Killed while carrying, you don't need that gun after all.
For years and years the National Rifle Association warned us about "jack booted thugs" working for the Federal government.
It also told us that part of the reason we needed a Second Amendment was to protect ourselves against a repressive government. It runs a column on its site every couple of days extolling the virtues of being an "armed citizen".
The Armed Citizen® Jan. 19, 2026
Yesterday a Border Patrol Agent in Minneapolis took offense, apparently, along with another officer to Alex Jeffrey Pretti filming their activities. They started pushing people around and pepper spraying, actions which with municipal police forces would get the department and the officers sued. They wrestled Pretti to the ground.
He was a permitted concealed carry holder, and he was carrying a concealed handgun. According to one news source, the officers had secured his handgun before shooting him, which they did.
Apparently, once again, more than one shot was fired. Apparently, ten shots were fired.
Ten.
I know what the defenses are going to be and what is going to be claimed. Videos are always a bit difficult to discern and so we really don't know what the officers saw. Here's what a witnesses affidavit states:
I am a resident of the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am over 18 years of age. I am a children's entertainer who specializes in face painting.
On Saturday, January 24, 2026, at about 8:50 am, I was getting ready to go to work when I heard whistles outside. I knew the whistles meant that ICE agents were in the area, so I decided to check it out on my way to work. I've been involved in observing in my community because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors. Connecting to your local community and knowing who your neighbors are is something I profoundly value.
I drove to Nicollet Ave. and 26th where I could hear the whistles coming from. I turned south onto Nicollet. There were already several ICE agents there and they'd set up a sort of vehicle convoy on Nicollet and 28th. There were also about 15 observers there, recording and observing ICE.
I saw ICE agents surrounding cars and punching car windows. I also saw them stopping vehicles further down Nicollet, so I backed up because I didn't feel safe continuing on.
I noticed a man sort of acting to help traffic move more smoothly. He helped me find a place to park. I got out with my whistle and my camera. I went over to him and said something like, "I'm going to film and use my whistle."
It seemed like most ICE activity was happening a little farther down the street from us, near 27th. Someone was being thrown to the ground.
I started recording. There was an agent by a car across the street. Two observers were a few feet away from the agent, blowing their whistles. One was wearing a backpack.
I and the man who was observing and helping direct traffic were standing in the street. There was a phone in the man's hand recording a video.
An agent approached and asked us to back up, so I moved slowly back onto the sidewalk.
The man stayed in the street, filming as the other observers I mentioned earlier were being forced backward by another ICE agent threatening them with pepper spray. The man went closer to support them as they got threatened, just with his camera out. I didn't see him reach for or hold a gun.
Then the ICE agent shoved one of the other observers to the ground. Then he started pepper spraying all three of them directly in the face and all over. The man with the phone put his hands above his head and the agent sprayed him again and pushed him.
Then the man tried to help up the woman the ICE agent had shoved to the ground. The ICE agents just kept spraying. More agents came over and grabbed the man who was still trying to help the woman get up. All three of the observers looked to have been badly affected by the pepper spray. I could feel the pepper spray in my eyes.
The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn't see him touch any of them-he wasn't even turned toward them. It didn't look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn't see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times.
14.1 don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.
15. The video I recorded of what happened accurately depicts the events leading up to the agents shooting him and several minutes afterwards. The video is attached as Exhibit 1.
16. I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.
17. I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me and I don't feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don't know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they're not telling the truth about what happened. I've heard that other witnesses might have been arrested and taken to the Whipple Building.
18. I am disgusted and gutted at how they are treating my neighbors and my state. I keep alternating between crying and feeling determined it is important to remember the value of documenting injustice. We show up for the people who need us to bear witness, because it can't just be one group of people bearing the brunt of their tyranny. This is a struggle to protect our freedom and democracy, those things are on the line. He lost his life for those values.
What we do know is what the NRA told its members, like me, is now revealed to be complete crap. Where are the outcries from firearms permit holders (and I am one). I don't blame Pretti for being armed when this group of Brownshirts is around.
The lesson is clear. Interfere with ICE at the risk of being beat up or killed.
And the message from the defenders of freedom on the right wing are clear. They never meant what they said, or they'd be outraged by the gunning down of a man who was legally carrying.
For years I've been warning that the result of the NRA's slavish support for Trump would be an irony, the Trump Administration will come after legal gun owners. It's starting:
Peaceful protesters do not have 9-millimeter weapons with two extra magazines.
Rep Van Drew, New Jersey. There you have it. What used to be a position of the left. You don't really need that gun.
It's only one step to, you don't need that gun, give it to me.
And the NRA is just going to stand there and do nothing whatsoever. They've simply become a fundraising branch of MAGA.
I'm not, I'll note, the only one who holds this view. After I first posted this I came across this:
Exercising Your 2nd Amendment Rights Is Not A Death Sentence
ICE just executed an American in Minneapolis for legally exercising his Constitutional rights
In that article, Siler states:
FWIW, if I went anywhere near one of these protests, I'd be carrying.
And make no mistake. We're about to get massive gun control. The Dear Leader has decreed that only criminals carry guns in the street.
The man with no service slanders our allies.
Following the entire demented embarrassing episode over Greenland, Дональд Трамп has had an entire series of demented rages. I use the term "demented" here advisedly.
Donald Trump was of military age, and a graduate from a military school, during the Vietnam War.
Trump was initially classified as 1-A in 1966. He received four educational deferments during the war, the chickenshit policy of the draft at the time that let the upper class and middle class get a bit of a free ride to avoid the draft. In 1968 he was given a one year medical deferment for a bone spur. In 1969 he received a high lottery number, making it unlikely that he'd be called.
The real question is the bone spur item, and whether he really had one or not. He was, reportedly, in pretty good shape back then.
Trump has a track record of insulting service members, and it's pretty clear, in spite of what he's said this term in office, that he basically regards them as losers. And that comports with his world view, where the only people that matter are the rich. Rich people don't join the service often, although there are exceptions.
The Трамп rages this time insulted NATO and claimed that NATO had never done anything for the US. This brought an immediate rebuke from Denmark and the UK. Трамп tried to then say that sure, they'd sent troops, to Afghanistan when we invoked Article 5, but they'd stayed behind the lines a ways.
What a hugely ironic statement for a man who stayed so far behind the lines, he wasn't in the same country as the lines.
He's now apologized to the UK.
The man is an idiot.
FWIW, our NATO allies fully supported us in Afghanistan. Many of the same nations supported us in Iraq, twice. In the Vietnam War, the one that Дональд didn't go to, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea sent ground troops. Spain sent medical troops. Canada sent a hospital ship.
Penguin stupidity
Трамп is still smarking overy his humiliation over Greenland. The man who wrote the "art of the deal" appears to have secured the exact same deal we had in the 1950s. That's some negotiating.
Anyhow, a hallmark of the Трамп administration is the use of social media, and this was released.
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