Trump administration goes after Second Amendment rights after Minneapolis shooting
A war of words over deeply held beliefs erupted on the right hours after a federal agent fatally shot Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street Saturday, pitting senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration against Second Amendment advocates in his voting base.
At the heart of the debate is the fact that Pretti — who was allowed to carry a gun in public in Minnesota — had on him a concealed firearm that eyewitness videos show federal agents apparently discovered and removed during the altercation that led to his death. The videos do not appear to show Pretti holding the gun during this confrontation.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to justify the killing by saying at a news conference that Pretti “attacked these officers, had a gun on him and several dozen rounds of ammunition, wanting to inflict harm on these officers who were coming, brandishing and obstructing their work.” No evidence was provided to back up this account.
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Noem argued that his possession of a gun demonstrated that he did not intend to remain peaceful.
“I don’t know of any peaceful protester who shows up with a gun and ammo rather than a sign,” Noem said Saturday.
When asked on Fox News on Sunday whether the use of deadly force against an unarmed person was protocol, Noem replied, “It’s all part of this investigation.”
The attempt to explain Pretti’s killing by pointing out that he owned a gun was also mentioned by Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.
In moments, Pretti’s killing pitted some Trump supporters, including members of his administration, against generations of conservative orthodoxy on the Second Amendment. At the same time, it seemed to serve as a wake-up call to gun rights activists that a Republican-led government, not just a Democratic-led government, could violate the Second Amendment.
An enlightening exchange took place on
None of this sat well with Second Amendment defenders, accustomed to having their right to bear arms challenged by Democrats, not Republicans.
“Oh, I’m Antifa now?” Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, wrote about X in response to Essayli. “I guess @TheJusticeDept is targeting gun owners as domestic terrorists again. You may want illegals and criminals off the streets and not want to see CCW. [concealed carry weapons] license holders are executed for having “approached” the police.
The National Rifle Association attacked Essayli for “demonizing law-abiding citizens.”
But the group, which has long sparred with Democratic presidents, has noticeably refrained from criticizing the Trump administration too directly. Instead, in an article on
Walz and other Democratic leaders have repeatedly called for calm, while emphasizing the destabilizing presence of thousands of federal agents in the city.
Dana Loesch, a conservative radio and television host, wrote on X on Sunday: “Yes, you absolutely can participate in a protest. Anyone who tells you otherwise is anti-2A. [Second Amendment] statist. She added, however, that people “cannot disrupt a federal operation when they are armed.”
And the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus took issue with Patel saying Sunday on Fox News: “You can’t bring a gun, loaded, with multiple magazines to any type of event you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have the right to break the law.”
“This is completely incorrect in Minnesota law. There is no prohibition on a licensee 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 matter when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and obstruct law enforcement officers,” Bovino said.
The debate has apparently given rise to a nascent group of progressive gun rights advocates.
“I never thought Donald Trump and Stephen Miller would be the ones to ultimately force me to be a defender of the 2nd Amendment,” liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan wrote of the president and White House deputy chief of staff in a message to X.
This instant political realignment – which could be temporary – comes as polls show the public is increasingly unappealed by Trump’s mass deportation campaign and the federal agencies that are pursuing it forcefully in America’s cities. The shooting of a U.S. citizen, filmed from multiple angles, served as a flashpoint for a broader debate over whether there are, or should be, limits on the administration’s power to carry out Trump’s agenda.
“It cannot be true that exercising a right protected by the U.S. Constitution exposes you to murder or arrest,” said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who served as a Justice Department official in the Nixon and Reagan administrations and criticized their successors. “It’s obvious that this is a vast overreach by the government. It’s not just murder. They’re also entering homes without proper warrants.”
It remains to be seen whether Trump or any other Republican will be able to bridge the divide between those who prioritize immigration enforcement over gun rights and those who think there is little, if anything, worth eroding the Second Amendment.
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 say, a Democratic president would take away Americans’ guns as a first step toward totalitarianism.
“It doesn’t matter to them that banning semi-automatics gives more power to government thugs to deprive us of our constitutional rights, break down our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us,” Wayne LaPierre, then the NRA’s executive director, wrote in a fundraising letter after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Charlie Kirk, the late co-founder of the young conservative group Turning Point USA, killed by an assassin’s bullet last year, explained his views in similar terms in 2023: “The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. I love hunting. The Second Amendment isn’t even about personal defense. That’s important. The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government.”
Even Noem has expressed this view in the past, telling a 2023 NRA conference that “Joe Biden and the liberals want our guns” because “it will make it easier for them to violate all our other rights.” Additionally, the first law Noem signed while serving as governor of South Dakota allowed residents of that state to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
Conversely, Democrats have been fighting for just as long — in state legislatures, Congress and federal courts — to impose restrictions on guns, who can own them and where they can be transported. These limitations, major gun control groups and many Democratic lawmakers say, protect the public. In 2020, liberals criticized conservatives for celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who fatally shot two people during protests against police brutality 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, while some shared Rittenhouse memes 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 advocates who argued that guns were necessary to defend American rights against a tyrannical government,” former Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., wrote on X. “Today, I apologize, because I saw it with my own eyes.”
Fein, the constitutional lawyer, said the Pretti shooting and the administration’s defense of it are even at odds with the Justice Department’s current arguments for gun rights before the Supreme Court.
“The hypocrisy has reached an incredible level,” he said.
