On Saturday, Jan. 24, federal ICE agents tackled veterans nurse Alex Pretti to the ground and murdered him. After it was discovered that Pretti was carrying a permitted firearm, Trump administration officials fanned out on the Jan. 25 Sunday talk shows to offer a mind-bending spectacle that bewildered and enraged one of the most dependable single-issue groups within the president’s base: gun owners.

Last line of defense

For years, the legacy GOP (now MAGA) has wrapped itself in Second Amendment gun rights absolutism. If anyone even gingerly discussed modest gun safety reforms, they were met with dire warnings about tyranny and the erosion of constitutional freedoms. They insisted that armed citizens were the last line of defense against government overreach. Now, when politically opposite citizens show up at a protest with a legally obtained and carried firearm, their tune changes.

Case in point: Since the murder, the president has made these public pronouncements: “You can’t have guns.” “You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t.” “He certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun. I don’t like that he had a gun… two fully loaded magazines… That’s a lot of bad stuff.” On the concealed carry gun that Pretti was carrying (reportedly a SIG Sauer P320), the president characterized it as “very dangerous and unpredictable,” adding that, “It’s a gun that goes off when people don’t know it.”

News flash

I have experience here as I’ve carried a concealed firearm for the past 12 years. It became necessary after receiving credible, actionable threats against both my family and me during a customer fraud investigation in my role with the United States Department of Agriculture. I’ve carried it at each of the protests I’ve spoken at.

News flash: Democrats carry firearms too, and I’ll fight to protect the right of reasonable and responsible gun ownership.

Trump officials are now arguing that visible firearms at demonstrations are intimidating and destabilizing and should be restricted. That argument is not new; what is new and jarring is who is making it. The sudden concern for public safety rings hollow coming from a Party that mocked fears of armed intimidation during past rallies, protests and political events dominated by their own supporters.

Juxtapose that with the administration’s description of the perpetrators of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the capital as “peaceful protesters.” In truth, authorities discovered those “peaceful protesters” were armed with chemical spray, flag poles, knives, axes, brass knuckles and, of course, loaded handguns.

Hypocricy shines

The hypocrisy shines brighter when contrasted with the Kyle Rittenhouse case. In 2020, the then-17-year-old crossed state lines with an AR-15-style rifle to “protect” Kenosha during Black Lives Matter protests. He fatally shot two people and injured another. The president and his allies hailed Rittenhouse as a hero and elevated him to a conservative icon, landing him speaking gigs at NRA events.

This is not about whether firearms should be present at protests. Reasonable people and protest organizers can debate that question toward a resolution. This is about consistency, principle and committing to the integrity of our Constitution. This administration has repeatedly shown that rights are like “team jerseys” to be worn when convenient and discarded when they don’t fit the narrative.

Just at the Department of Homeland Security, numerous claims have been lodged that ICE has violated constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment regarding unreasonable searches and seizures, unlawful entries into homes without judicial warrants and racial profiling. And if that’s not enough, there are credible claims of violations of the Fifth Amendment due process rights during detention, and, of course, the ever-present First Amendment rights of protesters.

But no one saw the abandonment of the Second Amendment coming.

Even the National Rifle Association, rarely shy about defending conservative administrations, issued a tortured rebuke of the administration’s attempt to rewrite the Constitution. The organization warned against “selective enforcement of constitutional rights based on political affiliation,” and pointed out that peaceful, lawful gun ownership cannot be curtailed just because it makes administration officials uncomfortable.

A la carte Bill of Rights

This whole episode exposes a more poignant truth about this administration. Inalienable rights have now become convenient partisan tools rather than being defended as universal protections. The same voices that decry “cancel culture” when their freedoms are questioned are quick to rationalize restrictions when those freedoms empower dissenters. The discarding of the Second Amendment is not a single data point; it’s the canary in the coal mine that signals danger ahead for what this administration views as an a la carte Bill of Rights.

The framers did not write the Bill of Rights for Republicans, Democrats or any faction. They wrote it to constrain power, especially when power is applied to silence opposition. When officials demand new limits on rights they once called sacred, they reveal their priorities — power first, principles second.

Hypocrisy is the enemy of democracy. So if the right to bear arms is truly fundamental, it must be defended even when the people exercising that right are politically inconvenient — like me. And if it is not, then administration officials and the supporting Party enabling it should admit that their absolutism has never had anything to do with liberty.

And that’s the way I see it from where I sit.

Chris Gibbs is a farmer and lives in Maplewood. He and his family own and operate 560 acres of crops, hay and cattle. Gibbs is retired from the United States Department of Agriculture and currently serves as president of the Gateway Arts Council and chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party and the Ohio Rural Caucus. He is also the president of Rural Voices USA and Rural Voices Network.