For years, the trio of Christian nationalist pseudo-historians at WallBuilders have been radical Second Amendment absolutists, with founder David Barton asserting over and over again that the Constitution protects not just an individual right to own guns, but that is places absolutely "no limitation" on an individual's right to own "whatever you can get your hands," including tanks, fighter jets, and even nuclear weapons.
"We need the ability to protect and defend ourselves against [the] government," said Barton's son, Tim, in 2018. "We wanted to make sure the people had the same means of defense as a government might have offensive weapons, so we need the same level of weapons to defend ourselves as we're going to be attacked with because we didn't want to disadvantage the people from being able to defend themselves against a tyrannical government."
WallBuilders has dedicated multiple episodes of its radio program to highlighting "the critical role that informed, active citizenship, and the Second Amendment play in protecting our cherished liberties." Those programs featured presentations delivered by WallBuilders co-host Rick Green, who teaches "constitutional defense" courses at his Patriot Academy that provide "physical and intellectual training on the 2nd Amendment ... so that you can better understand the history and importance of the great Right to Self-Defense."
The entire premise of Green's course is that "all Americans" should be carrying weapons everywhere at all times and be trained and prepared to protect themselves and other, especially "from the tyranny of the government."
Given such views, one would expect that Green and the Bartons would be outraged by the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis over the weekend. Pretti, who was filming ICE agents during an operation, was legally carrying a weapon in a holster when he was confronted by multiple ICE agents who shoved him to the ground and attempted to subdue him. During the scrum, one agent removed Pretti's weapon just seconds before another agent fired multiple shots into Pretti's back, killing him.
On their radio program today, Green and the Bartons blamed Pretti for his own death.
"I think we do a pretty good job of being intellectually honest and being consistent," Green said. "You mentioned this thing in Minneapolis. We have always said—whether it was the BLM riots of 2020, whether it was Jan. 6th at the Capitol, whether it was these things in Minneapolis, wherever it is—we have always consistently said, 'You don't fight law enforcement.' You don't go in and physically be violent with law enforcement. You are asking for trouble. You don't resist arrest. You don't climb through a broken window; that's the last line of defense for police officers defending members of Congress from what was literally on that side of the Capitol, a mob. You don't take a gun into a protest situation like this where you could end up in a scuffle with police officers."
"So," Green continued, "we can be intellectually honest and consistent in this. It's not based on our emotions or who the player is in that situation, who's president, who's protesting or not protesting, it's based on the principles. And I just want to point that out because I can't say that about even some of our conservative friends. Sometimes they the position based on who the players are, whereas we take the position—we try to, and I think, again, we're pretty consistent to this—we take the position based on what the principles are."
"You know, this guy that got shot and all about him being the victim; look, when it turns out you don't have any ID on you and you came in with multiple magazines, don't tell me you're a peaceful protester," David Barton replied. "In a court of law, that establishes intent right there. You have no ID; you leave that away so you can't be ID'd, and you carry multiple magazines? Not good."
"All three of us talk openly about the fact we conceal carry all the time," Tim Barton added. "It's going to be very unusual if you find us without having a handgun on us. And Rick, I know for you and me often, we'll carry multiple magazines and pocket knives, sometimes a tourniquet. We carry different things, so it's not crazy that somebody might have a firearm and have multiple magazines. However, when law enforcement is doing an operation and then you go to intervene, as you would call it, or interfere, as they would acknowledge, and then you put hands on an officer?"
"We don't yet have all the information," Tim Barton continued. "We haven't seen it all. So we don't know if in the wrestling, they saw his shirt lifted, they see the gun, or if he actually reached for the gun. We don't know. We know somebody yells 'gun.' We know they discharge their firearms, and we know he goes to stand before Jesus. That's what we know. But the bottom line is even if you are legally carrying, when you put your hands on an officer and it goes to the ground, at that point, you've already messed up so many ways. If you're showing up without ID, it could be because you have intention and motive beyond what maybe the liberal media is pretending like he did. But even if you were an innocent bystander, you don't intervene and put hands on an officer and you go to the ground where there's a firearm and there's multiple officers telling you to stop resisting and you continue to resist."
There are multiple videos documenting the deadly confrontation and none of them show any evidence of Pretti ever "putting hands" on any of the ICE officers or brandishing his weapon. Every video shows Pretti directing traffic while filming ICE officers and then attempting to help another protester who had been shoved by an agent, at which point Pretti was doused with pepper spray and attacked by multiple agents, one of whom fatally shot him moments later.
WallBuilders has spent decades promoting a truly radical interpretation of the Second Amendment while openly encouraging everyone to exercise their Second Amendment rights at all times and in all places in order to fend off "a tyrannical government." But when a protestor documenting government brutality is killed by authorities, WallBuilders rushes to defend the government and blame that protester for legally carrying a firearm while absurdly praising itself for its supposed commitment to principles and intellectual consistency.
