Pop a cap, Man

I feel like shooting something.

There must be an election on the horizon.

Apparently, the No. 1 issue in the race for Montana’s lone congressional seat has something to do with firearms.

Greg Gianforte, the Republican millionaire businessman, claims his Democratic opponent, Rob Quist, an old hippie and former member of the Mission Mountain Wood Band, is going to take our guns away. I’ve lived in fear all my life that someone was going to take my guns, but I never suspected it would end up being a banjo player from Cut Bank.

Quist, however, cries “Not true,” and to prove it, in a campaign ad, shoots a television set with the old Model 94 Winchester that’s been in his family since, well, I guess ’94.

Gianforte, a New Jersey transplant who doesn’t have the Montana chops Quist does, compensates by carrying either a rifle or a shotgun in his television ads and often wearing hunter orange. In a show of Big Sky hospitality last week he even took Donald Trump Jr. prairie dog hunting. Most folks out here would agree that there are few better ways to say “Welcome to Montana” than the sound of “kersplat!” when lead meets rotund rodent.

We’re pretty much a one-trick pony. If we can’t shoot it, carry it, or conceal it, we quickly lose interest. Health care, infrastructure and education all take a back seat to what we’re packin’ and who, at the moment, is trying to take it away from us.

Now Gianforte tells us it’s Quist.

But if there’s any thing we fear as much as losing our guns, it’s Easterners (Or Californians when applicable) telling us what to do. We want to make up our own minds using our home-grown Montana sensibility even if we come from somewhere else.

Therein lies the dilemma. Quist, the Montana native, can’t be trusted because he is a Democrat and will take our guns. Gianforte, despite his plaid shirts, firearms in hand and heads on the wall, ain’t from here and consequently can’t be trusted either.

That leaves Libertarian candidate Mark Wicks as a viable choice. However, the cattle rancher, produce vendor and author of a book about post-apocalyptic Montana, doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. He hasn’t yet been pictured packin’ or shootin’.

What’s he thinking?

This is Montana.

Pop a cap, man.

We really don’t care about much else.

Except maybe where you’re from.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]