OPINION

A CCW Is Not a Badge - And the Political Arsonists Getting People Killed Need to Be Named

By Michael "Mickey" Scornavacco

Let's stop whispering and start telling the truth.

The death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis is not some mysterious tragedy wrapped in political fog. It is the predictable outcome of reckless behavior colliding with reckless rhetoric - and the politicians pouring gasoline on this fire need to be called out by name.

If you carry a gun in public, you do not get extra rights. You get extra responsibility. Period.

The decision that sealed the outcome

Pretti was armed. Reports say he had a permit. Video shows him holding a phone. Other reporting indicates a firearm was recovered from his person before shots were fired. Argue about the footage all you want. The reality doesn't change:

He inserted himself - while armed - into an active law-enforcement operation.

That is not courage. That is escalation. That is how people get killed.

When you walk into a live arrest scene, you are stepping into chaos. Officers are operating under stress, limited information, and real danger. Add an unknown armed civilian to that mix and you've just turned a volatile situation into a powder keg. No speech. No intentions. No hashtags change that.

The law is not confused. The media is.

Minnesota law does not romanticize interference. Obstructing or interfering with officers doing their job is illegal. A carry permit does not authorize you to interrupt a lawful arrest, question officers on scene, or play street-corner judge and jury.

This isn't politics. It's black-letter law.

And here's the part the activists don't want to admit: once you insert yourself, you become the aggressor. At that moment, your self-defense argument collapses. That's not opinion - that's how the law works.

Every CCW class teaches this - and Pretti would have heard it

If Pretti had a permit, he was trained. And every competent CCW instructor drills the same rule into students:

Do not escalate.

Do not intervene.

Do not insert yourself into police operations.

Why? Because the moment you do, you own the consequences.

Deadly force laws exist to protect people who are forced into danger, not people who voluntarily jump into it. This wasn't a home invasion. This wasn't an unavoidable threat. This was a choice - and choices matter.

Now let's talk about the real accelerant: politicians

This didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened in a climate deliberately poisoned by politicians who treat law enforcement like a prop in their culture war.

In Minnesota, Tim Walz spent years portraying federal enforcement as illegitimate and hostile. In Illinois and Chicago, J.B. Pritzker and Brandon Johnson turned ICE into a cartoon villain, framing lawful enforcement as moral outrage bait.

And then there's Eric Reinhart - the Lake County state's attorney who couldn't resist flexing for the cameras, floating prosecutions of federal agents to sound righteous and trendy. That wasn't leadership. That was posturing.

These people don't de-escalate. They inflame. They don't warn the public to stay back. They encourage confrontation with vague moral language and then act shocked when someone takes them seriously.

That rhetoric lands hardest on emotionally charged, politically activated people who start to believe that stepping into enforcement - armed - is heroic.

It is not heroic. It is lethal.

A CCW is not a cape

Carrying a firearm does not make you a deputy. It does not make you an overseer of arrests. It does not make you a moral enforcer. It strips away your margin for error.

Law enforcement on scene does not know your politics, your intentions, or your social-media bio. They see behavior. And the behavior that gets people killed looks like this:

An enforcement action underway.

A civilian approaching.

The civilian is armed or believed to be armed.

That's the end of the story. Every time.

Who actually pays the price

Not the politicians. Never them.

Civilians pay the price.

Officers pay the price.

Families pay the price.

Communities pay the price.

The same officials who scream the loudest disappear the fastest when blood hits the pavement.

The truth everyone needs to hear

This is not about celebrating a death. It's about refusing to lie about why it happened.

A CCW permit is not a badge. It is not authority. It is not a license to interfere. It is permission to carry - with a duty to avoid conflict, disengage, and stay out of police operations.

And the politicians who keep telling people that confrontation is virtuous - from governors to mayors to grandstanding state's attorneys - need to own the consequences of their words.

Your gun does not give you special authority. And if you are an elected official, your reckless rhetoric can and does get people killed.

—
Michael "Mickey" Scornavacco