National Rifle Association issues blunt statement after Donald Trump says he didn't like Alex Pretti having a gun

US President Donald Trump declared Alex Pretti 'certainly shouldn't have been carrying a gun', but the National Rifle Association has since weighed in to clarify the 'right to bear arms'.

On January 24, a federal immigration agent fatally shot Alex Pretti in the streets of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security said the federal agent shot the 37-year-old intensive care nurse in an act of self-defense, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun at the time. Footage around the time of the incident shows Pretti holding not a gun, but a mobile phone, and eyewitness accounts also contradict officials' claims he was brandishing such a weapon.

President of the United States Donald Trump also spoke out in an interview with Fox News, stating he doesn't 'like' that Pretti 'was carrying a gun' and that there was something 'unusual' about Pretti 'ha[ving] a gun that was fully loaded' alongside 'two magazines'.

While the investigation into the incident continues, Trump's voicing that '[Pretti] certainly shouldn't have been carrying a gun' has sparked backlash, given the nurse was a licensed concealed-weapons holder.

And while not making direct reference to anyone, the National Rifle Association took to X on January 28 to share a statement.

The statement reads: "The NRA unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere they have a legal right to be."

This follows gun rights lobbying group Gun Owners of America also having spoken out.

A spokesperson for the organization, named Luis Valdes, told Reuters: "You absolutely can walk around with a gun, and you absolutely can peacefully protest while armed.

"It's an American historical tradition that dates all the way back to the Boston Tea Party."

This was echoed by Minneapolis police chief who told Face the Nation: "You have a Second Amendment right in the United States to possess a firearm. And there are some restrictions around that in Minnesota.

"And everything that we see, that we're aware of, shows that he did not violate any of those restrictions. He is not a convicted felon and he is someone that did have a permit for the handgun to carry it."

However, other officials have also defended the agent responsible for shooting Pretti, and have supported Trump's statement that Pretti shouldn't have been carrying a gun, such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel.

During a press conference just hours after Pretti's killing, Noem said: "I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign."

Patel told Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures: "As Kristi said, you cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple."

In response to Pretti's fatal shooting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a reporter, as quoted by Reuters: "Any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms, and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you, and that's unfortunately what took place on Saturday."