Recommendations of the Editorial team
Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been preaching the sanctity of the Second Amendment for years. And they reject almost any serious regulation of the right to own weapons.
This week they made it clear again that they have no problem suspending their devotion to the Constitution whenever it is politically convenient.
On Saturday, ICE officers in Minneapolis shot and killed 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, who was legally carrying a gun, before federal officers surrounded him on the street, disarmed him and then shot him multiple times.
Escalation after the killing
Immediately after the killing, the Department of Homeland Security released a picture of Pretti’s gun on a car seat. It claimed he intended to “massacre law enforcement.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described Pretti as a “suspected assassin.” FBI Director Kash Patel incorrectly said on Fox News the next morning: “You can’t bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any kind of protest. It’s that simple. You have no right to break the law.”
Pretti carrying a gun on the streets of Minneapolis was completely legal. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed that Pretti had a valid permit to carry a weapon in public. The Trump administration has since tried, largely unsuccessfully, to defend ICE against the massive public outcry that followed the killing. In view of numerous videos that point to a blatant judicial scandal, those responsible resorted to the weapon as a means of pinning the blame on Pretti.
Trump’s statements contradict
On Tuesday, Trump adopted this argument. “You know, you can’t have guns,” he told reporters on the White House lawn. “You can’t come in with guns. You just can’t do that. You can’t do that. Listen, you can’t come in with guns. You can’t do that. But it’s just a very unfortunate incident.”
A few hours later, the president repeated his denial that Pretti was carrying a gun to reporters in Iowa. “He certainly shouldn’t have carried a gun,” Trump said. “We view this as a very unfortunate incident. I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad things.”
Previous cases and double standards
The president’s statements hardly fit with his defense of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who threatened protesters with firearms as they marched past their home in 2020. “They were legal, the weapons,” Trump said at the time. The president also praised Kyle Rittenhouse, who brought a semi-automatic rifle to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, later that year. And killed two people during the riots. “He didn’t have to go through this process,” Trump said of the then-teenager who was acquitted of the killing charges.
Trump’s criticism of Pretti for carrying a gun also contradicts his longstanding, unwavering support of the Second Amendment. The president repeatedly sided with the arms industry. He opposed regulation. Even after mass shootings. In 2022, he spoke at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston. Just days after a gunman murdered 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Only a few hundred kilometers away.
Second Amendment according to political need
Trump blamed school administrators, not guns, for school shootings and did a little dance for the audience after he finished his speech.
Trump continued to advocate for Americans carrying guns after returning to office last year. “I’m for it,” he said in the Oval Office, referring to a possible expansion of concealed carry in Washington, D.C. “I’m a Second Amendment person,” he continued. “People need to be able to protect themselves.”
Trump also pardoned hundreds of the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 to overturn the results of the 2020 election – many of them carrying weapons, including firearms. They were initially sentenced to prison terms for storming the Capitol, which were later revoked by Trump. Pretti was not granted this right to a trial. Instead, he paid with his life for the alleged offense of legally carrying a gun in public while the government intimidated his city – shot in the street by a group of masked federal officers.
