When Ryan Busse, a Democrat from Kalispell, announced his bid for Montana governor in September, Don Kaltschmidt, chair of the state Republican Party , immediately condemned him as an anti-gun extremist and radical environmentalist.

Busse, a longtime environmental advocate and former firearms industry executive, chuckled.

Insert laughter, he told HuffPost. Are you fucking kidding me? Ive sold 3 million guns. I hunt and fish with my kids every chance I get. I dont even know how many guns I own.

Busse is seeking the Democratic nomination to take on first-term GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte in November. He sees Kaltschmidts attack as part of a GOP facade meant to distract Montana voters from the Republican Partys extreme positions on guns, climate change, reproductive rights, taxes and more.

These are just made-up terms to scare people, he said. I think a lot of Democrats just sort of go hide in the corner when they get screamed at with these overarching, pejorative names that I dont even know what they mean. Im not going to do it. Im throwing the punches back. Theres nothing about me, at all, thats radical.

As for being painted a radical environmentalist, Busse posed a question: Does that mean I want to keep our rivers clean and air clean, and not have environmental disasters that kill wildlife or kill our way of life? Guilty. Guilty.

Busse grew up on a ranch in Kansas and moved to Kalispell, Montana, three decades ago, drawn by his passion for hunting and the outdoors. He arrived as a Republican, having had conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh piped into the tractor he operated on the family ranch, he said.

But his views began to shift in the early 2000s when President George W. Bushs administration pushed to open protected public lands to oil and gas extraction, including the Badger-Two Medicine area on the southern edge of Glacier National Park. Busse said he couldnt understand how the politicians who claimed to be for hunters, anglers and wild places could advocate for such a thing.

Montana really changed me for the better. It made me start to think about my politics, he said. When some of the most sacred things I could ever find, that exceeded my expectations these wild places when they came under threat from the Bush-Cheney administration for industrialization, I just kind of lost my mind.

He publicly lambasted the Bush administration energy plan the first of several moves that ultimately caused the largely conservative firearms industry to turn on Busse , and him on them. In 2021, Busse published his book Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America, which chronicles his personal fight against an industry that he worked in for more than 25 years.

Busse has been a proponent of Democratic Party values ever since. He volunteered and organized events for Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), beginning with his successful 2006 campaign, and served as an adviser to President Joe Bidens 2020 campaign. But this is Busses first time running for public office a bid that he says is rooted in the same values that brought him into the party more than 20 years ago.

Im in this to protect the Montana that so many of us love, Busse said.