President Donald Trump and other MAGA figures have been accused of abandoning the Second Amendment after seeking to pin the blame for the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on the fact that he was carrying a concealed firearm.
Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse who was filming Border Patrol agents on Saturday morning, was shot dead after being pinned to the ground by officers who had apparently discovered his holstered gun and removed it before opening fire.
Trump immediately posted a picture of Pretti’s gun on his social media platform, writing: “This is the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go – What is that all about?”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Deputy Chief of Staff suggested without evidence that Pretti was a would-be “assassin” who was plotting to murder agents.
Other members of Trump’s administration – and sympathetic voices in the media – have suggested the fact that Pretti had the gun at a protest goes some way to explaining why he was shot. Pretti owned the gun legally and had a concealed carry licence, meaning he was not breaking any laws by having the weapon at a protest.
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News that even bringing a gun to a protest made clear someone doesn't intend to be peaceful, and implicitly suggests it would be within federal agents' rights to shoot that individual if they felt threatened by them.
“You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.” Patel told Fox News. “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines,”
CNN's Andrew Cooper and The Daily Show's Jon Stewart were quick to zero in on the administration's apparent hypocrisy when it comes to firearms and protests.
Many on the right had vigorously defended Kyle Rittenhouse, who took a loaded assault rifle to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and shot three people, two of them fatally. Similarly, Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, openly fought with police and federal officers, threatened lawmakers, and brought weapons to the seat of American legislative power.
Dozens of Trump supporters openly carried arms at protests at the Michigan state capitol in Lansing in 2020 to protests against Covid restrictions.
Cooper aired a video package showing all of the times Trump has insisted that the Second Amendment would be protected under his administration.
"The Second Amendment is under siege. Believe me," Trump says in one clip.
In another, he says that "if the left gains power, they will demolish the suburbs, confiscate your guns, and appoint justices who will wipe away your Second Amendment and other constitutional freedoms."
Cooper noted that Trump's support of the Second Amendment only really seemed to apply to people who support him.
"Now, he supports the Second Amendment – just not all the time, depending on who’s carrying the gun and who gets killed," Cooper said. "Alex Pretti was apparently not his kind of gun owner."
The president's Border Patrol Commander-at-Large, Gregory Bovino, who is reported to be withdrawing from Minneapolis, told CNN's Dana Bash that the Second Amendment is valid up until it disrupts his agents.
“We respect that Second Amendment right, but those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers and, most especially, when you mean to do that beforehand,” he said.
Stewart expressed sarcastic shock that MAGA loyalists would even abandon their defense of the Second Amendment before turning on Trump.
“I wasn’t shocked when you guys gave up the First Amendment, and I wasn’t shocked when you gave up the Fourth Amendment, and the 10th Amendment, and the 14th Amendment at Trump’s behest, but the Second?” Stewart asked rhetorically. “Isn’t that kind of the load-bearing law of the ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag? Your snake’s down to a newt … C’mon, guns are your whole personality.”
After joking about the apparent hypocrisy from MAGA supporters, Stewart offered a more serious critique of the administration's blatant attempts to convince the American public not to trust their own eyes and ears.
“To add insult to injury is the denial of the reality that we all witnessed. They’re lying. We saw it. And that’s how brazen they lie when they know we’ve seen the truth. That’s how they lie when they know we know. Imagine how they lie when there’s no evidence to contradict them," Stewart said.
"And maybe, that more than anything, explains why Alex Pretti really was a threat; because he was brandishing a weapon: a handheld, aluminum 1080p 60fps weapon of mass illumination. Because there is nothing more dangerous to a regime predicated on lies than witnesses who capture the truth.”
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