On the Minnesota Shooting
At this point I think I’ve seen every available angle of the shooting of Alex Pretti this weekend in Minnesota.
Here are the two key takeaways you need to know:
It’s perfectly legal to carry a firearm to a protest.
I know because I’ve done it countless times over the years. The reason I was never arrested or shot is because at said protests I never interrupted and/or disrupted a law enforcement operation while armed.
You cannot obstruct a law enforcement operation.
This is illegal. It’s made even worse if you do it while you are armed.
Pretti made the choice to disrupt a federal operation — made necessary because blue-state leaders refused to honor ICE detainers on violent repeat offenders so they had to go there themselves to enforce the law — which set off a chain reaction of tragic events.
The countless angles and videos out there don’t show a whole lot, despite what the CSI: Minnesota larpers want you to believe. The images are shaky, when zoomed in shaky and grainy. A lot of confirmation bias comes into play here. What little the images do suggest is that at one point Pretti was disarmed and after he was disarmed, shots are fired. This raises more questions:
A) Was he disarmed?
B) Were all agents aware that he was disarmed?
C) Did agents reasonably believe he may have had concealed another weapon?
D) What was the impetus for use of lethal force?
All of these are perfectly fair questions to ask. You don’t forfeit your support of the Second Amendment to ask them, either.
The Second Amendment isn’t an exemption from making stupid choices. You also shouldn’t want to make stupid choices while exercising your Second Amendment rights.
Don’t forget why we are in this position in the first place: Blue state governors and blue city leaders have outright refused to enforce established immigration law, they’ve refused to share information on repeat illegal offenders with DHS, and have refused ICE detainer requests from some of the most violent offenders imaginable — as I listed on air last week, scores of actual, documented, legitimate rapists, murderers, and child predators.
Democrats desperately want a reprieve from accountability on this issue and they’ll use 2A advocates as cover to do it.
The more I see about this case the more I believe that this is an issue of bad personal decisions, NOT a Second Amendment issue.
However, the Trump admin is emphatically not helping when they send out their members to say things like this:
“If you approach law enforcement with a gun.” What does this mean to Essayli? Does he believe that mere legal possession within the vicinity of LEO is a criminal offense or merits use of force as response? Language matters.
Statements like Noem’s don’t help. What he had or didn’t have wasn’t the issue, it’s what he was doing that is the issue. Being armed is different from being armed in commission of obstructing a federal law enforcement operation.
As I said: It is absolutely 100% legal to attend a protest armed. I’ve done it frequently. The issue is obstructing a federal law enforcement operation. The Trump admin needs to get the language right or stop doing press. The ONLY thing they need to message right now is this:
Blue state governors and blue city leaders have outright refused to enforce established immigration law, they’ve refused to share information on repeat illegal offenders with DHS, and have refused ICE detainer requests from some of the most violent offenders imaginable. Please do not obstruct ICE operations.
They need to stay far, far away from messaging anything about firearms or the Second Amendment because frankly, they don’t have the best track record doing so — and by using sloppy language they make this about the Second Amendment when it actually isn’t about the Second Amendment, it’s about one guy’s p*ss-poor personal judgment and the horrible, domino-effect that followed.
I’ll discuss this at length on tomorrow’s broadcast.
“The firearm matters—and the media is hiding it. At the Minneapolis Border Patrol shooting, the suspect was armed with a SIG Sauer P320 AXG Combat, a high-capacity 9mm pistol with a threaded barrel, extended 20–21 round magazine, and a SIG Romeo optic—a setup costing $1,500–$2,000. This was not a cheap carry gun.
“Officers were in a physical struggle with an armed suspect when a gun was perceived and the word “gun” was shouted. Under settled self-defense law, officers are entitled to rely on fellow officers’ reasonable perceptions. They do not have to personally confirm the threat.
“Once a firearm appears during active resistance, the legal standard is simple: reasonable perception of imminent deadly force. That standard was met here. Freeze-frame activism doesn’t override real-time dynamics, and the law does not require officers to wait to be shot. This was a tragic—but lawful—use of force.”
Andrew F. Branca, Attorney
I have seen it reported that it is *not* legal to carry a firearm to a protest under Minnesota gun-control laws. Also that Minnesota law requires carrying ID while carrying a firearm, and that the deceased was not carrying ID. I don't know about the truth of these claims, but it seems important to verify, one way or the other.