Pretti shooting becomes constitutional tug of war on right to carry guns

In the rush to comment about the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti on Saturday in Minneapolis, members of the Trump administration have riled some of their own supporters by suggesting that the slain intensive care nurse should not have been carrying a gun to a protest.

Within about three hours of Pretti’s death after being shot by federal immigration officers, Stephen Miller, who is President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, posted on social media that Pretti was a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement.”

But, as has been widely reported, Pretti held a conceal-carry permit that allowed him to legally carry a gun. Video from the scene does not show Pretti ever brandishing, reaching for or pointing that gun at anyone as several federal agents struggled with him on the street.

Then on Sunday, a day after the shooting, FBI director Kash Patel reiterated statements in an interview that further put him at odds with staunch defenders of the Second Amendment, which is widely interpreted to give a legal basis for Americans to own and carry firearms.

“You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have the right to break the law and incite violence,” Patel said in a Fox News interview.

Trump on Tuesday told a reporter that he did not agree with Miller’s “assassin” statement when describing Pretti.

“But you can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” Trump said.

Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of Second Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue, said he didn’t agree.

“We believe law-abiding citizens should be able to carry firearms for self-defense no matter where they go,” Gottlieb said. “That would include a protest or a rally.”

He suggested that different gun laws in different states may have been a source of the confusion from the administration officials.

“In some states, you can’t do that,” Gottlieb said. “I think Kash was talking in general terms. He was wrong in Minnesota.”

Louis Huang, president of Spokane Gun Club, said it was a tragedy that Pretti died and that he thinks “people have a constitutional right depending on where they live. There’s also a level of responsibility that has to occur on everybody’s part.”

Spokane Rifle Club President Bob Orth agreed that the Second Amendment gave Pretti the legal right to carry a gun Saturday.

“But what he lacked was common sense. Who in their right mind would take a loaded pistol to a demonstration where there is going to be law enforcement there?” Orth asked. “And what they’re demonstrating against is the removal of illegal aliens in this country – which doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“It’s unfortunate the way it turned out,” Orth continued, “but it was his choice to do that.”

However, many gun-rights advocates did not make the same argument when then-17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse carried an AR-15-style rifle to what he said was to protect businesses in Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid a protest that occurred in August 2020 in response to police earlier shooting and paralyzing a Black man.

During that Black Lives Matter protest, Rittenhouse shot and killed two men and injured a third. He claimed self-defense, and a jury in 2021 exonerated Rittenhouse of criminal responsibility for those killings.

Asked how some gun-rights supporters defended Rittenhouse, who is now 23, but not Pretti, Gottlieb said the situations were different.

“We didn’t exactly defend (Rittenhouse). Our position was we didn’t think he had to be charged with a crime,” Gottlieb said. “Was it smart? Maybe not. If I was going to a rally or a protest, I wouldn’t be carrying a firearm with me.

“On the other hand,” he continued, “we do not believe it should be outlawed.”

Gottlieb said if anyone is displaying a double standard, it’s those people who criticized Rittenhouse for carrying a gun into a protest in 2020 but not Pretti.

“If in fact the firearm was brandished and pointed at law enforcement, that’d be another story,” he said, referring to the Saturday shooting. “But the video shows that wasn’t the case.”

Asked about his views of Trump administration officials’ comments after the shooting, Gottlieb pointed to statements made by Minnesota officials.

“The mayor and the governor there were making claims that federal law enforcement were murderers and Gestapo that were over the top,” Gottlieb said. “Then we saw the comments that reacted to that. I think a lot of people on all sides were making comments before all the facts were in.”

According to published accounts, the 911 call reporting the shooting of Pretti came in about 9:03 a.m. Central Standard Time on Saturday.

Miller posted his statement about Pretti being a “would-be assassin” at 11:39 a.m. in Minnesota, according to a timeline produced by the Washington Post.

Greg Bovino, who has since been removed as the Border Patrol commander for the Minneapolis operation, held a news conference at 1:12 p.m. CST during which he put the blame squarely on Pretti.

“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” Bovino said.

But Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz didn’t speak publicly until after 1:30 p.m. CST, when he hosted a news conference asking for patience.

“I’m objecting to a rush to judgment within 15 minutes, which they did last time,” Walz said, referring to the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good. “That’s why you need to have a fair investigation. But they’ve already slandered this individual.”

He noted that he would have expected federal officials to gather information and release only those details that were verified.

“They’ve written the narrative already,” said Walz, who noted that he had already seen the now widely viewed video of the Pretti shooting.

“But what I see with my eyes, and what you are going to see with your eyes, makes that pretty hard to believe,” Walz said.

Then at 4:24 p.m. CST, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem made a statement that echoed some of the previous comments from Bovino.

Noem said that Pretti intended “to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

At about the same time, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey held his own news conference denouncing the shooting.

“I just saw a video of more than six masked agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death,” Frey said. “How many more residents, how many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?

“How many more lives need to be lost before this administration realizes that a political and a partisan narrative is not as important as American values?”

Spokesman-Review reporter Cannon Barnett contributed to this report.