In the hours after border patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, President Donald Trump and his administration appeared undermine directly the rights granted to gun owners in the Second Amendment.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem falsely stated that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist» who was “brandishing” his legally owned weapon. (Video footage has since shown that Pretti did not draw his weapon at any point during his fatal interaction with federal agents.) FBI Director Kash Patel. falsely told Fox News it is illegal to bring a gun to a protest. Bill Essayli, an American attorney in California, written the: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a good chance they are legally justified in shooting you.”
On Tuesday, Trump doubled down, saying Pretti “definitely shouldn’t have carried a gun.” “I don’t like him having a gun. I don’t like him having two fully loaded magazines. It’s a lot of bad things,” he continued.
The comments sparked backlash from gun rights groups, including the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus. write on Sunday: “A licensee is not prohibited from carrying a firearm loaded with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota. » Gun Owners of America also posted on THE National Rifle Association I avoided mentioning Trump specifically, but declared “All law-abiding citizens have the right to keep and bear arms wherever they have a legal right to be.”
But a WIRED analysis of gun enthusiast forums and Facebook groups for private militias and extremists reveals that the vast majority of Second Amendment supporters in these online meeting spaces are willing to ignore the president’s remarks and place blame on Pretti himself.
Analysis of several videos of the incident by news agencies, including the New York Times and Bellingcat, shows that Pretti, while holding a smartphone, attempted to help a woman who was being pepper-sprayed by a federal agent. At that point, at least half a dozen fellow officers jumped on Pretti, pushing him to the ground. One is clearly seen removing Pretti’s gun from his waist, before another fires the first shot, and then Pretti is killed.
Narrative weapon enthusiasts spin online, but tell a different story.
“Riot, interference with police action against this woman, pushing a cop,” wrote a user with the pseudonym gotigers on the pro-gun forum. ar15.comwhich bills itself as “the world’s largest gun community.” “All the crimes, all while armed. Pretti did this to himself.”
In response to an article from Ammoland Regarding Patel’s statement, a commenter with the pseudonym Yaza wrote: “LEGAL, yes. SMART, NO. Whoever carries it should be smart enough to know that where and when you carry it makes a difference. In front of a group of ICE agents who carry bigger guns than me? That’s not the smartest thing to do.”
Some gun advocates also excused the president’s Iowa comment, claims the clip failed to show the necessary context.
Trump “is not elliquant [sic] at all and he needs to think several times before speaking, but he was talking about the riots, not in general,” said one ar15.com the user wrote.
A member going by the pseudonym DK-Prof said Trump “never cared about guns or the Second Amendment.”
“I knew all of this when I voted for him, and I don’t regret my vote at all,” they continued. With the exception of last year, Trump has appeared at every NRA annual meeting since 2015, according to at The Reload firearms outlet. In 2020, Jason Ouimet, president of the NRA Political Victory Fund, approved Trump describing him as “the most direct and pro-Second Amendment president in history.”
Brandon Herrera, a prominent gun influencer with more than 4 million followers on YouTube, said in a video posted this week that while it was unfortunate that Pretti died, ultimately it was his fault.
“Pretti didn’t deserve to die, but this wasn’t just a baseless execution either,” Herrera said, adding without evidence that Pretti’s goal was to disrupt ICE operations. “If you interfere with arrests and things like that, it’s a crime. If you interfere with the damn officer, it will probably be escalated to physical force, whether it’s arresting you or just getting out of the way, which can then lead to a fight, which, if you’re armed, can lead to a fatal shooting.” He called the situation “lawful but horrible.”
Herrera was joined in the video by former police officer and fellow gun influencer Cody Garrett, known online as the Donut Operator.
Both men took the opportunity to mock immigrants, with Herrera saying that “all the media is going to seize on it because it’s news and they’re going to ignore the 12 drunk drivers who killed, you know, American citizens yesterday, who were all illegals or H-1Bs or whatever.”
Herrera also referenced his “friend” Kyle Rittenhouse, who has become the center of much of the debate over the shooting.
On August 25, 2020, Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, drove from his home in Illinois to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, brandishing an AR-15-style rifle, saying he was there to protect local businesses. He killed two people and shot another in the arm that night.
Critics of ICE’s actions in Minneapolis were quick to point out what they saw as the hypocrisy of the right’s defense of Rittenhouse and attacks on Pretti.
“Kyle Rittenhouse was a conservative hero for showing up at a protest with a gun, but this guy who had a legal carry permit and had his gun already taken away is some people’s view as an instigator, when he was actually going to help a woman,” Jessica Tarlov, Democratic strategist, said on Fox News this week.
Rittenhouse also waded into the debate, write on: “The right way to approach law enforcement when armed,” above a photo of him with his hands raised in front of police after killing two people. He added another message that “ICE screwed up.”
The claim that Pretti was responsible was repeated in private Facebook groups led by armed militiasaccording to data shared with WIRED by the Tech Transparency Project, as well as on extremist Telegram channels.
“I feel sorry for him and his family,” wrote a member of a Facebook group called American Patriots. “My question though, why did he go to these riots armed with a pistol and extra magazines if he had no intention of using them?”
Some extremist groups, such as the far-right Boogaloo movement, have been highly critical of the administration’s comments about being armed at a protest.
“To those who say ‘don’t bring a gun to a protest,’ fuck you,” a member of a private Boogaloo group wrote on Facebook this week. “To the fucking flippers who think disarmament is the answer and don’t think it would happen to you too, fuck you. To the federal government who I’ve seen murder citizens just for telling them no, fuck you. Will not be raped.”
Left-wing gun groups and content creators have also underlines the hypocrisy of their right-wing counterparts.
“I wrongly thought the 2A rights community might finally stand up and pay attention, but a significant portion of that group has abandoned the ‘shall not be violated’ principle and instead turned to excuses and misinformation,” says Karl Kasarda, a YouTuber who runs the channel InRangeTV and organizes inclusive gun matches.
“Even the slightest ideological coherence of the 2A rights community would require a call for justice, but we see disturbing assertions that any interference with law enforcement, or for that matter, any potential criminal act, justifies being killed by agents of the state without even a legitimate investigation.