Right-wing gun enthusiasts and extremists are working overtime to justify the murder of Alex Peretti

Brandon Herrera, a prominent gun influencer with more than 4 million followers on YouTube, said in a video posted this week that while it’s unfortunate that Pretty died, it was ultimately his fault.

“Pretty did not deserve to die, but this was not just a baseless execution,” Herrera said, adding without evidence that Pretty’s goal was to disrupt ICE operations. “If you’re interfering with arrests and things like that, that’s a crime. And if you get in the officer’s way, that could potentially escalate to physical force, whether that’s them arresting you or just running you out of the way, which could then lead to a fight, which, if you’re armed, could lead to a fatal shooting.” He described the situation as “legal but terrible.”

Herrera was joined in the video by former police officer and fellow gun influencer Cody Garrett, known online as the Donut Operator.

The two men took the opportunity to mock immigrants, with Herrera saying, “All the media is going to jump on this because it’s a current thing and they’re going to ignore the 12 drunk drivers who killed, you know, American citizens yesterday who were all illegal or H-1B or whatever.”

Herrera also referenced his “friend” Kyle Rittenhouse, who has become central to much of the controversy surrounding the shooting.

On August 25, 2020, Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, traveled from his home in Illinois to participate in a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, brandishing an AR-15-style rifle, claiming he was there to protect local businesses. He killed two people and shot another in the arm that night.

Critics of ICE’s actions in Minneapolis quickly highlighted what they saw as hypocrisy in the right’s defense of Rittenhouse and attacks on Pretty.

“Kyle Rittenhouse was a conservative hero because he walked into a protest actually brandishing a gun, but this guy who had a legal permit to carry his gun and actually had his gun removed is for some people an instigator, when in fact he was going to help a woman,” Democratic strategist Jessica Tarlov said on Fox News this week.

Rittenhouse also waded into the debate, writing on X: “The correct way to deal with law enforcement when armed,” above a photo of himself raising his hands in front of police after killing two people. “ICE got it wrong,” he added in another post.

The claim that Preity is an administrator has been repeated in private Facebook groups run by armed militias, according to data shared with WIRED by the Tech Transparency Project, as well as on extremist Telegram channels.

“I’m sorry for him and his family,” a member of a Facebook group called American Patriots wrote. But my question is: Why did he go to these riots armed with a gun and extra ammunition if he wasn’t planning to use them?

Some extremist groups, such as the far-right Boogaloo movement, have strongly criticized the administration’s comments on arming during protests.

“To the ‘don’t bring a gun to protest’ crowd, fuck you,” a member of a private Boogaloo Facebook group wrote this week. “To the damned crooks who think disarmament is the answer and I don’t think it will happen to you either, fuck you. To the federal government that has seen citizens killed just for saying no to them, fuck you. It will not be violated.”