Libertarian Guymon says his pro-life stance comes from his own childhood

Like his opponents, Shawn Guymon is no stranger to the House District 3 state legislature race. Guymon has run for the seat as a Libertarian two times before, without success.

This time around, the 56-year-old disabled Air Force veteran is running, in part, because he’s got a problem with some state laws and local officials.

Guymon said his problems date back to 2006 when he claims he was injured by a faulty exhaust in a delivery truck he drove for a local company. The exhaust was going into the cab and made him ill, he noted. Stemming from that incident, Guymon has since filed a myriad of lawsuits, against a host of local government officials, including former Kalispell Police Chief Roger Nasset and former county attorney Ed Corrigan. He currently is suing Gov. Steve Bullock, who was the state attorney general at the time of his accident.

According to court documents, Guymon claimed that law enforcement officials and the county attorney didn’t do enough to investigate Guymon’s case. Guymon’s suit was tossed out by the Montana Supreme Court. He’s since filed a suit in federal court against Bullock.

“We’ve become a fascist state,” he said. “I didn’t serve six years (in the military) to have my constitution tossed out.”

Lawsuits aside, Guymon said he opposed a sales tax.

“Once you get a tax in there, it just keeps growing,” he said.

He is pro-gun.

“I’m second amendment all the way,” he said. “The second amendment protects the first (amendment).”

He said he opposed I-185, which would raise tobacco taxes to pay, in part, for Medicaid expansion.

He claimed a similar measure was brought to the floor of the legislature in the last session and this is the same thing, just “repackaged with a bow on it.”

He also opposed I-186, which would tighten mining regulations, claiming Montana already has some of the most restrictive mining laws in the nation.

Guymon said he was pro-life and claimed he had a personal reason for it.

“I come from a large family,” he said. “I was almost aborted.”

He claimed his mother almost decided to abort him because they were living in a one-bedroom house with five children and his father forced himself on her, after he allegedly found out she was thinking of leaving him.

That, Guymon claimed, gave him his feisty spirit.

“It started right out of the crib,” he said.

Guymon is a Montana native, and graduated from Flathead High School in 1980.