Chief Plenty Coups State Park’s 31st annual Day of Honor on September 5 is more than a cultural commemoration—it’s a living reminder that the right to keep and bear arms is older than the United States itself. Plenty Coups, the last traditional chief of the Crow Nation, understood that sovereignty without the means to defend it is an illusion. His leadership during the transition from the buffalo days to the reservation era was marked by a pragmatic embrace of firearms as tools of survival, diplomacy, and self-determination. In honoring him, Montanans are also honoring the principle that an armed citizenry—whether Crow warriors in the 19th century or modern sportsmen and homeowners—is the bedrock of liberty.
For the 2A community, the event offers a powerful counter-narrative to the revisionist claim that guns arrived in the West solely as instruments of conquest. Plenty Coups’ story illustrates how Native nations strategically adopted repeating rifles and revolvers to protect hunting grounds, deter horse thieves, and negotiate from a position of strength. That same logic echoes today in Montana’s strong shall-issue laws and constitutional-carry statutes: the right to arms is not a gift from government but a precondition for responsible self-government. When park visitors watch traditional dances and hear oral histories this September, they’ll be standing on ground where the Second Amendment’s philosophy predates the Bill of Rights by generations.
The celebration also carries a quiet warning. As federal land-management debates intensify and anti-hunting activists push for further restrictions on public-land access, events like the Day of Honor remind us that cultural preservation and firearms freedom are intertwined. Crow elders still teach marksmanship alongside language and beadwork; the skills that once fed families now safeguard communities. By showing up, listening, and supporting these gatherings, gun owners signal that the right to bear arms belongs to every lawful American—regardless of ancestry—and that the best way to honor the past is to defend the tools that made survival, and freedom, possible.
