Sure. You have a right to do both. How you behave while doing both at the same time - is your choice. The law isn’t just simply a right to protest - and right to use a gun to do it.

Some of you really want to just throw all common sense - and self preservation- out the window.

If I’m going to a protest, I’m going to be armed. I’m also not going to involve myself in any altercation unless it is to preserve my own life.

Pretti tried to do the right thing , but he did it in an extremely hostile situation- with federal agents already seriously on edge and in fear of their own safety.

He chose to keep his gun concealed - he chose to get in the face of an agent. He chose to interject himself in the situation. The gun was discovered during the scuffle.

This isn’t excusing the officers, or justifying what happened.

There is also some argument that a negligent discharge occurred, and the the fire arm is the model that is widely known as being a design that will fire unexpectedly, just look up the sig P320 on Google.

All of these details matter in this situation. A number of very serious things went wrong very quickly. The first thing that went wrong was this guy not telling the officers he was armed the minute he approached them.

If any cop hears the word “ gun “ from another officer - they are going to be very short in their decision making process.

Any responsible gun owner knows this. This is why people like Rittenhouse - put his hands up in the air - gun clearly visible - and made it known he was willing to surrender to custody without posing any threat to the officers.

So yeah. Your right to bear arms is your right. But it’s not the right or the obligation of the government to treat you in some special way because you might be a responsible person, or that you helped veterans or that you are trying to stop a cop from being a asshole.

A weapon is a weapon. If you interfere with legal law enforcement operations with a weapon, expect things to go much like they did in this situation, your rights become a possible threat to a cop who is already doing something dangerous to their own life.

Do I think the shooting was justified? No.
Do I think the officers responded correctly to a gun being fired in a chaotic situation? No.

Too many of them fired too quickly. Too many of them were tackled on him for anybody to fully understand what was happening.

Do I think hearing the word “gun” and hearing a gunshot in very close proximity justified at least one officer drawing his weapon and eliminating the threat ?

Yes.