Scene:  driving into Polson MT. Flashing rear lights in the mirror. Pull over and wait for the cop to walk up to the car. Keep in mind, at this point there’s the Glock on my hip, one in my bag, a Ruger 9mm under the seat and…a drum-mag’d AK sitting on the passenger seat, with the butt and pistol grip conveniently angled towards me.

“I’m Officer [XXX] with the Polson PD. I pulled you over because you were doing 55 down the hill, its a 45 zone.”

“Sorry, man.”, I said, and when he asked why I was driving ‘so fast’ I gave him the Universally Accepted Reason For Any Guy Doing Something Stupid.

He shines his flashlight into the back of the truck and then into the footwell of the passenger side of the front seat.

“Nice AK”, he says.

“Thats my travel AK. Don’t leave home without it. I have a nicer Arsenal one at home, this  is  just a WASR”

“Don’t leave home without it”, he murmurs, clearly amused. “I have a friend up in Kalispell whose built a few AK’s. He folds the flats and does the rivetting….”, he says.

We chat for a few minutes about 7.62×39 vs. 5.45×39. He takes my ID and says “Am I gonna find any warrants on you when I run this?”

“Nope. Should be clean as a whistle.”

He comes back and says “Ok, Im giving you a warning. Slow down.”

And me and my passneger-seated-and-drum-magazine’d WASR-10 continued on our merry way.

See, thats one of the things I like about MT. No muss, no fuss. Lotta places the minute he sees the rifle on the passenger seat it would turn into an ‘incident’. But, hey, I didnt reach for my gun, he didnt reach for his gun, so we can all be civilized and chat about guns for a couple minutes.

And, before anyone asks, yes in Montana you can have a loaded rifle in the vehicle. Heck, you can have a loaded anything. And no, you don’t have to inform the cop if youre carrying a gun. And you don’t need a permit to carry it openly..or concealed..or to buy it. It’s almost like living in a free country.