Minnesota, Alex Pretti and the Second Amendment

We are living in a very weird time.

Currently, all of the usual anti-gun people and organizations are falling all over themselves defending a concealed carrier who was killed by ICE yesterday in Minnesota. Hell, Brady: United Against Gun Violence even pointed out that he was a “legal gun owner” just before they went off the rails and referred to law enforcement as “Institutionalized armed intimidation.”

What we do know is that Alex Pretti was a 37 year old nurse who worked for the VA. By all accounts, he was a kind, caring person and not a criminal. It is also reported that he had a valid concealed carry permit, although it is also being reported that he did not have his ID or permit on him when he was killed, which is mostly irrelevant to the situation as a whole.

It is being widely claimed that Pretti was doing nothing but filming as a “legal observer.” The following image is being pushed by left leaning media outlets and liberal politicians as evidence of that fact. Some are going as far as saying “Alex Pretti was shot for daring to film ICE.”

I will not dispute that he was indeed there filming, but claiming he was “shot for filming” is the equivalent of saying “Mike Brown was shot for jaywalking.” More on that later.

We all now know that Alex Pretti was also concealed carrying a Sig P320. Some accounts say he had one spare mag, while others claim he had two spare mags.

Yes, the 2A applies to people with whom I disagree politically.

As a pro-gun, 2A advocate, I have absolutely no issue with Pretti carrying a gun, although personally I take issue with the gun he chose to carry.

I commend Pretti for going through all the hurdles that allowed him to legally carry concealed in Minnesota.

Where I stop defending Pretti is at the point that he decided to go hands on with a federal law enforcement officer who was dealing with another protestor.

Wait, what are you talking about? The left leaning people are all screaming that Pretti was doing nothing wrong when ICE agents attacked him. They are saying ICE agents were the aggressors.

Like most “facts” coming from left leaning outlets, that is not remotely accurate.

In this screen grab that I took from cell phone footage, the ICE agent in the tan beanie had just pushed the protestor at the far left of the image. Pretti, in the black beanie immediately adjacent the ICE agent, stopped being a legal observer and became a suspect of assault on a peace officer at this very point, because he grabs the ICE agent who then turns to deal with Pretti.

Here is a short clip from that cell phone footage (full video available at the bottom of this post). I also slow it down and roll it back and forth so you can see what I am referring to.

I won’t pretend to know why that ICE agent pushed that person, but I do know from watching the video that Pretti put himself in the conflict, not the other way around.

If you have taken any concealed carry classes, or have been issued a concealed carry permit, you have probably heard repeated multiple times that the best, first step in a defensive use of deadly force is to do your best to avoid the situation.

I phrase it another way:

“Don’t do stupid shit while armed!”

Sadly for Pretti, he failed to heed that advice not once, but twice. His first mistake was going hands on with a law enforcement officer while armed. His second mistake was resisting arrest while armed. His two bad decisions lead him down the road that resulted in his death.

Was the shooting justified?

Now I am not suggesting that the shooting was lawfully justified, although I am leaning that way. Currently there is insufficient information to make that call. None of the cell phone videos that have been released of the incident show clearly enough what was happening.

One of those videos appears to show an ICE agent disarming Pretti just before he was shot, but to my knowledge that has not yet been confirmed. Also of great importance is if that fact (that he had been disarmed) was communicated to the cops wrestling with Pretti. If they were unaware that the gun had been removed, that is very important.

What an officer knows at the time of the shooting is the only thing that can be considered (Graham v. Connor). Facts discovered after the incident carry no weight on the legality of a shooting.

A perfect example of that is when a guy is robbing a store with a toy gun and gets shot by the cops (or anyone for that matter). Finding out after the fact that it was not a gun does not change a lawful shooting into an unlawful one.

From a legal standpoint, I have a feeling this incident is going to found as falling into the “lawful but awful” category. “Lawful but awful” meaning the shooting is legally justified but could have been avoided. That remains to be seen at this point.

What about Mike Brown?

My comparison between Pretti and Mike Brown is regarding the claims that Pretti’s death was based on an unrelated fact from the incident. Yes, Pretti was filming but it was his physical assault on a law enforcement officer that caused the cops to attempt to arrest him, not the filming.

Just like yes, Mike Brown was jaywalking when he was initially contacted, but it was his fighting and trying to take the officer’s gun that caused him to get shot.

The left has a very bad habit of attempting to ignore all the bad things someone does in an incident while trying to claim the incident was based on something entirely different.

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The following video is the best one I have seen thus far that captures the moments leading up to the shooting.