[wildaxboxer]

Only read a few comments about the lack of training for ICE, last thing i would want near them would be anything that resembles a gun if they are that amateurish, as i said only read a few comments on their lack of training..

[Vedderman]

Originally Posted by wildaxboxer ↗

Only read a few comments about the lack of training for ICE, last thing i would want near them would be anything that resembles a gun if they are that amateurish, as i said only read a few comments on their lack of training..

The current administration prefers to refer to it as 'streamlined training.'

[wildaxboxer]

Originally Posted by Vedderman ↗

The current administration prefers to refer to it as 'streamlined training.'

[Rugboot88]

I almost never post here. I have been on this site for about fifteen years and I have treated it like a zoo. Observe the exhibits often. Interact with the animals rarely.

I am speaking now because what I am seeing in these videos and in this discussion crosses a line that has nothing to do with left versus right.

I am retired military. I fought in Afghanistan. I fought in Iraq. I later worked as a civilian law enforcement officer. I support police. I believe in borders and legal immigration. Yes, I voted for the orange man. None of that obligates me to abandon constitutional principles or suspend basic logic.

I want to say this plainly. I did not vote for state-sanctioned murder. No one voted for this. It is entirely reasonable to say that whatever people expected from federal enforcement, no one reasonably anticipated masked agents killing a restrained citizen in the street.

Before anyone misreads me, let me be clear about something else. I do not support rioting, looting, destroying your own city, or obnoxiously interfering with lawful law enforcement operations. I do support constitutionally protected activity. Those are not the same thing, and pretending they are is intellectually dishonest.

What happened to Alex Pretti was not a clean use of force. It was not a split-second decision by a lone officer facing an imminent threat. Based on the publicly available videos, it appears to be unorganized chaos. Multiple federal agents engaging one man. He is taken to the ground. Physical control is established. One agent physically removes Pretti’s firearm. Then someone yells “gun” and lethal force follows.

Here is the legally relevant point people keep missing. Use of force is judged on objective reasonableness at the moment force is applied. Not before. Not after. At that moment, deadly force is justified only if there is an articulable, imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm that cannot be otherwise stopped.

Yelling a word does not reset the use-of-force continuum. It never has. A shouted warning is a data point, not a legal trigger switch. If officers could lawfully escalate to lethal force simply because someone yelled “gun,” regardless of control or context, then any arrest could end in a shooting. That is not the law and it is not how policing works.

Some people argue that other officers are justified because they trusted a fellow officer who yelled “gun.” That argument fails once the known firearm has been physically removed and multiple agents have hands-on control. At that point, the threat analysis changes. Capability is reduced. Opportunity is constrained. Deadly force then requires extraordinary justification. Speculation about what someone “could have had” does not meet that standard. Possibility is not imminence.

If this exact scenario occurred in a local department, with a restrained and disarmed subject and multiple officers on top of him, it would be treated as a criminal investigation without debate. Federal uniforms do not change that standard.

Now to the gun argument itself.

“He brought a gun to a protest.”

That is legally irrelevant. Pretti had a valid carry permit. The Second Amendment does not evaporate because someone dislikes the setting. A legally carried firearm is not intent, not aggression, and not justification for lethal force. Rights do not become suspicious simply because they are exercised in public.

What matters is behavior. The videos do not show Pretti threatening anyone with a gun. They show him holding a phone and attempting to help another protester who had just been pepper sprayed. That context matters because force analysis is driven by conduct, not by post hoc narratives.

People are also labeling Pretti an agitator who interfered with law enforcement. The videos do not support that claim. Recording officers in public is a constitutionally protected activity. It is not obstruction. What is visible is a medical professional attempting to assist a person in medical distress after chemical spray was deployed. That conduct is lawful and consistent with his training as a nurse.

People also keep using the word “resisting” as if it is a legal cheat code.

Any reasonable human being who is suddenly mobbed by multiple partially identified agents, pepper sprayed or bear maced, tackled, and pinned is going to move. That is not criminal intent. That is physiology. Anyone who has ever been sprayed knows your body reacts before your brain does.

Resistance alone does not justify deadly force. It never has. If it did, half the arrests in this country would end in funerals. The law requires proportionality and necessity, especially once control is established.

This is also where I think people should be more cautious about state crafted narratives. I am not saying everything is a lie. I am saying power has incentives, and early official accounts deserve scrutiny when video and witness evidence are publicly available. History shows that the real danger is not citizens asking questions, but citizens being discouraged from comparing claims to observable reality. Repetition should never replace inquiry.

This is why demonizing Pretti matters. It is not analysis. It is rationalization. It is an attempt to make state violence feel acceptable by rewriting the victim.

Also, I don't know this dude from a can of paint, but feel it is worth mentioning that I have watched Vedderman argue here for years, i dont agree with everything he says. However, He is not left or right. He is not biased in the way people keep claiming. He is reminding people that rights only exist if you are willing to defend them when the person losing them is not someone you like.

For what it is worth, I am not claiming to be an expert. I am just some guy on the internet with lived experience who is applying the same legal and moral standards I was trained to uphold.

The most dangerous precedent is not one bad shooting. It is how quickly people excuse state violence when it aligns with a preferred policy outcome. History shows that once violence is normalized against the “right” people, the definition of “right” keeps expanding.

I love this country. That is why this disgusts me. You can support law enforcement, support legal immigration, and still say this crossed a line. In fact, if you believe in constitutional government, you are obligated to.

Alright. I’ve said my piece. I’ll crawl back into my hole for another fifteen years now.

[Mr.NoCredit]

Originally Posted by foxfantastic ↗

Even THAT is no excuse.

The whole reason for this immigration purge is to hunt down "violent dangerous criminals" isn't it? So instead of sending in people with proper ballistic armor and proper tactical training, ur gonna send in these juniors with long johns wrapped around their faces?

As you said, there were FIVE officers there. Ur telling me a shot in the leg or shoulder was absolutely impossible, from ANY angle?

There are many times when law enforcement have to deal with crazy, unpredictable people: drunks, kids running on hormones, sovereign citizens, jealous lovers, mass shooters. Unless they are in the process of murdering people, ie holding a gun directly at someone, even they are given the minimum consideration of at least preserving their lives so that they will face justice.

Law enforcement are well aware of suicide-by-cop tactics. An example I used earlier was the Toronto van attacks, where the killer was pretending to reach into his back pocket to pull out a gun in order to induce the arresting officer to kill him, and that perp is alive and well today.

You can sense the division and tension just from reading the comments in this thread. People who wish MORE protesters had been killed. This man rightfully anticipated that the potential for trouble was there, so he brought his piece, which is his right under the Constitution.

The fact of the matter is that the 2nd amendment is a part of our society. We give people guns, we give them licenses to carry and conceal. This man had a gun in his holster, NOT in his hand, and at the time of his murder he wasn't even in possession of his weapon

Stop saying "this was a screw-up, but he had it coming." There is NO excuse or justification for this. .

You’ll never understand the truth until you stop lying to yourself. He had every opportunity to shout, “I’m armed” and didn’t. He could have spoken out but had a concealed handgun with spare magazines full of bullets. He acted more like a vigilante while carrying a gun to protest law enforcement. Red flags all around but you say he has the right to carry a gun. He did. He carried it, fought with officers, they found it and reacted swiftly to protect themselves. I guess that’s just something you’ll never understand and will still shout, “He had the right to carry a gun.” He carried it to the wrong place at the wrong time and behaved in a manner not acceptable and ultimately paid the price for it.

I fucking dare you to carry a gun and confront law enforcement while in possession of it. What do you think is going to happen!?! By the way, make sure you keep it concealed and grab an officer to fight with.

[Vincentsdream]

Wait a holster is concealing now? Are you retarded or just a cuck?

[Rugboot88]

You are arguing from hindsight and fear, not from law.

There is no universal legal duty to announce lawful carry. Federal law does not require proactive disclosure, and duty-to-inform rules are state-specific and context-dependent, usually tied to defined encounters like traffic stops or direct questioning. Silence during a chaotic use-of-force event is not evidence of intent, deception, or wrongdoing.

Spare magazines prove nothing. I carry spare magazines. Millions of lawful gun owners do. Equipment is not intent. Treating spare mags as evidence of being a vigilante quietly redefines lawful carry into suspicious conduct. That is not law. That is fear being retrofitted to justify an outcome.

Vigilantism requires taking law enforcement into your own hands. The videos show filming and an attempt to help someone who had been sprayed. Recording police in public is constitutionally protected. Rendering aid to a person in distress is lawful. Neither qualifies as vigilantism.

Claims about “fighting officers” ignore causation. Being rushed, sprayed, and taken to the ground by multiple agents produces involuntary movement. Physiology explains that response. Use-of-force doctrine distinguishes between intentional aggression and reflexive resistance under pain and panic. Training exists precisely because that distinction matters.

The legal analysis changes once the known firearm is physically removed and multiple officers have hands-on control. Deadly force then requires an articulable, imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm. Hypotheticals like “he could have had more guns” do not meet that standard. Possibility is not imminence. Speculation cannot substitute for justification.

Rights are not location-dependent based on officer comfort or crowd sentiment. “Wrong place, wrong time” is not a legal principle. Lawful conduct does not become punishable after the fact because an encounter went badly.

The dare at the end of your comment makes the problem clear. Challenges and imagined scenarios are not legal analysis. Constitutional standards exist to restrain state power precisely when emotions run high.

Disliking his decisions is fair. Calling the situation reckless is fair. Neither converts a restrained, disarmed citizen into a lawful target for lethal force.

Rights that only protect people who behave perfectly under extreme stress are not rights at all.

[Meridian]

Originally Posted by Mr.NoCredit ↗

You’ll never understand the truth until you stop lying to yourself. He had every opportunity to shout, “I’m armed” and didn’t. He could have spoken out but had a concealed handgun with spare magazines full of bullets. He acted more like a vigilante while carrying a gun to protest law enforcement. Red flags all around but you say he has the right to carry a gun. He did. He carried it, fought with officers, they found it and reacted swiftly to protect themselves. I guess that’s just something you’ll never understand and will still shout, “He had the right to carry a gun.” He carried it to the wrong place at the wrong time and behaved in a manner not acceptable and ultimately paid the price for it.

I fucking dare you to carry a gun and confront law enforcement while in possession of it. What do you think is going to happen!?! By the way, make sure you keep it concealed and grab an officer to fight with.

The 2nd amendment is there to allow people to defend themselves against a tyrannical government that turns against its own citizens.

[GoreGirl89]

Originally Posted by Meridian ↗

The 2nd amendment is there to allow people to defend themselves against a tyrannical government that turns against its own citizens.

I usually see the far right side advocating for carrying a gun around in public for protection.

See Kyle Rittenhouse for notes.

[foxfantastic]

Originally Posted by GoreGirl89 ↗

I usually see the far right side advocating for carrying a gun around in public for protection.

See Kyle Rittenhouse for notes.

I think that was true until all of these incels started shooting up public places. Nowadays, I think it's EVERYONE's responsibility to be prepared to cut those rampages short.