Gallatin County

Gallatin County sheriff holds town hall meeting on gun control, rights

Posted: Feb 26, 2013 10:51 PM by Ben Trotter
Updated: Feb 27, 2013 8:56 AM

BOZEMAN - More than 100 people attended a town hall meeting in Bozeman Tuesday night to hear what Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin had to say about their right to own and bear arms.

"The federal government is running roughshod over the people," says attendee Clinton Cain. "Through the EPA, through the Second Amendment rights, they're doing a lot of things they shouldn't do."

Cain came to see whether, if pressed, Gootkin would follow the U.S. Constitution, versus federal law.

He says, quoting Biblical verse, that Gootkin is "serving two masters," meaning his position could force him to balance federal law and Constitutional principles, which Cain says are now contradictory.

"People of Bozeman and the U.S. have the right to keep and bear arms, and should," says Cain.

Gootkin himself made clear multiple times during the meeting that he would not support illegal seizures of firearms, however, if a law about gun restriction is passed, he is bound by his office to enforce it.

Second Amendment supporter Denise Rollick says of Gootkin's stance, "What I wanted to hear him say was, 'I support the Second Amendment, and if this goes through all the channels and becomes law, I will turn in my uniform, I will not go against the people of Montana.'"