By: Christine Nicco/Special Op-Ed to TRT—
The Founders who drafted the Second Amendment had experienced tyranny firsthand. They’d watched British soldiers enter colonial homes without warrants, seize property, and detain people without due process. When they wrote that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” they were thinking about exactly this: government agents with unchecked power, acting outside constitutional bounds—a near replica of what we are seeing today.
They gave us the Fourth Amendment to prevent warrantless home invasions. They gave us the Fifth Amendment to guarantee due process. And yes, they gave us the Second Amendment as a final safeguard—a reminder to government that free people retain the means to defend themselves, their families, and their communities.
What Is Tyranny?
When we talk about tyranny in the context of the Second Amendment and the Founders’ vision, we’re talking about government power exercised without legal limits or accountability—specifically, when those in authority violate the constitutional protections meant to constrain them, which constitute the supreme law of this Republic.
Tyranny isn’t just harsh laws or policies you disagree with. It’s when government acts outside the rule of law: entering homes without judicial warrants, detaining people without due process, using force without accountability, ignoring constitutional protections, and operating without meaningful checks on its power. When you put this into perspective, think about the marginalized migrant communities of color being targeted by ICE “officers” (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)—children included and jailed too. This is an abhorrence, a heightened level of cruelty (and crimes against humanity) that are on full public display. It is a perpetuation of power by one majority race. This thought process reeks of malignancy rather than the “Christianity,” so many claim to profess.
The Founders had experienced then what today’s migrants are currently suffering firsthand, only under British rule: soldiers entering colonists’ homes without permission, seizing property without legal justification, and detaining people without trial. They designed the Constitution with specific safeguards—the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections, the separation of powers—precisely to prevent this kind of unchecked government action within all its branches.
In this context, tyranny means government agents acting as if constitutional protections don’t apply to certain people, as if their authority supersedes the legal limits placed on them, as if power itself justifies their actions rather than law. Tyranny doesn’t announce itself. It arrives incrementally, normalized through each unchallenged violation, each erosion of constitutional protection, each expansion of power without accountability. That’s why the Founders insisted on written rights and legal constraints—because tyranny grows wherever those boundaries aren’t defended.
The Second Amendment and Pretti’s Murder
For decades, conservative advocates have championed this interpretation of the Second Amendment. They’ve argued passionately that it exists precisely so citizens can protect themselves against government overreach. They’ve invoked the Founders’ vision of armed citizens as a check on tyranny. They’ve insisted that the right to bear arms is fundamental, sacred, and non-negotiable.
Until Alex Pretti.
The killing of Alex Pretti has exposed a stunning hypocrisy at the heart of conservative Second Amendment rhetoric. For years, conservatives (MAGA-identified or not) have argued that the Second Amendment exists precisely so citizens can protect themselves against government tyranny—yet when Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse with a legal permit to carry, was shot ten times by federal agents while his holstered gun was never drawn, those same voices blamed him for being armed. Trump administration officials like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent questioned why Pretti brought a gun to a protest, while President Trump himself said protesters “can’t have guns”—a position fundamentally at odds with the constitutional right they claim to champion. The contrast with their treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse, whom they elevated to prominence after he shot three people at a Black Lives Matter 2020 protest while illegally armed, could not be starker. The difference? Pretti was protesting ICE enforcement and helping protect vulnerable people from what he saw as government overreach—the exact scenario Second Amendment advocates claim justifies gun ownership. As Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pointedly noted, “carrying a firearm is not a death sentence. It’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government.” This selective application of Second Amendment principles reveals an uncomfortable truth: for too many on the right, gun rights are conditional—celebrated when exercised in support of their political agenda, condemned when exercised in opposition to it. It’s a hypocrisy that undermines the very constitutional principles they claim to defend.
Let’s be clear about what happened to Alex Pretti. He was exercising his constitutionally protected right to bear arms while standing against what he believed to be government overreach. If the Second Amendment means what its advocates claim it means—that citizens have a right to be armed as a check against tyranny—then Pretti was doing exactly what the Founders envisioned.
But here’s what we’ve learned: Constitutional rights, in practice, are only as strong as our collective will to defend them for everyone, not just for people who share our politics. This isn’t just about guns. It’s about the fundamental hypocrisy of championing constitutional rights only when they’re exercised by people you agree with.
The same conservatives who’ve spent years arguing that armed citizens are a bulwark against government tyranny are now defending federal agents who killed a legally armed man who never drew his weapon. The same voices who insisted that any restriction on gun rights was unconstitutional are now asking why protesters would dare to be armed.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing exactly the kind of government overreach the Founders feared: ICE agents entering homes without judicial warrants, detaining American citizens without proper due process, people dying in federal custody without accountability. These are textbook Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations—the very tyranny the Second Amendment was supposedly designed to check.
And yet, when someone like Alex Pretti stood up against that overreach while exercising his Second Amendment rights, he was shot multiple times, denied medical attention, executed by the government and then blamed for being armed.
This reveals something crucial. For too many Americans, constitutional rights aren’t principles—they’re team jerseys. The Second Amendment is celebrated when “our side” carries guns, condemned when “their side” does. Due process matters when it protects us, but not when it protects immigrants or people we disagree with. The Fourth Amendment applies to our homes, but not to our neighbors’.
This cannot stand.
Either we believe in constitutional rights for everyone, or we don’t believe in them at all. Either the Second Amendment protects all law-abiding citizens—including those who use it to stand against what they see as government overreach—or it’s not a right but a privilege granted only to some. Either the Fourth Amendment prevents all warrantless home invasions, or it prevents none. Either due process applies to everyone in government custody, or the phrase “equal justice under law” is a lie we tell ourselves.
The Founders understood that rights are indivisible. You can’t champion the Second Amendment while ignoring Fourth Amendment violations. You can’t defend armed citizens as a check on tyranny while cheering when government agents kill a legally armed man who was standing against what he perceived as tyranny.
We must take action. Various advocacy and human rights groups have suggested the following:
Demand consistent application of constitutional principles. If you believe in the Second Amendment, defend it for everyone—including people like Alex Pretti. If you believe government agents shouldn’t face armed resistance, then demand they operate within constitutional bounds in the first place.
Support organizations fighting for civil liberties across the board—the ACLU, gun rights organizations that defend all citizens, and/or legal aid groups challenging unconstitutional enforcement. Rights are interconnected; they stand or fall together.
Hold government accountable when it violates any constitutional protection, whether it’s warrantless home entries, deaths in custody, or killing a legally armed citizen who posed no threat.
Recognize that the Founders gave us legal and political mechanisms precisely so armed resistance would never be necessary. Use those mechanisms: vote, organize, protest, file lawsuits, demand congressional oversight, document violations, support constitutional litigation.
The Second Amendment was never meant to be a partisan issue. It was meant to be a protection for all free people against government tyrants. But it only works if we defend it—and all constitutional rights—consistently, regardless of whose ox is being gored.
Alex Pretti believed government agents were violating people’s constitutional rights. He stood up against what he saw as tyranny and exercised his Second Amendment rights while doing so. And, he was killed by the government for it.
If that doesn’t alarm everyone who claims to care about constitutional rights and government overreach, then those rights mean nothing at all.
The Founders gave us a Constitution that protects everyone, or it protects no one. It’s time we started acting like we believe it and uphold its principles, no matter what.
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