The New American Alibi: He Had It Coming

Alex Pretti did not deserve to be shot.

A curious moral infection has been spreading through Substack, conservative media, and even the more spineless precincts of the mainstream press these past few hours: the claim that Alex Pretti somehow deserved to be shot because he was armed.

This is the consoling myth by which a frightened Republican base reassures itself that power is still benevolent—that the men with guns and badges are acting in its interest, and that any corpse left cooling on the pavement must have been a necessary administrative expense. It’s folded in between the commercials of buying a reverse mortgage and the magic pillows sold by a seditionist. The argument is simple: if the dead man had it coming, then the system remains sound, and no uncomfortable questions need be asked.

This is nonsense, of course—but not the harmless variety. It is the sort of nonsense that anesthetizes conscience, launders state violence, and converts a human being into an unfortunate but acceptable rounding error.

It is repugnant.

Let’s begin with the boring part: the law.

Pretti’s actions appear to have been entirely lawful under Minnesota carry law and core First Amendment protections. He was entitled to be present. Entitled to film. Entitled to assemble. Entitled to carry a firearm. There is no doctrine—statutory, constitutional, or judicial—that says these rights evaporate when federal agents feel nervous.

That idea comes not from law but from a sort of civic superstition: the belief that rights are valid only when exercised quietly, deferentially, and at a safe distance from men with badges.

This is not jurisprudence.
It is etiquette.
And etiquette has never justified killing anyone. Last time I checked, Emily Post didn’t have a “rules to kill someone” for the federal government.

Now, the defenders of the indefensible—those who rush to explain that Pretti should have “known better”—are not wholly wrong about one thing. Legal rights do not magically neutralize how violence behaves in the real world.

Federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, operating under the cheery euphemism of Operation Metro Surge, has produced multiple civilian shootings, widespread protest, and a growing archive of video evidence that would embarrass a third-rate banana republic.

In that environment, the risk of death is radically asymmetric. Federal agents operate with minimal oversight, maximal immunity, and a demonstrated fondness for escalation to deadly force.

Civilians absorb the consequences—most often in the form of chunks of lead, cracked skulls, and being bear-maced in the face.

Because of that asymmetry, I would not have injected myself into that situation while armed. Not because it would be unlawful. But because doing so increases the odds of being shot by men who have shown both poor discipline and excellent confidence that nothing bad will happen to them afterward.

That is not moral judgment.
It’s risk analysis.
It’s prudence in the face of asymmetric risk profiles.

But here is where the amateur apologists for state violence perform their favorite sleight of hand. They take this prudential observation—it’s dangerous to be armed near unaccountable agents ready to kill—and retroactively convert it into guilt and criminal accountability upon the State’s victims.

Pretti should have retreated.
Pretti should have stayed home.
Pretti should not have helped a woman being shoved to the ground.
Pretti should not have documented federal agents behaving badly.

In short: Pretti should have known his place.

This is not legal analysis.
It is corpse management.

What matters under our laws is not whether a man failed to make the safest possible choice under stress. What matters is whether officers had a reasonable belief that he posed an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm.

That is the standard.

And there is no evidence at present that the standard was met.

Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse. A lawful gun owner. No serious criminal history. Family members and eyewitnesses dispute DHS’s claim that he attempted to draw a weapon. Video shows no brandishing, no reach, no muzzle flash, no officers under fire, no public threatened with deadly force.

In plain English, there are no facts that justify killing him.

So when commentators insist that Pretti “brought this on himself,” what they are really saying is not that the law was satisfied, but that unquestioned obedience to any act of the State is now the price of survival. Rights may exist on paper, but exercising them in the wrong tone, posture, or zip code is a provocation that can result in death.

This doctrine—that citizens must preemptively surrender to unlawful behavior to prevent police panic—is not public safety. It is not Second Amendment jurisprudence. It is not consistent with federal deadly-force policy or Supreme Court precedent.

It is permission decay.
And worse, it is moral laundering.

It takes an act that smells suspiciously like a deprivation of civil rights under color of law and perfumes it with range-safety gun-culture aphorisms and counterfactual fantasies. “If only he had behaved differently.” “If only he had been more responsible.” “If only he had known better.”

Yes—if only.

Counterfactuals are cheap.
Accountability is not.

Blaming the victim of unlawful violence for failing to perfectly navigate an asymmetric, unaccountable use of force is how states rot. It is how restraint becomes cowardice, protest becomes provocation, and eventually, violence becomes the only remaining language anyone believes will be heard.

History suggests that when that logic takes hold, things do not calm down.

They explode.