I had a permit to carry some years ago. I let it expire. In this jurisdiction, they are only good for five years, and I’m not the kind of person who thinks armed thugs who want to murder my family are lurking around every corner. It seemed like an unnecessary expense.
However, I reconsidered this position when it became apparent that Donald Trump was headed back to the White House. As anyone who is not a total moron understands, what he did on January 6 was send a violent mob to overthrow democracy based on blatant lies. I was confident from the outset that during Trump’s second term armed thugs would once again create violent chaos under the umbrella of his authority.
So, I took the requisite class, submitted my paperwork, and obtained my permit to carry a pistol. I don’t pack heat often, but when I’m going somewhere that seems particularly likely to draw a mass shooter, I like to know that I’d at least be able to shoot back.
Such was the case earlier this month when I attended an anti-ICE protest. This was after ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Good, but before a gang of masked federal agents murdered Alex Pretti.
I really debated whether to bring my pistol to this protest. It was totally legal for me to bring it, of course, and a protest against Trump administration policies definitely seemed like the kind of thing that could attract dangerous Kyle Rittenhouse-esque bootlickers. Yet, I feared that if the masked, badgeless thugs masquerading as law enforcement attacked we protesters, simply having a handgun on my person would give them more of an excuse to kill me than they’d had with Renee Good.
Then again, it didn’t seem like they needed much of an excuse at all with Good. I brought the pistol.
Fortunately, ICE stayed away from this particular protest. Nobody even knew I was armed, and I made it home wholly intact at the end of a bitterly cold Minnesota day, First and Second Amendment rights thoroughly exercised.
On January 24, I woke up to a text message from someone who cares about me advising me to stay off of social media and news sites for a while. I did, just long enough for human bedpan Greg Bovino and a frozen-faced Kristi Noem to have already carelessly smeared Pretti without any evidence whatsoever, and for their incendiary accusations to have already been repeatedly and definitively debunked.
Alex Pretti died a hero. Not only had he done nothing wrong, he put himself in harm’s way to help another Minnesotan who was being needlessly brutalized by an unaccountable secret police force sent to invade and intimidate Minneapolis.
Of course, I thought of my own experience, given that a few days earlier I had done the exact same thing that federal authorities tried to use as a justification for murdering Pretti. They lied that he’d been brandishing his legally carried weapon. They falsely labeled him an “assassin” who wanted to “massacre law enforcement” solely on the basis of legally carrying a pistol pursuant to his permit to do so. They called him a “domestic terrorist.”
Had I been shot by ICE that day I went out to protest, the only difference is that I would have been a less sympathetic victim because I’m a lawyer rather than an intensive care nurse at a freaking veterans hospital, and unlike Pretti I have a criminal record (relax, it’s a relatively minor one). Make no mistake: the spectacularly corrupt officials of this morally bankrupt administration will do this to anyone they think they can get away with doing it to.
The one silver lining in this whole tragic month in Minnesota is that I do not believe Good and Pretti died in vain. On the contrary, the two of them made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the civil rights of other Minneapolitans, other Minnesotans, and, when it comes right down to it, all Americans.
These two brave souls were willing to put themselves in harm’s way to safeguard our freedoms from the tyranny of this debased and lawless federal government. It has already had an effect. The millions inspired by Good and Pretti, the swelling masses enraged by their outrageous killings at the hands of cowards hiding behind masks, will carry their legacy forward, until the national darkness enveloping our people is finally driven back by the light.
If doing the exact same thing that Alex Pretti did makes me a domestic terrorist too, count me in. I couldn’t be in better company.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
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