Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped spark a shift in the White House this week after expressing displeasure with the administration's characterization of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal agent in Minneapolis, as responsible for his own death for legally possessing a gun.

The death produced no clear changes in gun policy or policy in the United States, even as President Donald Trump changes the people in charge of his crackdown on immigration. But important voices in Trump's coalition have called for a thorough investigation into Pretti's death, while criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans' positions on the Second Amendment, which enshrines the right to bear arms in the Constitution.

If the dynamic persists, it could cause problems for Republicans in a midterm election year with voters already becoming skeptical about their overall approach to immigration. The concern is acute enough that Trump's top spokeswoman on Monday sought to reaffirm his image as a staunch defender of gun rights.

“The president absolutely supports the Second Amendment right to bear arms for law-abiding citizens,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

But she added that “when you are carrying weapons and confronting police, you are increasing... the risk that force will be used against you.”

Videos contradict initial statements from the administration

That still marked a step back from the administration's previous messages regarding Pretti's death. It came on the same day that Trump dispatched border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota, apparently elevating him above Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, who had been in charge in Minneapolis.

Within hours of Pretti's death on Saturday, Bovino suggested that Pretti “wanted... massacre the police,” and Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a gun and acted “violently” toward police officers.

“I don’t know of any peaceful protester who shows up with a gun and ammunition instead of a sign,” Noem said.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s mass deportation effort, went further on X, declaring that Pretti was “a murderer."

Videos from bystanders refute all of these claims, instead showing Pretti holding a cell phone and helping a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by a federal officer. Within seconds, Pretti was also sprayed and taken to the ground by several officers. No video released so far has shown him unsheathing his gun for which he had a permit to carry. The video shows a police officer taking the gun from him and walking away with it just before he

Reactions from gun rights advocates

The National Rifle Association (NRA), which has endorsed Trump three times, issued a statement that began by blaming Minnesota Democrats whom it accused of stoking the protests. But the group lashed out after a federal prosecutor in California said on No one, Patel said, can “bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any kind of protest you want. It's that simple.”

Erich Pratt, vice president of Gun Owners of America, was incredulous.

“I have attended protest demonstrations armed, and no one was hurt,” he noted on CNN.

Conservative officials across the country made the same connection between the First and Second Amendment.

“Showing up at a protest is very American. Showing up with a gun is very American,” state Rep. Jeremy Faison, who leads the Republican caucus in Tennessee, said in

A different response from the past

Liberals, conservatives and nonpartisan experts pointed out how the administration's current response differs from past positions by right-wingers: Many Trump supporters had guns during the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump pardoned them all.

Republicans complained in 2020 when Mark and Patricia McCloskey had to pay fines after pointing guns at protesters who They marched through their neighborhood in St. Louis after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And then there's Kyle Rittenhouse, a counterprotester acquitted after fatally shooting two men and wounding another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the post-Floyd protests.

“You remember Kyle Rittenhouse and how he was made into a hero by the right,” said Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman and Trump's lawyer during one of his first-term impeachment trials. “Alex Pretti's gun was being carried legally... He never brandished it.”

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who has studied the history of the gun debate, said the current controversy “shows how tribal we have become.” Republicans spent years talking about the Second Amendment as a means to fight government tyranny, he said.

“But as soon as someone perceived as being on the left does the same thing, they abandon that position,” Winkler observed.

Meanwhile, Democrats who have criticized open carry of guns for years are not doing so when it comes to Pretti, Winkler added.

Uncertain effects in an election year

The backlash against administration by Trump supporters comes as Republicans try to protect their slim majority in the House of Representatives and face several competitive Senate races.

Perhaps with that in mind, Republican and administration spokespeople were reticent Monday to talk about the issue at all.

House Republican campaign manager, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, is sponsoring the party's most significant gun legislation of this legislative term, a proposal to make gun permits state concealed carry are reciprocal in all states.

The bill was approved by the House Judiciary Committee last fall. Asked Monday whether Pretti's death and the protests in Minneapolis could affect the debate, an aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson offered no update on the bill's prospects.

Gun rights advocates have scored many legislative victories in Republican-controlled state legislatures in recent decades, from eliminating gun-free zones around schools and churches to expanding gun rights in schools, on college campuses and in other public spaces.

William Sack, legal director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said he was surprised and disappointed by the administration's initial statements about Pretti. Such words “will likely cost you dearly with a foundation on which they depend.”

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Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this story.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.