**** Press Release*****

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Contact: Tim Fox, 406-465-7336


Republican Attorney General Candidate Fox Calls on McGrath to Support Gun Rights in Landmark Supreme Court Case

HELENA, MT - In remarks made to the Butte-Silver Bow Pachyderm Club earlier today, Republican Attorney General Candidate Tim Fox called on current Attorney General Mike McGrath to file a "friend of the court" brief in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller to protect the right of Montanans to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Fox also told the Butte audience that Montana gun rights advocates should immediately write to Mr. McGrath to urge him to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court in opposition to the District of Columbia's unconstitutional attempt to ban handguns.

The Heller case involves a legal challenge to the District of Columbia regulations which generally bar the registration of handguns, prohibit the carrying of a pistol without a license, and require that all lawfully owned firearms be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. Six residents of the District of Columbia, including Richard Heller, sued in Federal District Court to invalidate the DC regulations alleging a violation of their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In 2004, the Federal District Court dismissed the complaint on the premise that that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms apart from militia use. Earlier this year the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the District Court's decision, finding that the DC regulations were unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which granted certiorari on November 20th.

"The Attorney Generals of Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, and Wyoming have already filed appearances at the appeal court level in this extremely important Second Amendment case, and it is unconscionable that Montana's Attorney General has taken no action to protect Montanan's right to keep and bear arms," said Fox. "I call on Mr. McGrath to immediately take steps to appear before the Supreme Court in opposition to the District of Columbia's unconstitutional gun control laws."

As a life member of the National Rifle Association, a gun owner, and a hunter, Fox has pledged to defend Montanan's rights to keep and bear arms and to defend themselves under the U.S. and Montana Constitutions if he is elected as Montana's next Attorney General.