Reposted by Duke Center for Firearms Law
Montana Lawmakers Will Consider Closing Domestic Violence Firearm Loophole in 2027
A federal appeals court ruled last year that Montana’s laws allow someone convicted of domestic assault to purchase or possess firearms.
Reporting from @dailymontanan.com & @mddrew.bsky.social
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dailymontanan.com
Montana lawmakers will consider closing domestic violence firearm loophole in 2027 • Daily Montanan
In the 2027 legislative session, Montana lawmakers will consider a bill aimed at closing a loophole in state law that permits individuals convicted of domestic assault to purchase or possess firearms.
![As the government points out, the predicate Louisiana crime, “Disarming of a peace officer,” is “basically a situation-specific robbery offense.” One commits it by “tak[ing] possession of any law enforcement equipment” from “the person of a peace officer” (or from an area within his “immediate control”) “through the use of force or threat of force.” La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14.34.6(A). The parallels with robbery are plain as day. Both crimes involve taking property from another’s person without his consent by using real or threatened force. See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:65(A) (defining simple robbery as “the taking of anything of value belonging to another from the person of another or that is in the immediate control of another by use of force or intimidation but not armed with a dangerous weapon”); see also, e.g., Stokeling v. United States, 586 U.S. 73, 7778 (2019) (observing common law robbery involved using “force” or “violence” to overcome resistance); id. at 80–81 (discussing state definitions of “nonaggravated robbery as requiring force that overcomes a victim’s resistance”). And, as the government further argues, our precedents permit disarmament under § 922(g)(1) for robbery, theft, and burglary. See, e.g., United States v. Schnur, 132 F.4th 863, 870 (2025) (rejecting as-applied challenge to § 922(g)(1) based on “Schnur’s 1994 and 1996 convictions for](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:24vva42nxim6zbcmnozegoef/bafkreiebcmhu5vzl42nptjntiphj4py3xsxmth2x2ihsdbyzgwir6mkhbu)
![Even assuming the Second Amendment covers Clerfe’s conduct, the government has shown that the challenged laws prohibiting the export of weapons abroad are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 24. Since the founding of the Republic to the present day, Congress has restricted the exportation of weapons abroad. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 327 (1936) (noting that generally applicable export restrictions have been “enacted by nearly every Congress from the beginning of our national existence to the present day”). In 1794, just three years after the Second Amendment was adopted, the Third Congress passed a law titled “An Act prohibiting for a limited time the Exportation of Arms and Ammunition, and encouraging the Importation of the same.” Act of May 22, 1794, 1 Stat. 369. That statute made it unlawful “to export from the United States any cannon, muskets, pistols, bayonets, swords, cutlasses, musket balls, lead, bombs, grenados, gunpowder,” etc. Id. Likewise, the Ninth Congress “suspend[ed] the commercial intercourse between the United States, and certain parts of the island of St.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:24vva42nxim6zbcmnozegoef/bafkreiheu3r64mwnp4evfi6lfljsy2bzjjrircxsykls5muaaebwjeztoy)
