Letter to the editor: Trump says 'you can't have guns'

First published in the Brunswick Beacon, 02.05.26

ProPublica reports that 170 U.S. citizens were seized and beaten by immigration agents in 2025. The Guardian published names of 32 who died in ICE custody last year.

On Jan. 24, ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Administration nurse at a protest over ICE’s Jan. 7 killing of Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three.

Minnesota permits concealed and open carry of handguns. Minneapolis Police said Pretti was duly licensed. Eyewitnesses and videos prove that Pretti held only a cellphone when ICE agents removed a firearm from beneath his jacket before they shot him.

After FBI Director Kash Patel said, “You cannot bring a firearm” to a protest, Trump agreed. “You can’t have guns,” Trump said. “You can’t walk in with guns — you just can’t,” Trump insisted.

Second Amendment advocates, including prominent Republicans, were stunned.

Rep. Savannah Maddox (R-KY) wrote, “Your federal government is trying to convince you that the mere state of being armed — which is your God-given, constitutionally protected right — is a ‘threat to law enforcement.’ Subverting the Second Amendment,” she added, is “not OK.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wrote: “Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right. If you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote, “Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm. I support Americans’ 1st and 4th Amendment rights. There is nothing wrong with legally, peacefully protesting and videoing. You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.”

Governor Phil Scott (R-VT) spoke for millions of outraged Americans when he wrote, “Enough … It’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government.”

Michael Maisel

Sunset Beach