Good guy with a gun
2026-01-26, 8:02 AM PST.
The Second Amendment doesn’t go away at protests. However, I understand why some people are concerned that a man brought a gun to a large gathering of people. What were his intentions? Was he a terrorist waiting for the right moment to strike?
Fortunately, questions have answers. Lots of evidence is already available. We have video evidence that the gun was in his waistband the whole time. It was never in his hands, according to all video evidence and sworn witness testimony. It appears that an agent takes the gun away from him as he’s being pummeled by several other agents, lying prone on the ground. In the heat of the moment, Alex Pretti never drew his gun.
But maybe he arrived with a different goal? Let’s see if we can find an answer. He spent his morning directing traffic and protesting peacefully, according to sworn witness testimony. He spent the past weeks protesting peacefully, from everything we know (surely the DHS would know by now if he’d been arrested recently, and they’d share it because it strongly supports their narrative!). He died trying to help a woman who had been pepper-sprayed for no apparent reason. The last gesture he made was to show his unarmed hands, as we see in the video above. He was pepper-sprayed and shoved to the ground by an agent, and more agents ran in. Alex Pretti’s last actions were to take deliberate steps to show he was not a threat, then to comfort a woman in pain.
But maybe he was a bad guy that got nervous before doing anything bad? Well, then he got nervous. That would make him someone who at some point intended to break the law, but never actually did. He’s someone who brought his legally registered firearm to a public space and kept it concealed for everyone’s safety, even as he was shoved, pepper-sprayed, then pummeled by ICE. After Pretti’s gun is apparently removed from his waistband by an agent who immediately runs away, a shot is fired. A pause. 10 more shots.
If the Trump administration believes he was a “rioter” and an “anarchist,” like Greg Bovino has strongly implied, they ought to show even a single shred of evidence: a photo of a smashed window, a looted business, a fire, an anarchist flag. Something. Mr. Bovino showed no evidence that Alex Pretti (or anyone around him) was violent in his 11 AM PST press conference yesterday. There have been a lot of press conferences, and I am just one man. But to the best of my knowledge, the Trump administration has put up no evidence contradicting the comprehensive videos and sworn witness testimony that we have, despite their many claims that Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse with Veterans Affairs who never drew his legally-registered firearm, was a “domestic terrorist” and “perhaps weak-minded.”
There has been a lot of gun violence in this country. Multiple people have tried to kill our current president. Someone killed two Minnesota Democratic party leaders and injured two more last year. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The trends are extremely bad.
And there is a common refrain from Second Amendment advocates: If good guys had guns, they’d be able to stop the bad guys with guns.
It seems almost inevitable that some anti-DHS protestor will try to shoot one or more agents. I don’t want anyone to die: not DHS, not immigrants, not native-borns, not anyone. People have already died: on the streets and in ICE custody. People have already been permanently blinded by “less-lethal” shots. Someone had their finger bitten off. And that’s to say nothing of the many who have been beaten, detained, searched without warrant, and generally harassed.
Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse. This is where people in a hospital are most likely to die. Alex Pretti had, by nature of his job, seen many gruesome injuries and many deaths. As a nurse, he worked to save as many as he could. As an employee of the US Department of Veterans Affairs, he recognized that sometimes force is necessary to accomplish goals. I mean, he could’ve worked anywhere: nurses are in high demand!
Maybe Alex Pretti wanted to be a good guy with a gun.
We can debate how smart that decision would be. But let’s be clear: he followed the law, and now people are questioning whether he deserved to die because of it, even though his last gesture was to show he wasn’t a threat. According to every bit of video evidence and sworn testimony we have, Alex Pretti was a nonviolent man. He was someone trying to help others in his career and in the minutes and moments leading up to his death. He was someone who did not want to threaten or harm law enforcement. As much as the Trump administration has claimed otherwise, they have presented not a shred of evidence to support their claims.
I believe my eyes.
I’ll add sources to this one later. Clearer videos are out there, but are getting harder to find as coverage grows, ironically.
2026-01-26: Recanted my statement to add more to this today (I am tired). Fixed typo and reworded sentence for clarity.