After Alex Pretti Killing in Minneapolis, Jewish Gun Owners Confront Second Amendment Tensions

Grace Gilson | JTA

Roberta Tarnove was horrified when she learned that a man protesting ICE was shot and killed in Minneapolis. And it wasn’t just because someone was dead.

The 65-year-old Jewish resident of Los Angeles was also distressed that federal officials said the agents were justified in shooting Alex Pretti because they believed he was armed. Pretti, 37, was a licensed gun owner in a state where carrying a gun openly is legal.

“I’m very sad. He certainly had every right to carry a gun,” Tarnove said.

The situation hit home for Tarnove because she, too, owns guns and has a permit allowing her to carry concealed firearms.

“As a Jewish person whose Sunday school teachers were mostly Holocaust survivors, there was something about Donald Trump’s presidential run that just hit me hard,” she said. “The dog whistles and things just sounded alarm bells in my head, and so I think I need to get a gun, not that I can overthrow the government, but just for personal protection.”

Since getting her first gun in 2015, Tarnove has been part of a Southern California Jewish gun club, Bullets & Bagels.

There was no discussion of Pretti’s killing at a Bullets & Bagels event featuring the Los Angeles district attorney on Jan. 25, according to the club’s founder, Fred Kogen. He said he could not comment on the specifics of the shooting.

“What happened there was that this gentleman lost his life, that’s all I know, to be honest, and that, interestingly enough, has not been a discussion within the community of Jewish shooters that I’m a part of,” Kogen said.

Tarnove wasn’t there on Jan. 25. But she said she wasn’t surprised by Kogen’s report.
“The reaction from the overruling gun community — and apparently the government — is, well, if you bring a gun to protest, you’re going to get shot,” Tarnove said. “So it’s Second Amendment for me, but not for thee, which is one of the things about the gun culture I really hate.”

Pretti’s killing has spurred sharp debate over whether the Trump administration’s response to armed protesters may be at odds with Second Amendment protections traditionally cherished by conservatives.

The debate is also taking place among American Jews. While American Jews have historically opposed gun ownership, Oct. 7 and the ensuing rise in antisemitism across the country has spurred many to take up arms for the first time. Now, Jewish gun owners are confronting a tension that has emerged between their right to bear arms and the federal government’s response to armed civilians.

“My personal opinion is that he was executed,” said J.N., a 59-year-old Jewish gun owner in the Washington, D.C., suburbs who requested anonymity to protect his employment. “I’ve watched the video like everybody else, his hand never went anywhere near his gun. It was handled horrifically.”

On the other hand, Bruce Cohen, a lifelong Jewish gun owner in Arizona who hosts the Facebook group Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, said he believed Pretti was “looking for trouble.”

“I don’t know if I can fault the law enforcement officer,” Cohen said. “As a libertarian, I want very, very strict limits on police powers, I do not want police to abuse or mistreat or mislead citizens or non-citizens, for that matter, but I can see how that could happen, and if that person was more careful and more friendly and exercised his freedom of speech and right to protest in a more appropriate manner then he could be protesting today.”

In the wake of Pretti’s killing, several Trump administration officials said his gun possession instigated the shooting. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Pretti “attacked” officers and was “brandishing” a gun, though a preliminary report completed on Jan. 27 by Customs and Border Protection found he did not brandish a weapon during the encounter.

On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump himself said, “You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” in response to a question about the killing from PBS.

“My assessment is the government is lying,” said J.N. “I don’t know why he carried it, but he’s entitled to carry it, he had a concealed carry permit. The Second Amendment says that you’re allowed to carry a gun, so I can’t fathom why the government, supposedly a Republican government, would say that.”

In a post on X, the National Rifle Association took aim at the rhetoric from the federal government, writing, “Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”

A national Jewish gun club, Lox & Loaded, echoed that sentiment.

“Lox & Loaded stands firmly behind the absolute right to bear and conceal arms in any lawful setting,” said COO Gayle Pearlstein. “The pending investigation and resulting determination of the incident involving Mr. Pretti and federal law enforcement should in no way interfere with or call into question this longstanding personal right.”

Jordan Levine, the Jewish founder of the online gun advocacy group A Better Way 2A, said he believed the shooting of Pretti “sets a precedent, because it calls into question if somebody can be murdered for simply carrying a gun.”

But Levine stipulated that he was not concerned “as of right now” about losing Second Amendment rights.

“The Trump administration, thankfully, is still a bit removed from our court systems, and we’ve seen time and time again the court’s ruling in favor of Second Amendment liberties,” Levine continued.

Cohen said he would have handled the situation differently in Pretti’s shoes.

“If I was in his situation with his motivations, I would have introduced myself to the cops. I would have shaken hands with the cops, I would have said, hey, I disagree with what you’re doing, but thank you for being professional,” said Cohen.

But others within the JPFO Facebook group were quick to decry the federal government’s rhetoric.

“I’m not going to shut up and wait when agents of an authoritarian government are violating the rights of and killing citizens,” wrote one JPFO member. “The Declaration of Independence gives us the right to fight tyranny.”

J.N., who is also a member of the JPFO group, said, “As a Jewish person, and as an American, it sickens me.”

In the wake of Pretti’s killing, many critics have likened ICE’s tactics in Minneapolis to the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. While both Trump administration officials and some Jewish voices have called such comparisons inappropriate, for J.N., the similarities rang true.

“I’m not going to call them Nazis, because nobody’s being sent to the showers and burned en masse, OK, I get the difference, but I can tell you that I feel like they are using Gestapo techniques,” J.N. said.

Cohen said the comparison was a “standard left-wing package.”

“They train people to say that stuff, and it’s hypocritical and insincere because they don’t actually believe what they’re saying,” said Cohen. “I don’t see that at all, because we’re not, you know, the Jews in Germany. We’re not illegal aliens, we’re not on welfare, we’re not doing criminal things, we’re not stealing financially.”

For Tarnove, the federal government’s rhetoric around Pretti’s gun ownership had raised alarm bells for potential restrictions against gun ownership for certain groups.

“We aren’t past the point of no return, but we are getting so darn close, and I wish that more Jews would recognize that,” said Tarnove. “When the government can go after one group of people, then they can go after any group of people, and you’re not safe.”