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THE Trump administration is facing a rare and politically sensitive backlash from gun rights groups after senior officials said a man killed by federal agents at a protest should not have been carrying a firearm, despite holding a valid licence.
Reuters, on Tuesday, reported that the dispute centres on the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Pretti had a licence to carry a concealed handgun, and local police have said there is no evidence he brandished the weapon before he was shot multiple times.
In the days following the incident, President Donald Trump and several senior officials defended the actions of the agents while questioning Pretti’s decision to attend a protest while armed.
Among those making such comments were FBI Director Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official.
“You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple,” Patel said on Fox News on Sunday.
Gun rights organisations, including the influential National Rifle Association, rejected that argument, saying Pretti had been exercising a constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.
They warned that suggesting the legality of gun ownership depends on context, such as attending a protest, cuts against a core conservative principle.
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said Patel’s remarks were “completely incorrect on Minnesota law”.
Its chairman, Bryan Strawser, a Republican, said the administration appeared to be retreating from its commitment to the Second Amendment, the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Strawser told Reuters that such a shift could have electoral consequences in November’s midterm elections, when control of Congress will be decided.
He said voters were already frustrated by the cost of living, healthcare expenses and what some see as overly aggressive tactics in the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown.
“It’s unbelievably stupid that they’ve chosen to alienate the gun lobby. The NRA and the gun lobby have basically been a bedrock constituency of the Republican Party for 50 years,” said Jacob Perry, a Republican strategist based in Florida.
Gun rights groups are major donors to Republican campaigns, have a strong record of mobilising supporters and represent a voting bloc with high turnout rates.
Asked on Monday whether Trump believes Americans have a right to carry guns while protesting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that the presence of armed law enforcement changes the calculation.
“Any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms, and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you, and that's unfortunately what took place on Saturday,” Leavitt said.
The NRA responded on social media by referencing Leavitt’s comments, saying that while law-abiding Americans had a constitutional right to carry firearms, they did not have a right to “impede lawful immigration enforcement operations”.
Video footage reviewed by Reuters appears to show Pretti holding a mobile phone, not a gun, as he filmed federal agents pushing protesters to the ground. After stepping between an agent and two women, Pretti was pepper-sprayed, forced to the ground and pinned down.
The footage then appears to show an agent removing a handgun from Pretti’s waistband. Moments later, an officer shot Pretti four times in the back, with additional shots fired by other agents.
Rather than directly criticising Trump, some gun rights groups focused on comments made by Bill Essayli, a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, who wrote on social media that “if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you”.
The NRA called Essayli’s remarks “dangerous and wrong”. The organisation, which has long been closely aligned with Trump, did not respond to a request for comment.
Luis Valdes, a spokesman for Gun Owners of America, said: “Our stance is very simple. We will defend the Second Amendment, no ifs, ands or buts.”
Guns occupy a central place in the United States’ national identity, shaped by frontier history, resistance to perceived tyranny and a strong emphasis on individual independence. Yet gun rights did not become a dominant political issue until the late 20th century.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 led to the Gun Control Act of that year, which imposed restrictions on gun ownership and federal licensing requirements for dealers. Conservatives viewed the law as an overreach, and in 1977 the NRA shifted from a sporting organisation to a more explicitly political movement, helping to define modern gun-rights activism.
Jeanette Hoffman, a Republican consultant, said gun owners remain one of the party’s most dependable constituencies.
“This could have ramifications in the midterms if Second Amendment groups feel their constitutional rights are under attack by the Trump administration,” she said.
Weapons have frequently appeared at conservative protests in recent years. One prominent example is Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of killing two people and wounding another during a 2020 protest in Wisconsin. He was later praised by conservatives and met with Trump.
“Carry everywhere. It is your right,” Rittenhouse posted on X on Monday. - January 27, 2026