In Wake of Alex Pretti Shooting, Trump Is Betraying His Base on Gun Rights. They’re Not Happy

 https://time.com/7357961/ice-shooting-alex-pretti-guns-trump/

"Any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms, and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a feisty briefing on Monday. 

This he-had-it-coming mentality is one that stems from the top of this administration. After the Saturday killing of Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis—one filmed from just about every possible angle as officers shot him at least 10 times in five seconds—administration officials sought to cast Pretti as the aggressor, an “assassin” aiming to “massacre law enforcement.”

It’s almost impossible to square support for Second Amendment rights for the likes of McCloskeys and Rittenhouse alongside a denial of them when employed by Pretti. For decades, guns have been a birthright among conservatives. (To be fair, it’s the top issue for few voters, usually in the 3% to 5% range in polls.) Any challenge to gun rights was immediate heresy, disqualifying in any measure. Yet here is Trump, elected with strong support of those who cited his support for guns, undermining that very orthodoxy in the name of suppressing growing dissent in Minneapolis.

This all might sound like some of the country’s most prominent Republicans have rethought their views on the Second Amendment. But intellectual consistency is often optional in Trump’s orbit. The President himself has shown an open indifference to absolute truths. If it sounds good, it’s true enough, he likes to say.