Disparaging Armed Citizens Undermines Trump Administration's Credibility

"I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Neom asserted in the aftermath of federal agents fatally shooting Minneapolis protestor Alex Pretti.

"As Kristi said, you cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple," FBI Director Kash Patel echoed.

“I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines, that’s a lot of bad stuff,” President Donald Trump added.

Pirro Leads the Charge

“Hold my beer!” United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and Fox News/administration darling Jeanine Pirro weighed in.

Not really. What she actually said was. “You bring a gun into the district, you mark my words, you’re going to jail,” Pirro said in the interview. “I don’t care if you have a license in another district, and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this district, count on going to jail and hope you get the gun back.”

It sounds like “the most pro-gun administration in history” is channeling late leftist syndicated columnist/cartoonist Ted Rall, who notoriously called for extreme sanctions against armed protestors.

“These town hall terrorists could be declared enemy combatants and bundled off to Bagram with the stroke of a pen,” he wrote in 2016.  “If ever there were a reason for suspending civil rights, this is it.”

Backlash from gun owners mindful of their rights, and who had heard enough, elicited all kinds of walking back and “clarifications,” none more so than from Judge Jeanine, who treated it all like an overreaction in a non-apology video on X, where she tried to deflect and redirect the conversation to being one about her 2A creds.

“Put your safety back on,” she literally smirked, putting the onus on gun owners objecting to her initial threat. “Let me be clear: I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment.”

“Washington, D.C. law requires handguns be licensed in the District with the Metropolitan Police Department to be carried into our community,” Pirro elaborated. “We are focused on individuals who are unlawfully carrying guns and will continue building on that momentum to keep our communities safe.”

She’s been pulling her “I believe in the Second Amendment BUT…” act for years, and “shall not be infringed” has never been a factor.

In 2000, as Westchester County (NY) District Attorney, she administered a “gun buyback/amnesty” program. In 2004, she joined with New Yorkers Against Gun Violence “to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the Columbine High School Massacre… and strengthening of the federal assault weapons ban.”  By 2006, with her sights set on higher political office, she began trying to distance herself by touting her gun owner creds. By 2013, she was wowing the crowd at NRA’s Second Amendment Leadership Conference, and then in 2019, she was arguing for “expanded background checks” while asserting, “I’m in Australia, they don’t have problems like this. This is starting to be a uniquely American situation. I am a gun owner and strong Second Amendment person.” How strong?

''The fact that I'm Republican doesn't have anything to do with this,'' Pirro told The New York Times in 2004. ''I've been in law enforcement 29 years and there is no legitimate purpose to have an assault weapon. These are weapons employed by drug operations by gang enterprises. 'This is about killing as many people as possible in as short a period of time as possible.''

Hey, put your safety back on. And then note she’s never disavowed that position and apologized, and she’s absolutely for citizen disarmament enforcers deploying with superior firepower to that.

“Best People” Need to Read Our Founder’s Writings

As for the contentions by top administration officials that guns and protests don’t mix, that discounts peaceable protests where armed demonstrators have had no problem exercising the First and Second Amendments at the same time.

This correspondent spoke at an armed rally at a park in Virginia in 2010—a complementary gathering to the Second Amendment March across the Potomac in Washington DC, where armed citizens were prohibited at the time. I also attended a 2013-armed protest in Oberlin, Ohio, after the city chose to violate state preemption laws and ban guns in public spaces. Both incidents were peaceful, and the presence of arms was appropriate.

The danger, as exemplified in the Pretti case, appears to be when an armed protestor physically engages with law enforcement and a gun gets revealed in the altercation. Chances are rational discourse will not be the immediate reaction. Whether authorities end up being charged or not, a rule of thumb emphasized by firearms rights lawyers and trainers is for armed citizens to survive the encounter, even if perceived unjust at the time, through compliance, and mount vigorous resistance afterward, in court.

Seizing on that concept, though, there are some gun influencers amplifying Pirro’s emphasis on “unlawful” actions, and this is also where true Second Amendment advocates need to push back, and recognize that the “conservative” mantra to “enforce existing gun laws” is every bit as tyranny-abetting as if colonists in 1775 had demanded to “enforce existing Intolerable Acts.”

“Don’t like bad gun laws? Tell Congress!” Assistant Attorney General and DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Second Amendment Section honcho Harmeet Dhillon posted in response to Gun Owners of America announcing a lawsuit because Republicans failed to fully repeal National Firearms Act registration and AG Pam Bondi defended the decision. Dhillon’s tone-deaf comment evokes nothing so much as the image of Pontius Pilate washing his hands.

What’s a gun owner to do when denied the right to bear arms by draconian permitting schemes or “sensitive area” bans? How about when a Democrat state with gun bans on its mind requires registration of arms?

Thomas Jefferson chose the motto “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” for his personal seal. Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” argued a moral duty to disobey unjust laws. In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshal declared “a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” And as much as “law and order conservatives” might not want to admit it, a growing “I will not comply” movement among Second Amendment advocates is fed up with “a right delayed” being “a right denied.”

"You gotta win the midterms 'cause, if we don't win the midterms, it's just gonna be - I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me," an anxious Donald Trump told Republican lawmakers at a Washington retreat in January.

Maybe it’s time to stop dousing the fire in gun owner bellies, especially with top administration officials making inane comments that spit in the faces of Second Amendment activists -- the very people Republicans need to win. Maybe it’s time the widely publicized “Second Amendment Task Force” included some subject matter experts who actually understood Founding intent behind the Second Amendment and that comments, legal positions, rules, laws, and appointments got vetted through such advisors before administration apparatchiks started blurting out obnoxious absurdities that can’t be walked back.

Maybe it’s time they all understood that no matter what happens in politics, a growing critical mass of Americans will not disarm, even (especially) for Republicans.

About the Author

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News and AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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