The right to bear arms in America has been a near-universal talking point, even a purity test, for Republicans and their allies for decades. But the shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis has divided the right into two camps — those who justify the shooting as a proportionate law enforcement response to armed aggression and those who believe the fact that the ICU nurse was carrying a gun exemplifies what the Second Amendment is really about.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents shot Pretti during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security said they were looking for an immigrant with a violent criminal record when Pretti approached them.
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Video shows that Pretti was holding a cellphone, not a weapon, in his hand when agents confronted him Saturday morning. Several agents wrestled Pretti to the ground and one removed a semiautomatic handgun from the waistband of his pants.
But then one agent fired what federal authorities later called “defensive shots” into Pretti’s back, and at least one other agent also opened fire. Video analysis suggests the agents fired as many as 10 shots.
Minneapolis Police said Saturday that Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry and a clean record.
Now, longtime gun rights allies are arguing over whether Pretti had a right to be armed — or whether his actions are to blame for his killing.
What federal agency heads are saying
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a news conference that Pretti was a threat to law enforcement.
“This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations and attacked those officers, had a weapon on him, and multiple, dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that and impeding the work that they were doing,” she said.
FBI Director Kash Patel also keyed in on Pretti’s possession of a loaded gun.
“You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want,” Patel told Fox News. “It’s that simple, you don’t have that right to break the law and incite violence.”
A Minnesota statute and a federal law — upheld by the Supreme Court in a landmark Second Amendment case — both protect an American’s right to protest while they are carrying a legally purchased firearm that they’ve also acquired a state license to do so.
Still, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Esayli of the Central District of California, a Trump appointee and former Republican state lawmaker, weighed in on the shooting.
“If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,” he posted to X. “Don’t do it!”
While progressives took issue, his comments also set off a string of dissenting responses from conservatives, Libertarians and other Republicans.
2nd Amendment advocates splitting the right lane
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has found himself the lone GOP vote against recent Trump-favored measures, criticized Essayli’s post.
“Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right,” Massie said, “and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government”
Others chimed in on the split between “law-and-order” and “lock-and-load.”
“We’re now finding out which Republicans were simply cosplaying as Second Amendment defenders,” Justin Amash, a former Republican congressman from Michigan, said later Sunday morning.
The rift widened further when gun rights groups released statements condemning Essayli’s thoughts and Pretti’s shooting.
“The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting—a right the federal government must not infringe upon,” Gun Owners of America, a lobbying group with a history of hard-line stances on the Second Amendment, said in a statement Saturday afternoon.
It added that “the Left must stop antagonizing” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol while they take criminals off the street.
The National Rifle Association — the pro-Second Amendment group of Charlton Heston’s “cold, dead hands” with a complicated history around armed protests — took Pretti’s side in the matter.
“This sentiment from the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California is dangerous and wrong,” the group said of Essayli’s post. “Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”
The NRA endorsed Essayli as recently as 2024, giving him a “92%” in their grading rubric.
Democrats described the dispute over whether Pretti had the right to be armed as a bitter irony. In an interview with CNN, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., criticized Noem’s comments, noting that gun rights advocates defended a teenager who shot two people to death during a protest over a police killing in 2020.
“How rich is it that she is saying showing up to the scene of a protest with a legally owned weapon should be grounds for a person’s death, execution at the hands of the state, by the same party and administration that praises Kyle Rittenhouse,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
