In a heated interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash on Sunday, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said his agents were the real “victims” in the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protestor.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday. In videos of the deadly altercation between Pretti and several agents, he can be seen placing himself between an agent and several women that he was shoving. Pretti is sprayed with a chemical irritant and then wrestled to the ground, where one agent repeatedly hit him in the head with the irritant’s metal canister. Pretti, who was legally carrying a firearm, was fatally shot by agents while on the ground.
DHS immediately painted Pretti as a threat, saying that officers feared for their lives because Pretti was legally carrying a firearm. Multiple videos of the shooting contradicted the official line that Pretti was threatening agents. On Sunday, Bash pressed Bovino for evidence “that he was intending to massacre law enforcement.”
When Bash repeatedly asserted Pretti’s right to carry his firearm, Bovino made the bold claim that Pretti forfeited his Second Amendment rights via his actions.
Weird thing is this is the “government takeover” the 2nd amendment nuts have been screaming about for generations. Not at all surprised that they’re mostly silent now. Also not at all surprised it their own political party who’s doing this.
These people have been led around by the nose their whole lives. The same people who have been shouting this nonsense at the 2nd losers are the ones who were inevitably going to pull this.
I keep seeing this take and it’s half thought out at best. First of all, I don’t think it’s true. There are plenty of armed citizens not sympathetic to ICE in any way. They are reasonable adults who have not felt it necessary up to this point to engage in a last resort effort that is likely to endanger tens of thousands of people at minimum. You may think we are already past that point, and we may well be, but you can’t deny that wanting to be sure it is necessary before taking up arms against their countrymen is exactly what a reasonable adult with a firearm should do.
Second, if what you are saying is true and there are no reasonable citizens with guns then the logical course of action is to buy a gun, organize in your community, and practice your 2nd Amendment rights as you see fit. They don’t just apply to conservatives despite what Bovino is trying to argue. Complaining about the past isn’t going to change the future so if you see a gap, fill it.
Now I don’t know if you’re American or not but I do see this sentiment from Americans on a regular basis and that is who am I addressing.
I don’t think they meant “all gun owning citizens” when they said “2nd amendment nuts”. I think they were talking about a particular type of person who bases their whole identity around owning guns to fight against the government.
I don’t think he’s saying the second amendment tells you use your guns to shoot people when there is anything you consider tyrannical government oppression, only that having the guns are supposed to preempt that problem in theory — and the theory is clearly invalidated.
The fact that traditional second amendment proponents (the NRA) have backed away from that theory and now side with the proto fascist tyrannical government demonstrates the argument was always bankrupt and was never a principle in practice.
That said — you correctly point out that there still room for people to actually start using said guns for shooting, which is indeed the logical next step. Putin is shitting himself laughing.
Fire extinguishers don’t ward off fires. You need to actually use them after the fire has started. The same goes with firearms and tyranny. They don’t prevent it, but they can be used against it.
Fires don’t fear you rising up against them
No no no. You’re thinking of the Civil Rights Act. That’s what they were complaining about.
Cf Reagan and California’s gun control laws.