Open Carry Texas

OCT STATEMENT ON KILLING OF ALEX PRETTI:

Open Carry Texas (OCT) is incredibly disturbed by the shooting death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis for being lawfully armed with a concealed handgun. In the United States of America, we have a right to peacefully protest, a right to keep and bear arms, and a right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. OCT has held and attended many protests lawfully armed with much more than the 9mm Mr. Pretti carried when he was executed.

We also condemn Sec. Noem's false statements that Mr. Pretti "approached border patrol officers with a 9mm, semiautomatic handgun." No such thing happened as Mr. Pretti was carrying concealed. He did not have the gun in his hand. He was not threatening agents in any way. In fact, all Mr. Pretti did was attempt to help a woman who was knocked down by ICE agents when he was pepper sprayed and violently assaulted by ICE agents.

While SEVEN agents piled on top of Pretti, one agent noticed that he had a holstered handgun and disarmed him while others shot and killed him for simply carrying a gun that was never touched.

Sec. Noem lied to the American people when she said that "officers attempted to disarm this individual, but the armed suspect reacted violently." She also falsely and egregiously stated that Pretti "arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement" simply because he had two loaded magazines on him (one of which was in the handgun). This jump to such a perverse narrative is dangerous to ALL lawfully armed Americans if our government believes that just because someone is armed they want "to kill law enforcement." It creates fear in the public and excuses bad behavior of law enforcement officers who are too cowardly to accept an armed society.

Officers had no idea Pretti was even armed until they attacked and ganged up on him. The only people "reacting violently" were the ICE agents. Noem then stated that the agent "fearing for his life and the lives of officers around him...fired defensive shots." Pretti did not even have the handgun when he was unjustifiably killed.

Let us be clear: We support the mission of ICE to remove ANY AND ALL illegal immigrants in this country whether they have criminal records or not, but we will never condone the killing of Americans simply because they are armed and protesting. The video is clear that Pretti was the victim, not the instigator. He was not assaulting ICE agents; he was not interfering with their duties; he was simply filming and attempting to help a woman who was pepper sprayed and knocked down by an ICE agent when he was viciously attacked.

Carrying a firearm is not a crime in this country. It is a fundamental, protected right that EVERY citizen has, even when we disagree with their communistic political nonsense. A man was killed because one or more federal officers were so much of a coward that they feared the mere presence of a handgun that wasn't in government hands. The entire purpose of the second amendment is to create fear in government that an armed citizenry will not tolerate oppression and tyranny. What happened in Minneapolis to Mr. Pretti was both and we condemn the actions of ICE in killing this man.

We will always defend agents when they are right, but we will also hold them accountable when they are wrong. We will not express an opinion on the actions of protesters outside of this issue because we are a gun rights organization and won't criticize what Americans decide is important to them to protest, provided they do so peacefully except in self-defense.