ICE shooting of Alex Pretti sparks NRA backlash, Trump U-turn

Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterisation of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon.

The death produced no clear shifts in US gun politics or policies, even as US President Donald Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarised immigration crackdown. But important voices in Trump’s coalition have called for a thorough investigation of Pretti’s death while also criticising inconsistencies in some Republicans’ Second Amendment stances.

If the dynamic persists, it could give Republicans problems as Trump heads into a midterm election year with voters already growing sceptical of his overall immigration approach. The concern is acute enough that Trump’s top spokeswoman sought on Monday to reassert his brand as a staunch gun rights supporter.

“The president supports the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens, absolutely,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Leavitt qualified that “when you are bearing arms and confronted by law enforcement, you are raising … the risk of force being used against you”.

That still marked a retreat from the administration’s previous messages about the shooting of Pretti. It came the same day the president dispatched border tsar Tom Homan to Minnesota, seemingly elevating him over Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who had been in charge in Minneapolis.