\n Last week, Trump once again put gun groups on the defensive<\/a> when he said Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti<\/a> should not have had a gun when he was fatally shot by federal agents.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cYou can\u2019t have guns. You can\u2019t walk in with guns. You just can\u2019t,\u201d Trump told reporters outside the White House, seeming to blame Pretti for having a gun on his waistband when he was shot and killed.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump, who has called himself \u201cthe best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House,\u201d received a swift rebuke<\/a> from gun-rights advocates, who argued that Pretti had a clear Second Amendment right to protest while carrying a gun. Some groups criticized the president outright, while the NRA, the biggest gun-rights group in the US, didn\u2019t mention the president or his comments directly.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe NRA unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere they have a legal right to be,\u201d the NRA wrote on X last week.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump\u2019s comments were all the more notable because they came after pushback from pro-gun groups against top Trump officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who suggested in the immediate aftermath that Pretti was a threat because he had a gun.\n <\/p>\n \n It was just the latest instance in which the president\u2019s actions and rhetoric have put him at odds with gun-rights groups \u2014 even if his administration\u2019s record is largely on the side of gun rights \u2014 scrambling the politics over firearms and sometimes creating strange bedfellows.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cTrump has always been a bit of a moving target when it comes to gun rights,\u201d said Rob Doar, president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center, who has pushed back against Trump officials\u2019 claims that Pretti was violating Minnesota law by carrying a gun.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think advocates are always a little bit tepid to trusting Trump as a strong mouthpiece for the Second Amendment. His administration, on the other hand, has done some really strong things,\u201d Doar told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump\u2019s views on guns have shifted from supporting an assault weapons ban in 2000 to a 2016 presidential campaign in which the NRA spent millions to help him get elected.\n <\/p>\n \n But a lot has changed since Trump\u2019s first election. The NRA is no longer the lobbying powerhouse it once was, having been weakened by financial scandals and years of internal conflict that led to the 2024 resignation of President Wayne LaPierre<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n A Republican strategist who works directly with multiple lawmakers on Capitol Hill described the NRA\u2019s self-insertion in the conversation around Pretti\u2019s shooting as the organization\u2019s attempt to stay relevant.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI have not heard of the NRA calling lawmakers to get them to lobby the White House\u201d over Trump\u2019s remarks following the shooting, the strategist said. \u201cThey just don\u2019t have the juice they used to.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n A White House official told CNN the NRA\u2019s pushback caught their attention and that the administration has been in direct contact with the group in the aftermath of the shooting.\n <\/p>\n \n White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that Trump \u201csupports the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens. Absolutely.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhile Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, Americans do not have a constitutional right to impede lawful immigration enforcement operations,\u201d Leavitt said.\n <\/p>\n \n Of course, pro-gun groups still have plenty of influence in the Trump administration, which they\u2019ve flexed knocking down several proposals over the past year \u2014 including some opposed by liberal groups.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump has reversed Biden-era gun regulations and cut funding<\/a> for gun-violence research over the past year, but the Trump administration also crossed gun-rights groups with a proposal to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the Drug Enforcement Administration.\n <\/p>\n \n Pro-gun groups feared such a move would empower the agency\u2019s gun-related efforts, not weaken them, and the idea was quietly abandoned<\/a>. (Gun-control advocates also opposed the move for fear it would sideline the agency.)\n <\/p>\n \n Last fall, when CNN and others reported that the Justice Department was considering<\/a> whether it could restrict the ability of transgender Americans from buying guns, both the NRA<\/a> and the LGBTQ-rights group Human Rights Campaign opposed the idea.\n <\/p>\n \n And while Trump officials and Republicans rushed to cast blame on Pretti \u2014 even as video evidence<\/a> contradicted them \u2014 Democrats defended his right to carry a gun at a protest under Minnesota law.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re in a bizarro world,\u201d said University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Adam Winkler, an expert on constitutional law and the Second Amendment. \u201cRepublicans are saying, \u2018Don\u2019t bring your guns to protests,\u2019 after 10 years of saying, \u2018Of course you can bring guns to protests.\u2019 And many liberals saying, \u2018You have a right to bring a gun to protest,\u2019 even though they\u2019ve been saying for years it would be irresponsible to bring a gun to a protest.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Some Republicans have relished the fact that gun-control advocates like Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom are defending Pretti\u2019s right to protest while carrying a gun. Newsom, who accused<\/a> the Trump administration of not believing in the Second Amendment, has signed legislation in California<\/a> restricting where guns can be legally carried (though a federal appellate court ruled against California\u2019s gun control laws last month<\/a>).\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s been great to watch all these Democrats crying out for run rights,\u201d one Republican congressman told CNN with a smirk.\n <\/p>\n \n Kris Brown, president of Brady, a gun violence prevention group, acknowledged that the politics of the fatal shooting in Minnesota were \u201ca little bit upside-down.\u201d But she argued Pretti\u2019s killing pierced the NRA\u2019s narrative that guns are a \u201crisk-free value proposition\u201d \u2014 and its long-held warnings that Democratic administrations would trample on the rights of gun owners.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe reality here is the NRA also warned gun owners for years and years about \u2018jack-booted thugs\u2019 coming for their guns,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt turns out they were right \u2014 it\u2019s just ICE, as currently deployed, is going after the people with the firearms and apparently shooting them for it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n When Trump first ran for president, the NRA was considered one of the strongest lobbying forces in Washington. During the 2016 campaign season \u2014 when the balance of the Supreme Court was at stake \u2014 the NRA spent $50 million on independent expenditures, including more than $30 million<\/a> on Trump\u2019s campaign, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.\n <\/p>\n \n Today, not only does the NRA wield less power, it spends less money. In the 2024 election cycle, the group spent just $10 million<\/a> on independent expenditures, according to the CRP.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe NRA is still the largest gun-rights group in the country, but they\u2019re significantly smaller than they used to be,\u201d said Stephen Gutowski, founder and editor of The Reload, a news site focused on firearms. \u201cIt\u2019s not clear exactly how much behind-the-scenes influence they have with the White House.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n A MAGA-aligned Republican operative told CNN the NRA is among many \u201clegacy GOP groups\u201d that no longer hold the same sway in Washington.\n <\/p>\n \n Another Republican adviser said the NRA had lost power after the scandals and noted there are more organizations in the gun space now. \u201cThe National Sportsman Shooting Foundation and Gun Owners of America have filled the void and grown in credibility,\u201d the adviser said.\n <\/p>\n \n The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n \n While the gun lobby is more diffuse in Washington, the issue still animates Trump\u2019s MAGA base.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe gun lobby has been weakened because the NRA no longer has the resources to play the dominant role in elections the way it has in recent decades,\u201d Winkler said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also the strength of the gun-rights movement that has never been solely or primarily a function of the NRA. It\u2019s a function of a lot of single-issue, pro-gun voters out there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In Trump\u2019s first term, he broke with gun-rights advocates several times in response to mass shootings, though he often didn\u2019t follow through with policy changes.\n <\/p>\n \n The Trump administration banned bump stocks<\/a> on semiautomatic weapons after the devices were used<\/a> by the shooter who killed 58 at a Las Vegas music festival<\/a> in 2017. (The measure was ruled unconstitutional<\/a> by the Supreme Court in 2024.)\n <\/p>\n \n The year after the Parkland mass shooting, Trump again floated expanded background checks, suggesting the NRA would come around<\/a> on the issue. Trump and LaPierre spoke several times on the matter, and the NRA warned the president<\/a> against supporting stronger background checks.\n <\/p>\n \n But while campaigning in the 2024 GOP primary, Trump touted the fact that no significant gun laws were changed during his first administration.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDuring my four years nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn\u2019t yield,\u201d Trump said in February 2024 at an NRA expo.\n <\/p>\n \n In the second Trump administration, gun-rights advocates say the administration has been quite supportive. They point to his appointees like Harmeet Dhillon at the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division, and provisions in Trump\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d to cut fees<\/a> on some firearms equipment like silencers.\n <\/p>\n![\"Shattered](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/gettyimages-2257812994-20260129014927119.JPG\")
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