MAGA angers the NRA over Minneapolis shooting

For the second time this month, federal agents have fatally shot someone in Minneapolis while enacting Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration enforcement. 

Alex Pretti did exactly what the National Rifle Association has been telling Americans to do for decades. On a freezing Saturday morning, the 37-year-old ICU nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, legally carrying his holstered Sig Sauer pistol with a valid permit, stood between federal immigration agents and a woman they’d just shoved to the ground. He was filming the scene with his phone, one hand raised, when Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed him, wrestled him down, disarmed him of his holstered weapon and then shot him dead. If there were ever a case that cut to the philosophical core of the Second Amendment as it is preached in conservative America, this is it.

The amendment’s legitimacy rests, the right argues, on a single foundational promise: an armed populace is a safeguard against tyranny. Guns are not just for hunting or sport, or even for personal defense. They are the last line between free people and a government that has gone rogue. And yet Americans watched a Republican administration authorize lethal force against a law-abiding gun owner whose only “crime” was filming in close proximity to federal officers while armed in a state where that is legal.

Within hours, the Trump administration’s propaganda machine lurched into action with a narrative so divorced from video evidence that it would be laughable if a man weren’t dead. Almost immediately, officials attempted to justify Pretti’s killing by demonizing gun ownership and, as conservative firearms reporter Stephen Gutowski observed, went “on a full court press against the lawful carry of firearms.” 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled the incident “an act of domestic terrorism,” claiming without evidence that Pretti “came with weapons and ammunition” and intended to harm law enforcement. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, with his characteristic restraint, claimed Pretti had “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.” The president himself posted a photograph of the pistol on Truth Social, noting that it was loaded and accompanied by extra magazines.

In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sought to blame Pretti for the shooting, saying “he brought a gun.” When host Jonathan Karl pushed back, citing the Second Amendment, Bessent said, “I’ve been to a protest. Guess what, I didn’t bring a gun, I brought a billboard.” FBI Director Kash Patel made similar comments in an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Baritoromo. “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines,” he said, adding, “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.” Gregory Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official who serves as the ICE commander in Minneapolis, put it even more bluntly on CNN: “Why would you bring a semi-automatic weapon to a riot?”

The problem with this smear campaign is that we have the receipts. Aside from the multiple cell phone camera angles, witnesses stated in sworn testimonies that Pretti was not brandishing a gun when federal immigration officers descended on him. The administration’s lies are so outrageous that they’re drawing opposition from traditionally right-wing groups. 

“[D]angerous and wrong” is how the National Rifle Association, long an ally of the MAGA movement, described a claim by Bill Essayli, a Trump-appointed first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, who suggested approaching law enforcement with a gun justifies being shot. The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus called out Patel’s claim that bringing a loaded firearm to a protest is illegal, stating flatly that his assertion was “completely incorrect on Minnesota law.” Gun Owners of America declared that “the Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting — a right the federal government must not infringe upon.” Even former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch, typically a Trump loyalist, was unequivocal: “You admin people need to watch yourselves with this language.”

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Conservative lawmakers and activists echoed the criticism.The chairman of the Tennessee House Republican Caucus wrote on X, “Kash you could not be further from the truth. Showing up at a protest is very American. Showing up with a weapon is very American.” Former MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia hammered the Trump administration. “Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm,” she posted on X. “I support American’s 1st and 4th amendment rights. There is nothing wrong with legally peacefully protesting and videoing.

For decades, conservatives have wrapped themselves in the Second Amendment, claiming it exists precisely to protect citizens against government overreach. Wayne LaPierre, who served as the NRA’s longtime executive director, once wrote about “jack-booted government thugs” with “more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us.” President George H.W. Bush left the NRA over that language.

But when armed protestors swarmed the Michigan statehouse at the height of COVID lockdowns in 2020, Trump called them “very good people” and told Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s Democratic governor, to “make a deal.” That same year, he also praised Mark and Patricia McCloskey after they waved guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their St. Louis mansion.

The NRA’s response to Saturday’s shooting has been telling in its incoherence. After initially calling it “dangerous and wrong,” the organization pivoted to attacking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a “radical progressive politician” who “incited violence against law enforcement” before calling to lower the temperature. This isn’t surprising if you understand what the NRA actually is: a funnel for right-wing money and activism that serves Republican political interests. The organization poured $25 million into Trump’s campaigns and was a major financial contributor to Project 2025. Its purpose has never been to protect all Americans’ gun rights equally. After all, this is the same organization that supported Ronald Reagan’s gun control measures when they targeted Black activists. The NRA only pivoted to the message of resisting “government tyranny” when that very government started doing anything to marginally improve the status of the people those guns were originally used against. 

To be fair, Donald Trump has not hollowed out every high-profile conservative belief. But with the NRA, he has done us all a perverse favor by exposing just how vacant their “principles” actually are. Free speech? Only when it’s speech the administration likes. States’ rights? Laughable when Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act against Minnesota and demands the elimination of sanctuary cities. Now it’s painfully clear that credentialed gun owners only have the right to bear arms until those arms complicate MAGA power and shows of force. 

If the Second Amendment cannot protect a licensed gun owner from federal bullets fired without imminent threat, then it is not a safeguard against tyranny. It is a slogan — and as we know, Donald Trump is famous for rebranding those.

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