The killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis has scrambled America’s gun debate, another reflection of the bitterness and polarization that have engulfed the dispute over the national crackdown on immigration by federal agents.
Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was carrying a gun in or near his waistband when he was killed on Saturday, but videos show he had not drawn it and was disarmed before being shot multiple times. Local authorities believe he had a permit to carry the gun.
With Americans split between those supporting the Trump administration and those backing anti-ICE protesters, multiple conservatives — including those strongly supportive of gun rights in the past — have justified Pretti’s shooting on the grounds that his carrying of a holstered gun showed he had violent intentions.
Asked if Pretti ever brandished his gun, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said Saturday, “I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign. This is a violent riot when you have someone showing up with weapons and are using them to assault law enforcement officers.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.) told Fox News, “A deranged individual who came in to cause massive damage with a loaded pistol, with an extra mag that was completely loaded, was shot and killed. How much more does it have to go on before the Democrat leaders there take responsibility for their words?”
Those positions are at odds with the usual stance of many gun rights supporters, who often defend the rights of Americans to carry firearms in almost all situations.
In 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, a conservative 17-year-old from the Chicago suburbs, brought an AR-15 to a racial justice protest in Wisconsin, killing two people and injuring another. Liberals said he was obviously looking for trouble, but Rittenhouse, arguing he had acted in self-defense, became a hero to many conservatives and was later acquitted of murder.
In another episode that year, Mark and Patricia McCloskey waved guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, albeit from their front yard. They were celebrated by gun rights backers and invited to speak at the Republican National Convention.
Pretti is being framed very differently by many supporters of the Second Amendment.
“Don’t let the left kid you with this, that this is just a normal protest where people are peacefully protesting. No it’s not,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R., N.J.) told Fox News. “Peaceful protesters don’t have 9-millimeter weapons with two extra magazines.”
Liberals, including gun control supporters, in contrast emphasize that Pretti’s legal possession of a weapon in no way reflects on his intentions at the protest, and certainly cannot justify his killing at the hands of federal agents.
The divide underlines how much American politics in the Trump era has departed from a debate over principles — to the extent that it was ever that — and has settled firmly into a battle of us-versus-them, where actions are lauded or vilified depending on who is behind them.
Rosa Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown University who specializes in national security, said there is a certain consistency to people insisting their “side” is always right, even if that involves shifting positions on some issues.
“If your vision of the America you want to protect is ‘My tribe wins,’ then it’s not hypocritical,” said Brooks, who has served as a reserve D.C. police officer. “Some would say ‘I support the police when they are doing the right thing,’ which some people define really tribally.”
Even so, some Democrats predicted that the unusually tough tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere will ultimately trigger a backlash against the Trump administration’s tactics among conservatives. There are some signs that process has haltingly begun.
A faction of the conservative movement has long been suspicious of federal law enforcement, seeing it as a way for the government to oppress ordinary citizens. The recent emergence of an ICE memo instructing agents that they can enter homes without a judicial warrant, and now the killing of two protesters, could fuel that backlash, some Democrats said.
“There is considerable blowback even among a lot of right-leaning folks at the image of federal agents in masks without cause or control, patrolling the streets of American cities and suburbs and pulling people out of their homes and cars more or less at random,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) told reporters recently.
Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus and expert on criminal law and gun control at the State University of New York at Cortland, said the Minneapolis shooting highlights contradictions in the reality of the Second Amendment — specifically the argument that an “armed society is a safe society.”
“This is another instance where slogans and ideology run smack-dab against reality,” Spitzer said.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the right of people to carry a firearm, Spitzer said there are virtually no instances where an armed citizen using a gun against the federal government would be viewed in court as lawful.
“One reason some people acquire guns is in case they need to ‘confront the tyrannical government.’ But there’s a wealth of problems with that whole notion, not the least of which being that as soon as you’re talking in that realm, you’re brushing up against the edge of lawbreaking,” Spitzer said. “That’s because the whole idea of the American system is that it’s designed and structured to resolve disputes peacefully, not through arms.”
Some Second Amendment activists did express concern about Pretti’s shooting, and especially the use of his gun possession as a justification.
When Bill Essayli, an assistant U.S. attorney in California, posted a message on social media appearing to broadly justify the shooting, he received pushback from unusual quarters. “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,” Essayli posted on Saturday. “Don’t do it!”
The National Rifle Association hit back hard.
“This sentiment from the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California is dangerous and wrong,” the organization said. “Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”
That statement was all the more notable because the NRA earlier Saturday seemed to join others on the right in blaming Democratic leaders for the violence, saying their demonization of immigration agents had predictably violent results.
“Unsurprisingly, these calls to dangerously interject oneself into legitimate law enforcement activities have ended in violence, tragically resulting in injuries and fatalities,” the NRA said in its earlier statement about the Pretti shooting.
The NRA is not the only gun rights organization to challenge the rush by some Republicans to portray Pretti as a gun-toting firebrand agitator who, if he did not deserve what he got, at least had a hand in provoking it.
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus cautioned that an independent investigation has yet to be conducted, but it added that so far no evidence has surfaced that Pretti intended to harm the officers.
“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights,” the Gun Owners Caucus said. “These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed, and they must be respected and protected at all times.”
For now, the deployment of federal agents into major American cities, including Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles, has produced open hostility between these largely Democratic strongholds and the Trump administration, with mayors and governors begging the federal agents to withdraw.
Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the federal agents are acting in unprecedented ways.
“It’s completely unheard of,” said Kerlikowske, a former police chief in Seattle and Buffalo. “They have jumped into these cities with no coordination, no communication, no joint command post. They are marching to rock music, wearing masks. … Their deployment has been horrific. And it’s been unsuccessful.”
