Staunch Second Amendment advocates and gun rights absolutists are balking at the Trump administration’s initial messaging about Border Patrol agents killing Alex Pretti in Minneapolis over the weekend, as the administration placed blame on Pretti for carrying a gun while demonstrating against federal deportation operations.
Gun rights activists were triggered by the insinuation that Pretti had provoked a response from law enforcement in part by carrying a handgun and two magazines, which an initial Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement asserted “looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
There is no evidence that Pretti brandished the firearm, and several analyses of video of the incident say that law enforcement may have disarmed him just before shots were fired. Yet numerous Trump administration officials repeatedly pointed to the presence of the firearm when explaining the shooting — drawing sharp, direct rebukes from gun rights advocates.
Some of the most notable examples:
→ Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, posted Saturday on the social platform X: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”
• The National Rifle Association (NRA) called that statement “dangerous and wrong. Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”
• Gun Owners of America (GOA) added on: “The Second Amendment protects Americans' right to bear arms while protesting—a right the federal government must not infringe upon.” (Essayli said that GOA mischaracterized his post.)
→ FBI Director Kash Patel told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s "Sunday Morning Futures": “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines. That is not a peaceful protest.”
• The National Association for Gun Rights responded by saying that “carrying an extra magazine implies nothing,” and warning: “When officials misstate the law or undermine the Second Amendment, it raises serious concerns about how far that thinking could go. … Administration officials would be wise to avoid damaging the Second Amendment or blaming millions of lawful gun owners.”
→ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Sunday Fox News interview that citizens should comply with law enforcement and “shouldn’t show up with weapons that — with no ID and no indication on how they’re going to be used.” Asked by Peter Doocy if DHS’s message is that those with concealed carry permits should leave their gun in the car, Noem said: “My message to individuals is don’t go impede law enforcement operations. That’s not legal. You’re breaking the law when you do that. It’s also breaking the law to concealed carry in Minnesota without an ID on you.”
• Conservative radio host Dana Loesch, a former spokesperson for the NRA, responded to a separate point about Pretti’s lack of ID while having an open carry permit by saying: “Requiring a permit is an abridgment.”
The criticism from typical allies is a major red flag for the administration. And by Monday, the Trump administration seemed to tighten up its messaging on Minnesota and gun rights.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a briefing stressed Trump’s support for the Second Amendment after RealClearPolitics’s Philip Wegmann asked about Patel’s comments. But she also warned that having a firearm increases the risk of law enforcement using force.
“While Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, Americans do not have a constitutional right to impede lawful immigration enforcement operations,” Leavitt said. “And any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms, and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption or risk and the risk of force being used against you.”
But that, too, ruffled some 2A feathers. Gun Owners of America Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston told me that Leavitt’s “affirmation of the President’s support for the right to keep and bear arms matters.”
“However, gun owners should not have to assume risk of force when lawfully carrying and while respecting the rule of law. Carrying a firearm is not inherently a crime and should not be treated as such,” Johnston said.
Big picture: What does this dust-up mean for the part of the right-wing base that is motivated by gun rights, and for their relationship to MAGA and the Trump administration?
“Gun owners have every reason to be frustrated with the Department of Justice for continuing to defend gun control in court—from Biden-era ATF rules to the 1934 national gun registration scheme,” said Johnston of GOA. “But by and large, President Trump’s administration has taken some of the most pro-Second Amendment actions in modern history.”
Second Amendment advocacy has long been intertwined with government-skeptical, “Don’t Tread On Me” sentiment. But that has been largely muted on the right since Trump’s return to office. (This was examined before the most recent shooting by The Washington Post’s Naftali Bendavid: Conservatives who once railed against federal agents now applaud them … And by Steven Greenhut in Reason: Where Have the 'Don't Tread on Me' Republicans Gone?)
The question is whether the instinct to resist authority and government officials sees a resurgence that results in steeper criticism of the Trump administration.
Prominent Democrats who are likely to run for president in 2028 certainly seem to be hoping so, with some pouncing on the administration’s fumbles over gun rights messaging. “The Trump Administration does not support the 2nd Amendment,” posted California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg directly asked conservatives and libertarians to “join the rest of us” and stand against the U.S. being “the kind of place where masked, militarized government agents are sent to politically noncompliant areas to roam the streets, terrorize civilians, and deploy violence with impunity.”
But the statements from those on the left who have supported firearm restrictions in the past are only peeving gun rights absolutists, who see their arguments invoking the Second Amendment as disingenuous.
Loesch, the former NRA spokesperson, posted Monday: “I'm not taking a single lecture on MN from anyone who, before this weekend, promo
