Stay in your lane
2026-01-25, 9:59 AM PST.
We’ve all heard the argument at this point: Don’t interfere with federal agents. They’re carrying out law enforcement duties. Actions have consequences.
Greg Bovino just said the right to bear arms “don’t [sic] count when you … disrupt law enforcement.” Lindsay Graham said “An armed man trying to impede a lawful arrest is a recipe for disaster.” Nevermind the fact that, according to two eyewitnesses testifying last night, he never held his legally-registered firearm in his hands.
Setting aside Bovino’s ignorance of the Constitution, you know what else is a recipe for disaster? Announcing in advance that you’re sending thousands of masked, unnamed, unidentifiable federal agents to a specific American city well in advance, giving criminals time to leave before you arrive. Then, when one of these agents immediately confronts a protestor by saying “get out of the fucking car” and reaches into her vehicle, and another goes against decades of consistent protocol to never approach a vehicle from the front, you defend them after they shoot a fleeing citizen twice in the head through her side window. Nobody was in danger the moment those shots were fired.
It’s also disastrous to lie about these things: Trump said that Renée Good “ran over” her shooter. Video shows him walking away from the incident. In fact, the video Trump posted shows him standing upright as Good’s car passes him. In related news, Bovino stated that Pretti was “brandishing” his gun. I believe sworn affidavits. I believe my eyes.
But we should stay in our lane. Nobody would die if we just let these federal agents do their thing. Of course, we can never be sure who truly is an agent and who is a just an unlicensed criminal dressed like them. They have no badges, no ID, no identifiable markings. Anyone could buy a mask, brandish a gun, and claim to be one of them. They’re entering businesses without warrants, just like any unlicensed criminal would do. The FBI warned about this in November 2025, citing several then-recent cases.
When a masked man drives up, yells at you, and reaches into your vehicle, you don’t have time to verify whether he’s a real agent or an unlicensed criminal. Maybe you comply. If he’s an unlicensed criminal, you’ve just been kidnapped. If he’s an agent, you’ve been detained, maybe beaten, maybe shot dead in the street. If you don’t die in the street, maybe you die in a detention center (ICE has reported six detainee deaths in the past four weeks, filter for “Detainee Death Notifications”).
Let’s rewind. Maybe you panic and drive away. We know how that turned out.
Was that violence really caused by Good? Is there nothing these federal agents could have done differently to reduce her risk of death? Aren’t they supposed to protect us?
Good would be alive today if she hadn’t been there in the first place. Good would be alive today if Jonathan Ross had followed protocol and stepped aside. Good would be alive today if agents hadn’t immediately yelled at her, ignored the Fourth Amendment, and tried to forcibly remove her from her vehicle. Good would, maybe, still be alive if she had complied with the agent’s likely illegal order.
Aren’t agents supposed to question their orders and disobey illegal ones?
“Stay in your lane.”
Shouldn’t they stay in theirs? Did they not take an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic? Is an illegal order not an enemy to the Constitution? Is a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure not an illegal order? Is a blanket memo to enter homes without judicial warrants not something for all of us to question? Have they not left their lane by shooting a pummeled citizen dead on the street?
I am not a lawyer. Maybe I should stay in my lane.
But I am an American.
This is my lane.