When Conservatives Abandon Gun Rights for Political Power

For 60 years, American conservatives built their movement on a simple promise: citizens have an unquestionable right to bear arms against government tyranny. That promise died in Minneapolis when federal agents killed Alex Pretti, and the movement's leaders rushed to defend the killers.

The shooting of a legally armed citizen by federal agents should have been conservatism's nightmare scenario. Instead, it became a loyalty test—and the results reveal just how completely power has corrupted principle on the American right.

The Defense That Destroys Everything

Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol's commander-at-large, delivered the administration's line with stunning clarity: "We respect that Second Amendment right, but those rights don't count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers." Kash Patel, the FBI Director, was even more direct: "You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest."

This defense crumbles on the facts—video evidence shows federal agents disarmed Pretti before killing him. But the deeper problem is philosophical. For decades, conservative doctrine held that the Second Amendment exists precisely for moments when citizens judge government actions tyrannical and choose to resist.

Now those same voices argue that the mere presence of a legally carried firearm justifies state violence. It's not just wrong—it's the complete inversion of everything they claimed to believe.

The Ideologues Fall in Line

What's most revealing is how quickly conservative movement stalwarts abandoned their stated principles. These aren't fringe MAGA conspiracy theorists, but established ideological conservatives who built careers on constitutional principles.

Erick Erickson, who once called the NRA "too squishy on guns," blamed Pretti for his own death: "When engaging in obstruction with federal agents, you can get hurt. When armed, things can go wrong." Dana Loesch, one of America's most prominent gun rights advocates, wrote that Pretti "made the choice to disrupt a federal operation…which set off a chain reaction of tragic events."

Most striking was Matt Walsh, who previously called gun-toting teenager Kyle Rittenhouse a "hero," but now castigated conservatives who dared question the federal line: "An armed leftist went out with a gun to deliberately interfere with legitimate law enforcement operations, and I'm seeing some 'conservatives' claim that it might be ICE's fault that the guy is now dead. Insane."

These figures supposedly stand for conservatism even when it's inconvenient for the White House. Their capitulation shows how completely many on the right have sold their souls to power.

The Logic That Eats Itself

To understand the hypocrisy, consider the conservative position at its most charitable. They believe the state must enforce immigration law, and local authorities refusing to assist ICE amounts to lawless nullification of federal authority. Protesters like Pretti obstruct legitimate government functions, sometimes requiring force to subdue.

Rich Lowry of National Review frames it as leftist "self-radicalization"—resistance to ICE creates tragedies that justify ever-more resistance and "de-facto nullification of federal immigration law."

But this logic fundamentally betrays conservative Second Amendment theory. The orthodox position holds that citizens must judge when government becomes tyrannical and arm themselves accordingly. Masked federal agents beating and killing Americans on city streets looks exactly like the tyranny conservatives spent decades warning about.

If Pretti's decision to carry a weapon while challenging state power makes his killing "understandable," then the entire premise of armed resistance to tyranny collapses. The principle becomes: "Armed resistance for me, bullets to the chest for thee."

The Faustian Bargain Comes Due

Conservatives have betrayed limited government principles before—on tariffs, executive power, federal spending. But guns were different. For figures like Loesch and Erickson, the Second Amendment was a core reason to be Republican. Trump's judges would protect gun rights in ways Democrats never would.

Now we see the bill for that Faustian bargain. A lawful gun owner was killed by state agents after being disarmed, without ever threatening anyone. The state cites his gun ownership as justification. It's as clear-cut an example of government treading on Second Amendment principles as one could imagine.

Yet conservative ideologues struggle to criticize it. Even Texas Governor Greg Abbott, hardly a moderate, admitted the feds need "a more structured deportation policy" to avoid "all the kinds of problems and fighting in communities that they are experiencing right now."

Gun rights groups, to their credit, have criticized the shooting. But the silence—or worse, the justification—from movement conservatives shows how completely partisanship has corroded the American right. The question isn't whether conservatives will abandon other principles for Trump. It's which ones they'll abandon next.