Quote of the Day
The people who scream the loudest about government tyranny have nothing to say. The same people who fantasize about standing up to federal overreach have vanished at the precise moment federal power killed a citizen exercising a constitutional right.
This is the tell.
We have seen this movement erupt before. When Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and killed two people, he was transformed into a cause. He was fundraised for, defended relentlessly, and held up as proof that armed citizens are the last line of order in a chaotic world. The weapon was the point, and the violence was excused. The narrative was protected at all costs.
But when a man lawfully carrying a firearm is tackled, disarmed, and shot anyway, there is no mobilization from the same crowd. The difference is not the gun. It is who the gun is allowed to protect.
Because the gun-rights movement has never actually been about freedom. It is about hierarchy and about who gets to feel powerful and in charge. It is about whose fear counts, and whose death does not.
Dead children are acceptable collateral. Dead immigrants are invisible. Dead Black and brown men are routine. And now, apparently, dead armed citizens are still not enough to stir outrage unless they fit the right political story.
Cassie McClure
January 31, 2026
Thoughts and prayers for the Second Amendment
The tell is that McClure left out the part where Alex Petti, who is never named in the article, committed a crime and was in the process of being arrested when he was disarmed and erroneously shot during the scuffle. A criminal getting shot by law enforcement during an arrest is much different than Rittenhouse who successfully defended himself against multiple criminals’ intent on killing or seriously injuring him.
The two situations are not analogous. It has nothing to do with the political affiliation, skin color, or immigration status. It has to do with whether the people involved were law-abiding or not.
The only thing clear in the article is McClure does not have a good grasp of reality and/or is being deliberately deceptive.
They are incapable of discerning the nuance of the situation.
Somebody who starts a fight vs somebody who finishes one.
He was actually committing a minimum of two (2) crimes at the time he died.
First, MN carry law states unequivocally that you MUST carry both your permit card AND your driver’s license when you are carrying a concealed firearm. He had NEITHER of these on his person, thus committing a misdemeanor crime.
Second, he was physically interfering with federal officers in the performance of their duty. Whether he personally likes the outcome of that duty or not is irrelevant; what IS relevant is that he was committing a felony crime.
Then she continues her nonsense spewing garbage about “dead children”, and “dead immigrants”. Who? Where? Under what circumstances? I’m actually a little surprised she didn’t try to continue the new left-wing myth that La Migra is targeting 5-year-old girls when what actually happened is that;
– The girl’s father dumped her and abandoned her in the middle of the street in a MN winter, and
– The girl’s mother wants absolutely nothing to do with her, also abandoning her, and
– Officers from ICE took the girl under their wing and did their best to keep her warm, safe, fed, and amused. Evil bastards, making those parents look like orcs.
I have read where several people mentioned he was not carrying his concealed carry license. But see that as, essentially, irrelevant in the case. At the time of the shooting, law enforcement was totally unaware of this, right? So, it could not be used as justification to detain or arrest him.
And that would be a violation of state law, which ICE and other federal agents are not tasked with knowing, let alone enforcing.
Totally separate jurisdictions.
I was attempting to contradict her statement about “…a man LAWFULLY carryiing…” when in fact he was NOT.
I regret that I was not clear.
I listened to an interesting podcast with Jim Bovard, who likened this incident to Ruby Ridge. I think that’s a bit much, but after listening to his understanding of the events, if he is correct, this was a faure of training and policy as well as stupidity on the part of the mob and governments. Gun restrictions should be opposed no matter who is involved and LEOs should be trained not to panic at the sight of one. I’m extremely skeptical of the excercise of government power even if it seems to be or is obviously directionally correct. I have no idea what really happened, it’s a tragedy all around, caused by the mess The Biden administration purposely left us with.
The cases for Alex Pretti and Kyle Rittenhouse are not at all the same. That’s one thing McClure isn’t seeing (or more probably, is well aware of but also knows her readers aren’t).
Both were armed, and both attended a protest that turned violent. That’s where the similarities end.
Rittenhouse shot three men who were trying to either seize his gun or assault him with weapons of their own — no law enforcement was involved — after he made multiple attempts to retreat and gave multiple verbal and non-verbal warnings, and was ultimately found to be acting in self-defense.
Pretti attempted to physically intervene in law enforcement officers performing their duties, got into a physical altercation with those officers as they tried to (legally) arrest him for it, and got shot after they discovered he was armed. (Is he entirely to blame? I’d say no, there’s a solid case to be made that at least one of the ICE agents “jumped the gun” in shooting, but the agents probably aren’t entirely to blame, either.)
Rittenhouse made every attempt to avoid conflict and shot criminal assailants. Pretti intentionally escalated conflict and scuffled with law enforcement officers.
The two are not the same and cannot be reasonably compared. Not that that stops disingenuous (if I’m being polite) people like McClure.
“….and LEOs should be trained not to panic at the sight of one…”
As a general rule, they don’t. They do, however, consider the possibility of a gun being a potential threat because “managing threats” and “preventing threats from manifesting into actual negative actions” are in their job description, and the demeanor and actions of whomever is carrying the gun figure into that heavily.
If someone is standing quietly and watching even openly carried holstered firearms usually don’t receive much more than attentive observation; when, however, the carrier is screaming at you, kicking parts off the car you’re in and physically interfering with carrying out your job, that information goes into the decision matrix and ups the possibility the gun, if one is present, may be used in a negative manner from “possibility” to “maybe a probability” and that determines how police respond to it, and the person possessing it. It’s significant that upon discovery of the firearm the first intent was to gain control over it and then proceed from there; that the individual possessing the firearm was physically resisting at the time; had the resistance, and prior physically violent action not occurred, I doubt the mere possession of a gun would have been an issue at all, at least not until – and if – subsequent execution of custodial action (meaning an arrest and application of restraints) occurred.
“Don’t do none, won’t be none” comes immediately to mind, as does John Farnam’s Rule of Four Stupids. Unfortunately, there seems to be a substantial surplus of people who do not understand the concept, and gravity, of crossing a threshold.
As for whether or not possession oif a firearm at that place and time was lawful, that’s pretty much an “angels dancing on the head of a pin” issue – pretty irrelevant. For those of us who subscribe to the philosophy of “shall not be infringed” the only thing that should have mattered was demonstrated intent followed by action, not mere possession, and one does have to question the intent, and wisdom, of becoming directly involved physically in such a confrontation, whether armed or unarmed; when the issue was “citizen protestors and demonstrators” vs “armed government agents enforcing federal law;” to what end was the possession of a firearm considered necessary? Against whom, or what, was it to be used, and under what circumstances or provocations would it be brought into play? I doubt the whistling overweight blue hairs were much of a threat to anyone, and it’s unlikely the local criminal element would choose an area heavily populated by government law enforcement agents as the optimum venue to practice their trade. Who does that leave to complete the equation?
So, just the completely factual, non-opinion-in-any-way inaccuracies that I can pick out from a casual reading:
1) “The same people who fantasize about standing up to federal overreach have vanished at the precise moment federal power killed a citizen exercising a constitutional right.” Interfering with law enforcement when they are legally doing their job is not “exercising a constitutional right”.
2) “When Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15” He did not cross the state line with the AR. (The guy who pointed a gun AT him crossed a state line with that gun, which he had illegally since he was a felon, but somehow, that never matters to people like this.)
3) “But when a man lawfully carrying a firearm” He was not “lawfully carrying”, as has been established multiple times around here (and plenty of other places).
There are plenty of other deceits and inaccuracies, those are just the boring, basic-facts ones. Her points lie directly on direct, obvious lies, and then she stacks it with double-standards, deceit, and projection of the left’s own BS (her last paragraph is pure, unadulterated projection).
Too common to really be outraged about, but definitely tiresome, deceitful BS.
“It has to do with whether the people involved were law-abiding or not.”
She’s trying to point out the double standard conservatives have, but used the wrong comparison. The correct comparison is to the Bundys at Malheur, where conservatives were perfectly happy to see them violate the law and hold the feds at bay for an extended period of time (which is a felony). They weren’t law abiding, but nobody suggested the feds had any right to go in and shoot them for failing to comply.
Also, “law abiding” isn’t without its own nuance. Pretti’s alleged crime is “obstructing legal process,” which is at most a gross misdemeanor, not a felony. How law enforcement can legally (and morally) respond to a crime changes depending on the crime: there’s no scenario where someone committing a gross misdemeanor warrants that level of physical attack by law enforcement, and were this a normal incident going to court, the cop doing the shooting would be going to jail and Pretti’s family would be getting a multi-million dollar payout.
Instead we get a bunch of disingenuous arguments about whether he was lawfully carrying based on whether he had his license on him or not, which are just a “predicated crime” to justify excessive use of force, and would not be presented against a conservative in the same situation. (If you think I’m wrong on that, show me posts from the past on this blog where conservatives have justified excessive use of force against conservatives carrying guns and committing misdemeanors).
(Just found this additional example from Joohn Choe: https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-think-i-want-149855346
Consider Philando Castile: licensed gun owner, Minnesota concealed carry permit holder, doing literally everything right – he Informed the officer calmly, as required by law, that he was armed, and he was shot dead anyway. The NRA broke their silence only to have their spokeswoman blame Castile for his own death because there was marijuana in his car.
Philando Castile was a licensed gun owner exercising his rights in a concealed carry state and was murdered for it, and the organization that claims to fight for gun owners’ rights did nothing to defend him.)
“The correct comparison is to the Bundys at Malheur, where conservatives were perfectly happy to see them violate the law and hold the feds at bay for an extended period of time (which is a felony). They weren’t law abiding, but nobody suggested the feds had any right to go in and shoot them for failing to comply.”
That’s a much better analogy, yes, though one very important difference (among several) is that the Bundy’s were actually correct, as the courts eventually agreed, and the Feds were the ones in the wrong on the underlying issue that started the whole thing. That’s a fairly big thing to leave out of your analysis. In that way, the analogy still fails pretty badly. The placement of the standoff (deliberately far away from literally all potential bystanders and entirely symbolic until the Feds brought in a MASSIVE response) is another significant difference. (To preempt a bad argument from you, the Feds aren’t choosing this location… it’s where the illegals that aren’t being handed over by the local police ARE.)
There are multiple examples of people being killed for just having a gun (or even NOT actually having a gun – see Daniel Shaver’s execution by police). The right complains about MANY of these.
For example, I recognize the name and case of Philando Castile, and I saw multiple complaints from gun rights activists and groups about it. It was a travesty.
And even around here, I have personally pointed out *potential* problems with the Pretti shoot (particularly the possibility that an *officer* caused the AD that was the trigger for it), as have others (though not the problems you are fixating on, most of which aren’t actually problems). That he was not LEGALLY carrying at the time is still factual, and people claiming otherwise are, at best, factually wrong.
“Pretti’s alleged crime is “obstructing legal process,” which is at most a gross misdemeanor, not a felony.”
That is utterly irrelevant to whether it was a good shoot or not – which I still haven’t seen enough about to feel comfortable saying for sure it was good.
But Pretti *definitely* commited the FA part. Doesn’t make the shooting justified (yet to be determined – officers may indeed go to jail), but it does make him an idiot who significantly contributed to his own death.
“The NRA broke their silence only to have their spokeswoman blame Castile for his own death because there was marijuana in his car. ”
The NRA gets a LOT of venom from conservatives over stuff like that. Note that despite their long history, name recognition, and all the free PR they get from the left using them as The Boogeyman, their membership has been declining… because of BS like that.
“the Bundy’s were actually correct, as the courts eventually agreed, and the Feds were the ones in the wrong on the underlying issue that started the whole thing”
But neither the Bundys nor LEO had any way of knowing what courts were going to decide in the future. As far as everyone there knew, LEO was issuing commands that legally had to be complied with. You can’t make compliance dependent on what one party thinks courts may decide in the future about who was right.
For example, many of ICE’s recent tactics are widely held to constitute excessive force, but until those cases work their way through the courts there’s no way to know which way any given set of tactics will be decided. If “believing you’re right” is enough to justify disobeying an LEO order, Pretti is just as justified in his actions as the Bundys were, because for all you know he will end up being right.
““Pretti’s alleged crime is “obstructing legal process,” which is at most a gross misdemeanor, not a felony.” That is utterly irrelevant to whether it was a good shoot or not”
It will be entirely relevant if it ever goes to court. There are rules of engagement for LEO, and one of those rules is to approach a suspect in a manner appropriate to the crime in question, and use an appropriate amount of force to address any threat. There’s no way the LEO actions here pass that test. You (LEO) don’t get to throw somebody to the ground and apply handcuffs if you see them jaywalking. There are standards.
“For example, I recognize the name and case of Philando Castile, and I saw multiple complaints from gun rights activists and groups about it. It was a travesty.”
I asked Gemini about the Philando Castile case and earlier posts on this blog, and it noted that Joe came out against the cops’ position, but many commenters supported it. I asked for percentages of comment positions, and it estimated the following:
– “Castile was murdered” – about 45%, including Joe
– “The cop was justified/it was Castile’s fault” – 35%
– “He committed a crime (marijuana possession) and was therefore fair game” – 20%
Seems like the breakdown for Pretti here is biased more towards the latter part of that breakdown, with many commenters saying failure to comply makes him fair game and far fewer saying he was murdered.
“But neither the Bundys nor LEO had any way of knowing what courts were going to decide in the future”
To know for sure? Of course not.
But to look at the claims in question, look at the laws in question, and come to reasonable conclusions? Hmm, have you waited for the courts to rule on if what happened with Pretti or Good was legal or not before you made up your mind? NO? Hmmm…
I actually think the men who holed up in that abandoned shack on Federal property should have been sentenced to a little jail time. The insane over-reaction of the Feds about two guys trespassing in an abandoned shock doesn’t mean they didn’t… trespass in an abandoned shack. As I’ve pointed out to you several times before, and still agree with now, breaking the law, even laws that are wrong, should still be punished up until the point that you get the laws changed. That’s what many protesters of bad laws have gone through in our history, often quite proudly and without any anger at the police officers taking them to jail – we need officers who will follow the law like that, barring just completely unreasonable and immoral things like “machine gunning *actually* peaceful protesters”.
“For example, many of ICE’s recent tactics are widely held to constitute excessive force”
By whom? Not people checking law and precedent. That’s wish-casting and gaslighting.
“There’s no way the LEO actions here pass that test. You (LEO) don’t get to throw somebody to the ground and apply handcuffs if you see them jaywalking.”
But you do is they are physically impeding you legally arresting someone.
“Seems like the breakdown for Pretti here is biased more towards the latter part of that breakdown, with many commenters saying failure to comply makes him fair game and far fewer saying he was murdered.”
Which makes perfect sense to me – I am disappointed so many wouldn’t see the travesty of the Castille killing, but the Pretti case is at the very least convoluted, badly reported, muddied by AI image abuses, and part of a much larger mess of criminal behaviour from large mobs. Even if that particular shoot isn’t good (and it may not be, as I have repeatedly stated), it is a MUCH MUCH less obvious case, with much actual and physically violent criminality involved, as opposed to the singular and easily-understood Castillo case.
No one ever said the Bundy’s were correct at Malheur.
What they were protesting was an unlawful use of federal law. (Which isn’t happening in this case.)
Plus, that reserve was closed at the time anyway. So if you and your commie slaver friends want to go freeze your asses off way out in bum-F nowhere to protest the arrest of illegal criminal invades before getting shot for it? Please do. I for one could care less if you’all want to take over Malheur for the winter.
But none the less.
It’s OK for the feds to set up an ambush? Gun a man down from behind with his hands up?
And just to complete our hypocrisy all around.
I’m going to care about the “Pretti Good” shoots as much as you and your commie friends did Lavoy Finnicum.
Cheers all around, comrade!
All good Christians here I see continuing their fantasies
Yep. Just with less delusion than you evolutionary-revolutionarys.
Try “Probability Zero” for a hint.
On second thought, it has math in it. So not something you should try. (Wouldn’t want your head to explode.)
“The only thing clear in the article is McClure does not have a good grasp of reality and/or is being deliberately deceptive.”
Give her credit; she got that across effortlessly.