The Trump White House’s rush to demonize the Minneapolis nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents over the weekend has put the administration at odds with Republican gun rights die-hards as officials tried to justify the shooting by pointing to the victim’s decision to carry a concealed pistol while he was observing immigration enforcement activities.
Border Patrol agents fired shots into the back of 37-year-old Alex Pretti within five seconds after wrestling him to the ground Saturday. Multiple videos of the incident reviewed by The Independent show an officer removing a holstered pistol from Pretti’s person just moments before the first shots were fired.
The Department of Veterans Affairs ICU nurse held a concealed carry permit for the weapon and did not reach for or attempt to brandish it during the incident, but within hours of the fatal shooting Trump administration officials cited his decision to legally carry a pistol — a right guaranteed by Minnesota state law and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — as evidence that he was looking for a violent confrontation with officers.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, took to X to baselessly accuse Pretti of being a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement,” while Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol official Greg Bovino both falsely claimed that Pretti had brandished the weapon or approached officers with the intent of shooting them.
President Donald Trump himself doubled down on blaming Pretti’s decision to legally carry a pistol for his own death, telling the Wall Street Journal: “I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also.”
The administration’s newfound disdain for Americans legally carrying weapons during protests is a stark turnaround from the position Trump and many of his top aides held during his first term, when the president spoke approvingly of protesters — many openly carrying rifles — who stormed the Michigan state legislature to push for the state government to end public health measures aimed at stopping the spread of Covid-19.
Trumpworld also rallied to the defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois man who became a folk hero on the Right after he shot and killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during racial justice protests that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of murder charges by a jury more than a year later, was lauded at the time as an exemplar of how the Second Amendment allows Americans to carry and use firearms in self-defense.
At the time, Trump called him a “really nice young man” who did not deserve to be prosecuted at all.
But after Border Patrol agents shot Pretti, administration officials continued to suggest that agents were justified in doing so because he had been legally armed, with Central District of California federal prosecutor Bill Essayli writing on X: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”
In response, the National Rifle Association called his comments “dangerous and wrong.”
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus also weighed in with a statement noting that “every Minnesotan” had “the right to keep and bear arms - including while attending protests, acting as observers or exercising their First Amendment rights.”
“These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed, and they must be respected and protected at all times,” it said.
The uber-conservative Gun Owners of America — a group founded by activists who found the generally pro-Republican NRA’s positions too tame — called for a “complete, transparent and prompt investigation” while rejecting the idea that agents were justified in shooting Pretti because he’d been armed.
“Agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm,” the group said.
Republican congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, an occasional Trump antagonist, also weighed in after Essayli’s post, writing: “Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government.”
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