A war of words over deeply held beliefs erupted on the political right in the hours after a federal agent shot and killed Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street Saturday, pitting top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration against Second Amendment defenders in his electoral base.
At the core of the debate is that Pretti — who was permitted to carry a gun in public in Minnesota — had a concealed firearm on his person that eyewitness videos show federal agents apparently discovering and removing during the altercation that led to his death. Videos do not appear to show Pretti holding the weapon during that confrontation.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to justify the killing by asserting at a news conference that Pretti “attacked those officers, had a weapon on him, and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers coming, brandishing like that and impeding their work that they were doing.” No evidence has been provided to back up this account.
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Noem argued that his possession of a firearm demonstrated that he did not intend to remain peaceful.
“I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign,” Noem said on Saturday.
On Sunday, when asked on Fox News if it is protocol to use deadly force on a disarmed person, Noem said, “That’s all part of this investigation.”
The attempt to explain Pretti’s killing by noting that he had a gun has also been mentioned by Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.
In a few moments, Pretti’s killing turned some Trump supporters, including members of his administration, against generations of conservative orthodoxy on the Second Amendment. At the same time, it appeared to serve as a wake-up call for gun-rights activists that a Republican-run government, not just a Democratic-run one, could infringe on the Second Amendment.
An instructive exchange played out on X. Bill Essayli, a federal prosecutor in California appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, infuriated gun-rights activists with a series of posts expressing similar sentiments to Noem’s — “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you” — and accusing critics of being members of antifa.
None of that sat well with defenders of the Second Amendment, who are accustomed to having their right to bear arms challenged by Democrats, not Republicans.
“Oh I’m Antifa now?” Aidan Johnston, the director of federal affairs for the Gun Owners of America, wrote on X in response to Essayli. “I guess @TheJusticeDept is back to targeting gun owners as domestic terrorists. You can want illegals & criminals off the streets and not want to see CCW [concealed carry weapons] permit holders get executed for ‘approaching’ law enforcement.”
The National Rifle Association attacked Essayli for “demonizing law-abiding citizens.”
But the group, which has long sparred with Democratic presidents, noticeably held back from criticizing the Trump administration too directly. Instead, in a post on X, it essentially blamed “radical progressive politicians” like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, for causing the situation, saying they “have incited violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs.”
Walz and other Democratic leaders have repeatedly called for calm, while noting the destabilizing presence the thousands of federal agents have had on the city.
Dana Loesch, a conservative radio and TV host, wrote on X on Sunday, “Yes, you absolutely can carry at a protest. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an anti-2A [Second Amendment] statist.” She added, however, that people “cannot interrupt a federal op while armed.”
And the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus took issue with Patel saying on Fox News on Sunday, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have that right to break the law.”
“This is completely incorrect on Minnesota law. There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota,” the caucus wrote on X.
Asked about the concerns of gun-rights advocates, the White House referred NBC News to remarks made by Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino in a Sunday-morning interview with CNN.
“We respect Second Amendment rights, but those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers,” Bovino said.
The debate has seemingly created a nascent set of progressive defenders of gun rights.
“I never thought Donald Trump and Stephen Miller would be the ones to finally force me into being a defender of the 2nd Amendment,” liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan wrote of the president and the White House deputy chief of staff in a post to X.
The instantaneous political realignment — which may be temporary — comes as polls show that the public has become less enamored of Trump’s mass-deportation campaign and of the federal agencies carrying it out with force in American cities. The shooting of an American citizen, captured on video from several angles, acted as a flashpoint for a larger debate over whether there are, or should be, any limits on the administration’s power to execute Trump’s agenda.
“It can’t be the case that exercising a right protected by the U.S. Constitution exposes you to killing or arrest,” said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who served as a Justice Department official in the Nixon and Reagan administrations and has criticized their successors. “It’s obvious that this is vast government overreach. It’s not just killing. They also go into homes without proper warrants.”
It remains to be seen whether Trump or any other Republican can patch up the schism between those who prioritize enforcing immigration law over gun rights and those who believe there is little, if anything, that is worth eroding the Second Amendment for.
For generations, the Second Amendment has been at the heart of Republican warnings about giving too much power to the federal government: Without it, many on the right argue, a Democratic president would seize Americans’ guns as a first step toward totalitarianism.
“It doesn’t matter to them that the semi-auto ban gives jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us,” Wayne LaPierre, then the executive director of the NRA, wrote in a fundraising letter following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Charlie Kirk, the late co-founder of the young conservative group Turning Point USA who was killed by an assassin’s bullet last year, explained his view in similar terms in 2023: “The Second Amendment is not about hunting. I love hunting. The Second Amendment is not even about personal defense. That is important. The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government.”
Even Noem has articulated that point of view in the past, telling an NRA conference in 2023 that “Joe Biden and the liberals want our guns” because “it will make it easier for them to infringe on all of our other rights.” Additionally, the first law Noem signed when she was governor of South Dakota allowed residents of that state to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
Conversely, Democrats have fought for just as long — in state legislatures, Congress and federal courts — to impose restrictions on firearms, who can own them and where they can be carried. These limitations, major gun-control groups and many Democratic lawmakers contend, protect the public. In 2020, liberals excoriated conservatives for celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who shot and killed two people during demonstrations against police violence in Wisconsin. Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges against him.
After his acquittal, Trump met with Rittenhouse, calling him a “nice young man” and defending his decision to shoot.
And yet on Saturday, as some shared memes of Rittenhouse to accuse Republicans of hypocrisy, progressives found themselves promoting the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms.
“For years I quietly mocked 2A defenders who argued arms were necessary to defend American rights against a tyrannical government,” former Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., wrote on X. “Today I apologize, because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
Fein, the constitutional lawyer, said that Pretti’s shooting, and the administration’s defense of it, are even at odds with the arguments the Justice Department is making in favor of gun rights at the Supreme Court right now.
“The hypocrisy has reached an incredible level,” he said.