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Gun rights groups have long been among Donald Trump’s most loyal allies. But following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the alliance is showing rare cracks.
In the days since the shooting, the movement has forcefully defended its stance that the second amendment is a means to keep Americans safe from government overreach and abuse and has stood fast in its fight to expand Americans’ right to carry concealed firearms in public and private spaces, even as Trump administration officials, and Trump himself, suggested otherwise.
Meanwhile, the groups have tried to balance criticizing the administration’s rhetoric, while signaling its continued support for law enforcement.
The groups’ rare rebuke of the Trump administration came after several high-ranking Trump administration officials after Pretti was killed on Saturday by US border patrol officers quickly sought to shift the blame, first by arguing the 37-year-old nurse had threatened the officers with a gun, and then arguing that even if he didn’t use the gun, carrying one was an indication he was out to harm the officers.
Gregory Bovino, the border patrol commander, baselessly told reporters that Pretti’s goal was to “massacre law enforcement”. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, falsely said Pretti was looking to “inflict maximum damage” and kill law enforcement. Kash Patel, the FBI director, wrongly told Fox News it’s illegal to bring a gun to a protest. In a post on X following the shooting, Bill Essayli, a US attorney, argued: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”
By the day’s end on Sunday, prominent national gun owner organizations like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America had released statements calling for the shooting to be investigated, and pushing back fiercely on Essayli’s comments.
“It is essential that [the Justice department] conduct a complete, transparent, and prompt investigation so the public can fully understand what occurred and maintain confidence in the rule of law,” Gun Owners of America posted to X on Saturday.
“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,” said the NRA.
“Bill Essayli’s comments were completely out of line and inappropriate,” said Bryan Strawser, chairman of the Minnesota gun owners caucus, a group that advocates for second amendment rights. “This is a horrible tragedy and it’s complicated by the fact that the messaging from the federal government has been very misleading and that causes a lot of distrust and disappointment.”
Strawser said it’s a view broadly carried among gun rights groups: “They’ve aligned with the messaging that this isn’t about partisanship, or not supporting law enforcement, but Americans bearing arms,” he continued.
Essayli walked back his comments following the backlash, saying on social media his comment “addressed agitators approaching law enforcement with a gun and refusing to disarm”.
Trump on Monday, however, was blunt: “I don’t like that [Pretti] had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines, that’s a lot of bad stuff. And despite that, I’d say it’s very unfortunate,” he said while visiting a restaurant in Iowa.
The gun groups, which have sued states over limits on gun-free zones and restrictions on carrying guns openly and concealed, have long argued any policy that limits on firearm buying and carrying infringe on the second amendment and make public spaces like malls and places of worship vulnerable to be targeted by shooters.
They pointed out that in Minnesota, it’s legal to carry a firearm openly or concealed with a permit, which Pretti had. Protests and public spaces like the street where the ICE enforcement was happening are not on the state’s list of off-limits places.
They also pushed back hard on the argument that bringing a gun to a protest or to legally observe a law enforcement operation implies violent intent and that Pretti’s carrying of an extra magazine (the container that holds bullets and is inserted into a firearm) proves that he planned to harm officers.
In a statement on Wednesday, GOA said the organization has appreciated “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s strong defense of the First and Second Amendments.”
However, the groups said “it disagrees with other statements from the administration that run counter to the American tradition of peaceful protest while lawfully armed—a tradition rooted in founding-era events such as the Boston Tea Party”.
The group, which is one of the US’s most aggressive second amendment champions and is waging a fierce fight to overturn one of the country’s core gun laws, the National Firearms Act, pointed at further disagreements with the Trump administration. “GOA has openly disagreed with the Department of Justice on many issues in recent months, as gun owners continue to face serious challenges stemming from the ongoing mishandling of dozens of active gun-rights lawsuits.”
Despite their critiques, both the NRA and GOA were careful not to weigh in on Trump’s overall immigration crackdown, and both groups were at pains to signal their support of law enforcement was unwavering.
They also both argued that pushback against immigration enforcement operations contributed to the shooting.
“For months, radical progressive politicians like Tim Walz have incited violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs,” the NRA said in its statement, referring to Minnesota’s Democratic governor. “Unsurprisingly, these calls to dangerously interject oneself into legitimate law-enforcement activities have ended in violence, tragically resulting in injuries and fatalities.
“The Left must stop antagonizing [ICE] and [customs and border protection] agents who are taking criminals off the streets and play a crucial role in protecting communities and upholding the rule of law,” GOA said in its statement.
Other gun rights groups disagreed: “[Pretti’s] being characterized as a criminal because he chose to exercise a right”, said Danielle Campbell, director of Protect Peace, a gun rights and violence prevention non-profit, of the responses from lawmakers who’ve argued that Pretti shouldn’t have been armed and gun rights groups who argue that he shouldn’t have been observing ICE’s actions at all.
“Behavior that is legal should not be used to say ‘violence may happen’”, she added.
For Strawser, of the Minnesota gun owners caucus, the shooting also renewed questions about which shootings gun rights organizations speak out on, and which they stay silent on.
When Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed a man at a protest against racial injustice in 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he was embraced by the NRA and Gun Owners of America, who argued that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense against “rioters and looters” and was being demonized in the news media and by people on the left because of it.
When Philando Castile, a 32-year-old Black man, was shot and killed in front of his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter by a police officer in St Anthony, Minnesota, a suburb of St Paul in July 2016, those same groups stayed silent or, in the case of the NRA, made a vague statement that didn’t mention Castile, who had a permit to carry, by name. To Campbell the discrepancy is an indication of the penchant of some of the largest national gun groups to put “political views above common sense”, whether it’s the racial politics at the center of Castile’s shooting or the ongoing and escalating debate about immigration and crime in US cities.
“When Philando Castile lost his life, you didn’t see this sort of a reaction. And I get it: a lot of these groups have a base to appeal to, but it’s sad to see people wavering and being hypocritical. Either you believe in the second amendment or you don’t,” Campbell added.
Both the Second Amendment Foundation, a second amendment advocacy group and law firm, and the Minnesota gun owners’ caucus mentioned Castile by name in their calls for an independent investigation. “We made a statement because it was the right thing to do, there was a core moral issue,” Strawser said.
The Minnesota group also spoke out about the 2022 killing of Amir Locke, a 22-year-old legal gun owner, who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police while they were attempting to execute a no-knock warrant on his apartment.
Strawser doesn’t see Pretti’s shooting leading to a lasting rift between gun rights groups and Trump, especially since the administration’s other actions on guns, like creating a gun rights unit in the justice department’s civil rights division, and undoing a Biden-era ban on the sale of “forced reset triggers”, small devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire rapidly are viewed favorably.
“The Trump administration is probably the most [pro-second amendment one] we’ve had in decades, but the last 48 hours have been an aberration,” he said. “I don’t think [this shooting] is going to create a significant gulf.”
