Like it or not, we're going to have to talk a lot about the reaction to the Alex Pretti shooting. It's not because we have new information, or even no information. It's because the usual suspects aren't acting like the usual suspects.
In the gun rights discussion, everything has turned upside down, and I don't like it.
One thing I try to be when it comes to my views is to be as consistent as possible. While things are rarely black and white, I try to maintain certain principles that are the same no matter what.
For example, the right to keep and bear arms. That is sacrosanct. I want to be able to order an M240 off of Amazon with no paperwork, having it shipped directly to my house, and the government not even care.
But, as we've noted more than once this week, not everyone feels that way, even among those who are normally pro-gun, and that has the balance of things all out of whack.
So strong has been the pull of reflexive partisanship in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday that the Republicans and the Democrats seem briefly to have swapped sides on the desirability and the scope of the Second Amendment.
Commenting on the incident, the FBI director, Kash Patel, proposed that “you cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want”; the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, complained that Pretti had brought “a 9mm semiautomatic weapon with two cartridges to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest”; and Bill Essayli, the first assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California, suggested that “if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.” These, clearly, are not sentiments that are usually associated with the Republican Party.
No, they're not.
And "cartridge" refers to the rounds a gun fires. Magazines hold cartridges. Essayli sounds like a new member of Giffords with that comment, not a professional prosecutor with the Department of Justice who should know better.
Moving on and to stop repeating myself about the administration's reaction to the incident...
At the same time, many anti-gun stalwarts were falling all over themselves to advance arguments that, in any other circumstance, would remain alien. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, submitted waspishly that “the Trump administration does not believe in the 2nd Amendment. Good to know.” Anti-gun rights groups joined the fray. The Giffords campaign argued that Pretti was “a lawful gun owner who was protesting in his community” and “had the right to be there,” and the Brady campaign asserted that he was “a law-abiding gun owner with a concealed carry permit.” At what point, one must ask, did they all turn into Wayne LaPierre?
...
On the Democratic side . . . well, one has to laugh. At present, Gavin Newsom is literally attempting to repeal the Second Amendment, and, in 2023, he signed a bill in California that barred guns from being carried in “sensitive places,” including at protests. (Minnesota has considered a similar law, and, in 2024, the state filed an amicus brief arguing that there is no Second Amendment right to carry guns at “events involving political speech, like political rallies and protests,” because they are “often targets of violence.”) The Giffords campaign wishes to ban the type of firearm that Pretti was carrying on the grounds that it represents “a threat to society” and is “designed to kill large numbers of people quickly,” and it holds the official view that “guns at protests” are not protected by the Constitution because carrying them “chills the exercise of our fundamental freedoms.” The Brady campaign agrees with this, proposing that Americans “do not need a loaded gun to peacefully protest” and should not be allowed to carry one.
Honestly, the hypocrisy coming from anti-gun Democrats is beyond disgusting.
I get that the administration popped off out of emotion and potentially just failed to express themselves well. Maybe they're really inconsistent and they just exposed it, but I think it's more likely that they just had a knee-jerk reaction because ICE has been under attack for so long now that they failed to recognize just what they were saying.
I'm still going to hit them for it, at least until they apologize and say they misspoke or something, but I can see it.
For people like Newsome, though, the truth of the matter is that this is no such thing. Yeah, he's been on an anti-ICE and anti-Trump tear of late, all as a means to try and lay the foundation for his presidential run, but I think he's too much of a sociopath to actually give a damn about Pretti one way or another, except as a cudgel to try and beat the right with.
As noted above, he's literally trying to repeal the Second Amendment, so where does he get off pretending he gives a damn about it himself? Where does he get off acting as if anything Trump or his administration said isn't precisely what he would have said a week ago?
Between the administration sounding like Newsome and Newsome trying to sound like Wayne LaPierre, the whole world feels flipped, like we're living in the Bizarro world from Superman, and everything is backward.
And again, I don't like it.
Please make it stop.
