President Donald Trump and other MAGA figures have been accused of abandoning the Second Amendment after seeking to blame the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents on the fact that he was carrying a concealed firearm. Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was killed in Minneapolis while filming Border Patrol officers. Trump posted a picture of Pretti's gun on social media, asking, 'What is that all about?' while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested without evidence that Pretti was a would-be assassin.
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News that 'no one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm loaded with two full magazines,' implying that federal agents were right to shoot Pretti if they felt threatened. Pretti owned the gun legally and had a concealed carry licence, meaning he was not breaking any laws.
CNN's Andrew Cooper and The Daily Show's Jon Stewart were quick to highlight the administration's apparent hypocrisy. Many on the right had vigorously defended Kyle Rittenhouse, who took a loaded assault rifle to a protest in Kenosha in 2020 and shot three people. Similarly, Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, openly brought weapons. Cooper aired clips of Trump insisting that the Second Amendment would be protected under his administration, noting that 'now, he supports the Second Amendment – just not all the time, depending on who’s carrying the gun and who gets killed.'
Stewart expressed sarcastic shock that MAGA loyalists would abandon their defence of the Second Amendment, saying, 'I wasn’t shocked when you guys gave up the First Amendment, but the Second? Isn’t that the load-bearing law of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag?' He then offered a more serious critique of the administration's lies, stating, 'They’re lying. We saw it.'
Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino told CNN that the Second Amendment 'doesn’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers,' implying that the right to bear arms is conditional on not disrupting agents.
