The power to kill dissidents at will is extra necessary to Trump and his supporters than the Second Modification.
FBI director Kash Patel on January 23, 2026.
(Will Lester / MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Every day Bulletin through Getty Photographs))
Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is likely one of the most left-wing figures in American public life. Her lately retired GOP colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene is simply as far on the right-wing facet of the political spectrum. But the 2 are united in seeing the killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday by ICE brokers as a constitutional disaster.
Rebuking Vice President JD Vance, Ocasio-Cortez wrote, “You’re defending the open killing of on a regular basis People for exercising their Constitutional rights.”
Taylor Greene explained the constitutional rights that had been violated on this case:
I unapologetically imagine in border safety and deporting felony unlawful aliens and I help legislation enforcement. Nonetheless, I additionally unapologetically help the 2nd modification. Legally carrying a firearm will not be the identical as brandishing a firearm. I help American’s 1st and 4th modification rights. There may be nothing flawed with legally peacefully protesting and videoing.
Politically, the constitutional violation that’s more likely to pose essentially the most hassle is the Second Modification. The Republican Social gathering, together with Donald Trump, has lengthy taken a maximalist place on gun rights, resisting even the preferred restrictions comparable to limits on automated weapons. The unconventional proper, which is in some ways the progenitor of Trump’s MAGA motion, has lengthy warned that gun management is a step on the trail towards the top of freedom within the US. Towards this finish, the precise has introduced essentially the most inflammatory model of well-known circumstances the place authorities brokers confronted off towards gun homeowners, as in the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993.
I’d just like the Second Modification to be repealed. However so long as it exists, gun homeowners do have the constitutional proper to hold a gun. Alex Pretti was exercising these constitutional rights when he was killed. He had a license to hold a weapon. None of this, if one accepts the constitutional proper to gun possession, justifies his killing.
That doesn’t imply the federal government hasn’t tried to smear Pretti anyway. The Wall Avenue Journal reports that federal brokers claimed that Pretti was “violently resisting” arrest however “bystander footage seems to inform a special story. A frame-by-frame evaluation by The Wall Avenue Journal reveals a federal officer pulling a handgun away from Pretti. Lower than a second later, an agent fires a number of rounds. Pretti died at the scene.”
Present Problem
Not simply federal brokers however the complete Trump administration is mendacity about this case, smearing Pretti with demonstrably false claims. Stephen Miller, the mastermind behind Trump’s struggle on immigrants, described Pretti as an “murderer” who “tried to homicide federal brokers.” Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem falsely claimed Pretti that “dedicated an act of home terrorism.” The administration additionally lied about the operation it was conducting in the course of the incident, making claims a couple of suspect that had been contradicted by the Division of Corrections.
These lies present contempt not just for Pretti but additionally for the constitutional rights he was exercising when he was summarily executed by armed brokers of the state.
But individuals who loudly proclaimed the sacredness of the Second Modification have lined up in help of Trump, proving that MAGA loves authoritarianism greater than it does the Structure. The Nationwide Rifle Affiliation, lengthy identified for its implacable and absolutist place on gun rights, released a mealy-mouthed statement blaming Minnesota politicians comparable to Governor Tim Walz for stirring up hassle and calling for extra investigation of what occurred.
To its credit score, the NRA did challenge a declare made by Trump official Invoice Essayli, a Republican who’s first assistant United States Lawyer for the Central District of California and who posted, “If you happen to method legislation enforcement with a gun, there’s a excessive probability they are going to be legally justified in capturing you. Don’t do it!”
Different high-level Trump officers went unchallenged as they cavalierly dismissed Second Modification rights. On ABC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had a telling trade with the reporter Jonathan Karl.
Bessent: I’m sorry that this gentleman is lifeless, however he did convey a nine-millimeter semiautomatic weapon with two cartridges to what was purported to be a peaceable protest. I believe that there are plenty of paid agitators who’re ginning issues up and the governor has not completed an excellent job of tamping this down.
Karl: As you realize he was an ICU nurse, labored for the Veteran’s Administration. There’s no proof that he brandished the gun in any way…
Bessent: However he introduced a gun! Have you ever ever been to a protest…
Karl: We do have a Second Modification on this nation.
On Fox Information, FBI director Kash Patel said, “Nobody who needs to be peaceable reveals up at a protest with a firearm that’s loaded with two full magazines. You can not convey a firearm loaded with a number of magazines to any form of protest that you really want.”
Each Bessent and Patel are in impact arguing for a extreme restriction of at the moment present Second Modification rights—one thing they notably didn’t name for when MAGA supporters turned up to protests with loaded weapons previously. Proper-wing pundits have taken the cue and have tried to sq. the circle between ideology and motion with an incoherent argument that, whereas Pretti had a authorized proper to hold his weapon, he additionally deserved what he received.
Rod Dreher, a maven of theocrats, argued, “I’m wondering why a civilian would convey a loaded gun to a protest during which he anticipated he would possibly conflict with feds. Authorized? Sure. However silly? Oh sure.” One other right-wing guru, Michael Shellenberger, had a similar train of thought, or what resembles thought:
Pretti thought it was a good suggestion to take a gun. Sure, he has a Second Modification proper to take action. Sure, I help that proper. I additionally help the precise of younger ladies to stroll by means of harmful neighborhoods carrying bikinis and excessive heels however it could be deeply irresponsible for me to suggest it.
By itself phrases, it’s arduous to know what to make of those claims. If carrying a gun to a protest is a authorized proper (certainly, a constitutional proper), however the cops have the precise to kill you for exercising that proper, then it’s not actually a proper.
For MAGA, authoritarianism is clearly the best worth, and even earlier commitments to gun rights can fall by the wayside. Blended in with the authoritarianism is tribalism. The appropriate believes in gun rights, however just for the precise form of folks. Notoriously, Ronald Reagan backed gun control in 1967 as governor of California as a measure to fight the Black Panther Social gathering. Because the historian Rick Perlstein notes, “right-wing Second Modification rhetoric and jurisprudence has by no means been universalist in intent, however, to the maximal extent in step with coherence (although additionally, clearly, usually incoherently) ALWAYS encodes a story of excellent guys who get to make use of weapons, and dangerous guys who get to have weapons used on them.”
Widespread
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Because the Trump administration continues its authoritarian crackdown, we’d see an increasing number of progressives carrying weapons. If that occurs, then we’ll additionally enter into a brand new period the place the precise decides it hates the Second Modification—in sure circumstances, that’s. This may not be utterly dangerous, however, as MAGA can also be ready to junk the remainder of the Structure, it gained’t be superb both.
Former Republican consultant Justin Amash posted, “We’re now discovering out which Republicans had been merely cosplaying as Second Modification defenders.” It’s possible the reply can be: most of them.
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