NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
The National Rifle Association pushed back Tuesday on President Donald Trump’s claims that Alex Pretti was wrong to bring a firearm to the anti-ICE protest where he was killed.
Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel argued that Americans “cannot” bring firearms to a protest this week. The NRA has vocally defended Pretti, however. The Veterans Affairs nurse was armed at the time of his killing, and he owned a permit for the firearm.
“The NRA unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere they have a legal right to be,” the NRA wrote in a post on X.
The Trump administration had highlighted Pretti’s firearm and the extra magazines he carried with him after the deadly shooting on Saturday.
DHS SAYS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SOUGHT AMID PRETTI SHOOTING HAD VIOLENT DOMESTIC HISTORY
President Trump and Kash Patel are facing criticism from gun groups. ( Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have the right to break the law and incite violence,” Patel said during an appearance on Fox News.
“You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” Trump said to reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller came under heavier fire after claiming that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement.”
MINN. ‘ANTIFA’ MEMBER CLAIMS HE’S ‘ON THE RUN’ AFTER CALLING FOR ‘ARMED’ MEN TO CONFRONT IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS
A screengrab from a video shows a law enforcement officer spraying irritants at Alex Pretti before he was fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 24, 2026. (Reuters)
The NRA isn’t the only Second Amendment group to speak out after Pretti’s death. Gun Owners of America vowed to “hold any administration accountable” on Tuesday.
“Peaceful protests while armed isn’t radical—it’s American. The First and Second Amendments protect those rights, and they always have,” GOA wrote on X.
The two Customs and Border Protection agents who fired their weapons during the confrontation with Pretti have since been placed on administrative leave.
A card with images of Renée Good and Alex Pretti lies among flowers and other mementos at a memorial in Minneapolis, Minn., on Jan. 27, 2026. On Jan. 24, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in Minneapolis, less than three weeks after an immigration officer fired on Renee Good, also 37, killing her in her car. The fatal shootings has reignited accusations that federal agents enforcing US President Donald Trump’s militarized immigration crackdown are inexperienced, under-trained and operating outside law enforcement norms. (Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The move is standard procedure and should not be viewed as any suspicion of wrongdoing, the Department of Homeland Security said. The agents are no longer on field duty, for now.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/national-rifle-association-counters-trump-carrying-gun-protest
