Over the past week I’ve written thousands of words about the shooting of anti-ICE activist Alex Pretti and the response from politicians, Second Amendment and gun control organizations, and the issues surrounding the right to carry at protests. I’ve been interviewed by Fox News and Newsmax, as well as local and national talk radio shows, and several of my colleagues have been just as busy. Virtually every 2A organization has weighed in, if not on the shooting itself then on the comments by President Donald Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, FBI Director Kash Patel, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other administration officials. And on social media, Second Amendment advocates and conservatives have been engaged in a lively debate over Pretti’s actions and the reactions from politicians
Despite the fact that Pretti’s shooting has dominated 2A discourse for more than a week, some gun control activists are intent on pushing a false narrative. This op-ed by syndicated columnist Cassie McClure is a perfect example of the fiction being pushed as fact.
We have been told, for decades now, that dead children are the price of freedom. School shootings are tragic, yes, but unavoidable. The Second Amendment is sacred, and any attempt to regulate guns is tyranny.
So when a man was shot and killed in Minnesota while legally carrying a firearm, not threatening anyone, not firing, not even holding it, you would expect the self-appointed guardians of the Second Amendment to erupt.
Instead, there is silence.
Not a peep from the militia cosplayers. No righteous fury from the open-carry crowd. No thunderous defense of a man who was doing exactly what they claim every American has the right to do.
Not a peep from militia members? Not so much.
I asked militiamen who attended Monday’s Second Amendment rally armed in Richmond, Virginia how they feel about the shooting of Alex Pretti yesterday in Minneapolis by federal agents and the administration’s response.
Here are responses from Virginia Kekoas militia leader ICE… https://t.co/kMlRU1h0ps pic.twitter.com/2qPdu18w5e
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) January 26, 2026
If McClure spends five minutes on Facebook or X, she won’t be able to avoid the debate among gun owners over the lawfulness of Pretti’s shooting. I’d say there has been a thunderous defense of the right to carry, even at protests, among Second Amendment advocates. Defending every one of Pretti’s actions? That’s where the divide comes in. Without question, Pretti put his hand on a Border Patrol agent; maybe without malice, and only for a moment, but that’s still a no-no and it led to the situation escalating.
Second Amendment groups have been consistent in standing up for Pretti’s right to keep and bear arms, but that doesn’t mean that those groups or pro-2A individuals need to defend every one of Pretti’s decisions. The same is true for the other side; we can defend the legitimacy of the Border Patrol and ICE without defending every decision of the agents on the scene.
Here is what actually happened: A man with a legal permit, exercising his constitutional right, was tackled, disarmed, and then shot multiple times by federal agents. Video shows his gun was removed before shots were fired. He was not brandishing it or threatening anyone. He was not attacking; he was filming.
If carrying a gun is enough to justify death, then the Second Amendment is no longer a right.
I wholeheartedly agree with McClure’s last sentence. I disagree with her characterization of the moments that led up to Pretti’s death, though. As I said, Pretti did lay a hand on one of the Border Patrol agents. He was not just filming at that point. He was an active participant in the efforts to disrupt the Border Patrol’s operation.
Even that is not enough to justify Pretti’s death. But while McClure correctly points out that Pretti’s gun was removed before shots were fired, she neglects to mention that it appears Pretti’s gun discharged while in the hand of the agent who removed it. Based on the videos that I’ve seen, the agent who initially fired was reacting to the sound of that gunshot, not just the shouts of “gun, gun.”
Does that justify Pretti’s shooting? Well, maybe. Ultimately, it comes down to whether the officer had a reasonable belief that lives were in danger by Pretti, at least for the initial shots that were fired. As I’ve previously stated, I think the rounds that were fired after officers had backed up and Pretti was lying prone and unmoving on the pavement are going to be much more difficult to justify, even in the moment, but the initial shots fired by the BP agent could very well have been “lawful but awful.”
McClure tries to compare Pretti’s shooting to Kyle Rittenhouse defending himself during the Kenosha riots with an AR-15, but beyond the media attention there aren’t really any similarities. McClure, though, argues that Rittenhouse was defended by the 2A community while Pretti has been ignored, “because the gun-rights movement has never actually been about freedom. It is about hierarchy and about who gets to feel powerful and in charge. It is about whose fear counts, and whose death does not.”
Sadly, McClure is willing to twist the facts and ignore those she finds inconvenient in order to demonize and dehumanize Second Amendment advocates and organizations. The right to keep and bear arms belongs to we the people, and that includes Americans across the political spectrum and of every race, creed and color. Again, the 2A community has been very vocal about those facts. If McClure’s only hearing silence, I suggest she remove her fingers from her ears and listen again.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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