Mr. Pretti’s killing has set off a debate within the gun rights community itself about whether Mr. Trump has a point.
Chase Welch, who works for a public relations firm that represents firearms manufacturers and is a self-described Second Amendment absolutist, said the shooting has revealed a fractured subculture wrestling with what exactly they stand for.
“The amount of vitriol in the community has been disheartening,” Mr. Welch said. “This is so far past the point of productivity I don’t know what to do with it anymore.”
In public, many of the most prominent gun rights groups have condemned Mr. Trump’s remarks.
“I don’t know what to say except, ‘Mr. President, you’re wrong,’” Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said in an interview on the right-wing news channel OANN.
Mr. Brown called the arguments made by Mr. Trump and others “patently ludicrous.”
“They kept saying that you shouldn’t take a gun to a protest. All I can say is, that’s the place you actually want it, and might need it,” Mr. Brown said. “Not only do I disagree, I resent the fact that they would even claim that.”
But, for now, Mr. Trump’s words are just that.
They stand in contrast to actions the president took after the Las Vegas shooting that left at least 60 people dead in 2017 and the Parkland, Fla., school shooting just months later. Mr. Trump’s first administration banned bump stocks, an accessory that allows a semiautomatic weapon to shoot like a machine gun. The ban was eventually struck down on procedural grounds by the Supreme Court.
Since Mr. Trump made his comments about Mr. Pretti, the National Rifle Association has condemned the president’s ideas without criticizing him by name.
“The N.R.A. unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere they have a legal right to be,” the group wrote on X.
After a Trump-nominated prosector posted that approaching law enforcement officials with a gun meant “there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,” the N.R.A. called that statement “dangerous and wrong.
The N.R.A., once the dominant force in the gun rights movement, is now diminished and divided after a series of financial scandals and damaging lawsuits that accused its executives of spending the nonprofit’s funds on lavish benefits for themselves. In its place have risen a number of new, smaller, often more strident gun-rights groups.
In interviews, some of those groups have offered similar criticisms of Mr. Trump’s words. But they said their unhappiness was tempered because — whatever he said — Mr. Trump’s administration still seemed supportive of loosening gun laws.
“His statement was perhaps made without all the information,” said Adam Kraut, the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation. He said that Mr. Trump’s administration had already demonstrated its support for expanding gun rights, including by filing lawsuits seeking to make Los Angeles County and the U.S. Virgin Islands move more swiftly to issue permits for concealed firearms.
“They’re certainly much better than anything I’ve ever seen,” he said.
One of his colleagues at the Second Amendment Foundation, Kostas Moros, on Friday posted on X a list of 17 “positives” from the Trump administration, including the establishment late last year of a new section at the Justice Department focused only on gun rights. Below that, he listed just six negatives, the last of which was “Trump’s dumb comments following Pretti shooting.”
“While not any policy shift, rhetoric still matters,” he wrote.
Several gun rights groups said they were hoping that, despite Mr. Trump’s comments, the administration would support a bill that would give gun owners more freedom to carry concealed firearms without a permit nationwide. During the 2024 election, Mr. Trump said he supported that idea.
— David A. Fahrenthold and Thomas Gibbons-Neff in Despite ‘Wrong’ Comments, Gun Rights Groups Say Trump Has Their Back
People say stupid things when discussing that which they know little about. It is a forgivable, teachable moment.
Really stupid people legislate on that which they know nothing about. Unforgivable.
Pretti should not have had his gun at any protest. He didn’t have the temperament. He didn’t have the ability to de-escalate. He had no self-control.
That is what the president should have said.
He demonstrated he was a threat to the police. Twice.
He should have been arrested the first time, but the local police were ordered to stand down.
And the federal Police don’t do local law enforcement.
So the final option was to simply kill him when he became a threat to the federal police force. By attempting to draw his weapon.
A civil right not exercised is soon lost.
I open carry in front of the police all the time. And have been doing so for 10 years now.
But then I’m not putting my hands on the police when I’m doing so, unlike this stupid white liberal gun owning fool.
With Civil Rights come responsibilities. A lot of very stupid people forget that part. Or they actively ignore it.
I’m getting what I voted for with President Trump. Never forget.
The libertarian candidate for president Gary Johnson openly supported gun control.
Given Pretti’s aggressive unhinged behavior, volatile hostile and violent mindset and actions and demonstrated intent for provoking conflict and confrontation, and conspiring of Pretti – no, he should not have bought his gun along with him and that was a bad decision. Those who carry guns have a responsibility to not intentionally place ourselves in situations where we would intentionally provoke an incident that would let us, gives us an excuse to, resort to use of a firearm and indications are that Pretti was intending to do that on 13 and 24 Jan.
Being armed if you are peacefully protesting/demonstrating, and being prepared to protect your self from unprovoked attack or an attack beyond your control if its needed is an entirely different thing from what Pretti was doing. And although he may have had the mindset at some point of ‘if I need to defend myself’, the nature of Pretti’s demonstrated intent and intentional physical confrontations and actions and his own spoken intent and his threats of violence against federal law enforcement removed him from protections of valid 1st amendment protected protest and 2nd amendment protected lawful carry.
On 24 Feb he had indicated he was going to shoot federal law enforcement, and had been threatening them and trying to provoke confrontation, just a short while before his team member started her video of him. And on 13 Jan he tried to provoke federal law enforcement into ‘hurting’ him by attacking their vehicle and spitting on them and threatening them then yelling at them ‘hurt me’ and he was armed that day as well. They were leaving the area and he intentionally stopped them from leaving by his violent unhinged attack on their vehicle. Its almost like he was trying to create an excuse to ‘defend’ himself on 13 Jan.
So in this aspect, Trump was correct as Pretti should not have been there armed.
However, in the very broad nature of Trumps statements he was not correct. But given the very early information from the scene the government was going on, and the confused emotional state of things at the time I can kinda see such broad comments being made without context applied or understood. We have all done something similar in some aspect – little or confusing information or even incorrect information or even things not known and we make a knee jerk or incorrect statement about what ever the situation is. But no, in the very broad nature of Trumps statements he was not correct. Firearms ownership and possession is a constitutional right, and carry/possession of such even if protesting is still a constitutional right, however, if one’s intent or actions are of a criminal or ‘trying to create the excuse’ nature like Pretti demonstrated then its not really exercising a constitutional right.
testing
jwm, this must be a really long test. You been posting that for a few days now. Is it a multiple choice test?
Every comment I make here gets moderated. Even ‘testing’.
At ttag they just vanish. Sometimes they show up later. Sometimes not.
At this point I’m about done.
I’ve noticed this, too and can’t figure out why every comment is pending. Will keep looking. Sorry for the hassle.
“New York Times Disappointed That Gun Rights Orgs Still Support Trump After Post-Pretti Shooting Comments”
Of course they are disappointed. Its a dream of the anti-gun to cause splits and disharmony in the gun rights community – a divide and conquer scheme if you will. If they can get the gun rights groups fighting among their selves, they can exploit that lack of cohesion to their advantage legally as there will be less gun rights orgs willing to fight them in court because they are polarized against a unifying factor like Trump.
Trump may have been wrong in this case, or may have done something we didn’t like in the past, and the Bondi DOJ may not be doing everything we wished they would, and maybe every little thing is not working out like we wished – but Trump is the first single point 2A-rights unifying factor to come along in government in a long time and after years of constant attack from democrats and anti-gun organizations then the Biden tyranny on all constitutional rights including the 2A its nice to have a powerful government point that’s willing to stand up for the constitution overall even if sometimes we may not like them. So yeah, gun rights orgs still support Trump and the New York Times is disappointed over it. We also didn’t like our parents or siblings or other relatives sometimes, but overall they are still family and we didn’t abandon them (unless you are a raging left winger then you probably did abandon your family over stuff like they voted for someone you didn’t like or did not vote the way you told them to vote or would not wear a mask during covid or objected to illegal alien rapists and murderers or they exercised a constitutional right you didn’t like).
“Mr. Trump’s administration still seemed supportive of loosening gun laws.”
This is a lie. Its a lie because the concept of ‘lax or loose gun laws’ is a myth created by anti-gun.
Every time there is a gun law or a change to gun laws the anti-gun do not like they call it a ‘loose’ or ‘lax’ gun law. They think ‘permit-less carry’ laws are ‘loose’ or ‘lax’ gun laws because they think everyone should be subjected to purchase and ownership and carry permits, and a list of guns they approve of, and universal background checks for the possession or purchase of anything gun related like buy a scope for your rifle then background check and pick it up 10 days later and get another background check – buy 20 rounds of ammo today then background check but another 20 rounds tomorrow then another background check and maybe in 10 days you can pick up the first 20 rounds and the other 20 rounds 10 days after that cause there’s a waiting period on each purchase and when you do go to pick it up then another background check and that’s only if you have a permit to have ammo, need a part for your gun then need a permit to purchase a gun part and a background check and then only IF its one of their approved-list parts – the anti-gun call this concept ‘common sense gun safety laws’ – we in the 2A/pro-gun community call it ‘unconstitutional’ and tyranny and oppression. Its a constitutional right, not ‘permission based roulette’.
Imagine there were anti-computer politicians and groups and having to do this if you wanted to purchase a computer to use to exercise your first amendment right – first is it on the approved list, then a background check, then a permit to purchase then a permit to posses then a permit to carry it somewhere then a 10 day waiting period before you could pick it up from the store then another background check when you did pick it up etc… any law anywhere else where you did not need to do all that would be a ‘lax’ or ‘loose’ computer law to anti-computer politicians and groups.
‘lax or loose gun laws’ is a myth created by anti-gun because they do not get their way for their ‘common sense gun safety laws’ that we in the 2A/pro-gun community call ‘unconstitutional’ and tyranny and oppression. Its a constitutional right, not ‘permission based roulette’.
About That TRO Regarding Evidence From the Pretti Shooting…
ht* tps://redstate.com/smoosieq/2026/02/02/about-that-tro-regarding-evidence-from-the-pretti-shooting-n2198767
[ note: in other words… the feds are acting legally and properly for preservation of the evidence and conducting the investigation.]