” he said. “Frankly these are some common sense election integrity laws and were immediately challenged. Those were struck down by a district judge (Michael Moses) sitting in Billings. You asked the question what happened? Well, that actually did go up on appeal to the Montana Supreme Court, and just night before last, the Montana Supreme Court upheld that judge's decision.”

Knudsen was also challenged on his continuing fight to stop the flood of fentanyl and other drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin coming into the U.S. through the southern border.

“This is the first time in American history where we've got a drug, fentanyl, that has completely saturated the U.S. market,” he said. “This stuff is everywhere, and that's borne out by our numbers even here in Montana. Yes, I think we absolutely can choke down a lot of this supply side by getting a hold on the southern border. There's no question about that, absolutely.”

Knudsen referenced the fact that fentanyl overdose has been confirmed as the number one cause of death in American adults ages 18 to 45 in 2021.

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