Even the US Gun Lobby Can’t Stomach Maga’s Lies About the Minneapolis Murder

A US citizen has once again been gunned down by federal agents in the streets of Minneapolis. Much like the killing of Renee Nicole Good, the execution (and let’s not beat around the bush here) of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was captured by multiple cameras from many different angles.

That hasn’t stopped Donald Trump’s administration from once again attempting to warp every dimension of reality around the murder, while casually slandering the dead. It won’t be long now before the commander-in-chief declares that up is down on Truth Social, while his lackeys and lapdogs flood CNN to accuse his critics of getting it all downside-up. 

But on this occasion, one of those lackeys went too far, inadvertently awakening an unlikely and potentially dangerous new enemy of the US government.

From the available video, the sequence of events leading up to the killing of Pretti appears fairly unassailable. The ICU nurse is seen on a street holding a camera up to film a group from among the more than 3,000 border patrol agents who have surged into Minneapolis since last month. 

He’s seen walking away from the group with two women, when an agent runs up, shoving one of the women to the ground. Pretti puts his body between the fallen woman and the agent who pushed her, who then sprays Pretti with a liquid, and even pulls down the hand Pretti raises to protect his face. 

Within moments, Pretti is on the ground, with at least six agents on top of him (a “scuffle” according to the BBC). One hits his head with an object, while the others pin him to the street. Seconds later, Pretti is shot. Ten times.

This, the Trump administration would have us believe, was an act of self-defence carried out by terrified federal agents. Border patrol chief Gregory Bovino on Sunday suggested that Pretti intended to shoot the agents, saying, “Good job for our law enforcement in taking him down.” Bovino, a slick media operator who appears to enjoy cosplaying SS commanders, also claimed the agents used two de-escalation techniques before firing. 

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem made a lightning-fast assessment: “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement.” As with Renee Nicole Good, Noem was quick to accuse Pretti of “committing an act of domestic terrorism.” 

Like all masters of modern manipulation, Trump and his team know the power of swift messaging. Before the guns stop smoking, the agreed narrative must be aired on every platform. It’s not important that half the audience watching will see right through it, because it’s the other half that matters. Increase everything, might be the motto: division, noise, the temperature. Everything, that is, except the public’s grip on reality. 

But in order to achieve the desired result, there must be a sliver of reality in which to anchor the fiction. In Good’s case, it was her car, “weaponised”, the US government claimed, for terrorism because it moved. In Pretti’s case, it was the presence of a gun – neither lifted, brandished, nor fired – that showed, they claim, the man’s intention to kill.

Hard as it might be to believe on this side of the Atlantic, nearly half (42.8%) of Minnesota households legally own a gun. And the state has few restrictions on how or where those weapons can be carried. Meaning, on the White House’s reasoning, Minneapolis may well be swarming with ‘domestic terrorists’ most days. 

Pretti had a legal permit for the gun he appears to have been wearing in the waistband of his trousers. And footage from the Washington Post shows an agent removing Pretti’s gun before any shooting began. So because Pretti appears to have broken no laws, being both legally in possession of a gun and unarmed when killed, Trump’s supporters have had to invent new ones. And that has made him potentially new and powerful enemies.

“If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,” said Pam Bondi appointee Bill Essayli, a California state prosecutor. “Don’t do it!”

That statement woke the big beast of American politics: the gun lobby. “This sentiment from the First Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California is dangerous and wrong,” said the powerful National Rifle Association, which gifted Trump $30m for his 2016 campaign. “Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalisations and demonising law-abiding citizens.”

“Federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm,” argued campaign group Gun Owners of America, a lobby that considers the NRA too liberal. “The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting – a right the federal government must not infringe upon.”

That reaction shows that for some US conservatives, the White House has committed the gravest sin: characterising the US constitution – and their precious second amendment – as a mandate for ‘domestic terrorism’ (though wasn’t that always its point?) 

But in a US under siege by Trump’s armed agents of chaos, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a new audience appears to be discovering their right to bear arms. In Minneapolis, some people are turning to guns to protect themselves from the federal government. 

“I’m generally a pretty liberal person, but when I saw videos of ICE jumping out of unmarked vehicles and nabbing people off the street, that’s when I actually bought my first AR15,” said one Minneapolis man recently. “You know, the second amendment is for all of us.”