It’s not often that the Trump administration gets crosswise with gun groups, given its near-total devotion to eliminating nearly every gun control law. However, in the rush to justify multiple agents shooting Alex Pretti as he lay on the ground, disarmed and defenseless, the administration decided that somehow protesters no longer have full Second Amendment rights. Well, only some protesters, of course.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, was the first to pop off about how the real issue here was that Pretti, who had a licensed firearm and a concealed carry permit, dared to carry that firearm near federal agents busy with their daily brutalizing and abduction of Minneapolis residents. “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”
Well, aside from the fact that a video shows that an agent disarmed Pretti before multiple agents shot him and that video also shows Pretti approached the agents holding a camera, not a gun, just having a weapon near a CBP or ICE agent is not actually a crime, which the NRA itself called out on X:
This sentiment from the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California is dangerous and wrong.
Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.
Essayli, you may recall, is one of the myriad temporary U.S. attorneys that courts have ruled were not legally in their position, but Essayli was allowed to stay on as first assistant, and apparently thought he’d bring his keen legal mind to bear on events happening over a thousand miles away.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli
Though the NRA was eager to talk tough about Essayli’s comments, when it came to calling out the administration itself, they wussed out. Instead, they tried to blame Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for having “incited violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs.”
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus didn’t buckle, though, with the senior vice president, Rob Doar, noting that an agent retrieves Pretti’s gun while other agents are beating him and that “If Mr. Pretti was disarmed—absent any other evidence of any risk to an officer—I don’t see how deadly force would be justified.”
Doar also had to push back on FBI Director Kash Patel, who suddenly decided that the Second Amendment had its limits, people: “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law. Oh, and also, “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines.”
Doar had to go on X to explain basic Second Amendment rights to Patel: “That is completely incorrect. There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota.”
Kyle Rittenhouse, left, with backwards cap, walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Aug. 25, 2020, with another armed civilian. Prosecutors on Aug. 27, 2020, charged Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Illinois in the fatal shooting of two protesters and the wounding of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a night of unrest following the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Contrast Patel’s remarks condemning Pretti, a law-abiding citizen legally allowed to carry a gun who did not harm anyone with that gun, with his rabid defense of Kyle Rittenhouse. Unlike Pretti, Rittenhouse didn’t acquire his weapon legally, as he was only 17 when he crossed state lines to “help” at a protest and killed two people. Rittenhouse got that gun by having an older friend purchase it for him.
So, if you’re a conservative, illegally carrying a gun and killing people is a total hero move, according to Patel. But if you’re a liberal who followed the rules and obtained his weapon and permit legally and never drew that gun and never killed anyone, you get a death sentence.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is also sorta rusty on the Second Amendment: “I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.” Hmm. What about all those peaceful and noble Jan. 6 insurrectionists who brought firearms?
What Essayli, Patel, and Noem also deliberately fail to mention is that Pretti doesn’t even appear to have been protesting, but rather stopped to assist a woman that CBP agents were violently shoving and to film the agents.
This isn’t even the first time the administration tried to criminalize law-abiding, permit-carrying people who just happen to not agree with DHS attacking their city. In Chicago, prosecutors charged two protesters, saying they were “armed rioters” for being at a protest with their completely legal and licensed firearms, for which they had permits. But that turned out to be one of the many times the administration was no-billed by a grand jury, which refused to bring an indictment.
Conservative elected officials also seem to have forgotten how much they loved it when Mark and Patricia McCloskey brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters for daring to come near their front yard. In fact, the McCloskeys were invited to speak at the Republican National Convention as a result.
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All of this is in stark contrast, of course, to the administration’s normal stance on gun control. Trump issued an executive order in February that ordered the attorney general to review any “ongoing infringements” of the Second Amendment. The Department of Justice recently struck down a 99-year-old rule that had prohibited sending revolvers via U.S. Mail. It just sued the Virgin Islands over “unreasonable conditions” for obtaining a gun permit, such as requiring a bolted-in gun safe, and for taking too long to issue permits. It backed the gun rights group challenging Hawaii’s law that bans guns in public areas unless the property owner allows it.
But when it comes to someone the administration doesn’t like, having a gun is reason enough to execute someone as they lie defenseless on a city sidewalk. Liberal gun owners get a death sentence, while conservative ones are celebrated endlessly. Quite the Second Amendment we’ve got here.
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