NRA Finally Responds the Way We Needed Them to Respond

In the wake of the shooting of Alex Pretti, and some kind of brain-dead comments from the Trump administration about him having a firearm, most gun rights groups stepped up and set the record straight.

The one group that was lukewarm about their response was the NRA.

It wasn’t a good look, especially after they refused to comment on the shooting of Philando Castile in 2016. Not commenting on the shooting itself would have been fine, because there’s a lot going on and it’s understandable that some might want to reserve their opinions until they have a better grip on what happened.

But the comments from people like Kash Patel, Scott Bessent, and others were far more troubling, and that could have been addressed in their statement.

When President Trump spoke yesterday, though, it finally triggered the NRA to say something they should have said a few days earlier.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) declared its absolutist stance on gun rights in a statement just hours after President Donald Trump suggested that Alex Pretti, the Minnesota VA nurse fatally shot by federal agents on Saturday, “shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.”

…

In the short statement published via X on Tuesday, however, the country’s biggest gun lobby wrote: “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.”

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.

— NRA (@NRA) January 28, 2026

That’s what we needed to hear, at a minimum, from the NRA.

I get they don’t want to anger Trump, as that’ll make working with the White House that much more difficult over the next few years. However, just pretending nothing was happening and nothing anti-gun was said isn’t helpful in the least, either, especially as the NRA has been trying to win back former members who left the organization for various reasons, including the NRA’s silence on Castile’s killing.

Whether that applies to Pretti or not is something people will keep debating for weeks to come, and I don’t blame the NRA for wanting to stay out of that mess if they can avoid it.

However, our gun rights groups need to stand for gun rights. Period.

It doesn’t matter how good of a relationship they have with the White House, with Congress, or anyone else if they’re not fulfilling their purpose. If they’re not doing that, why should anyone give them membership money when it’s not like they’re the only game in town?

Luckily, they stepped up and said what needed to be said.

Yes, I’m annoyed that it took them a few days to say it, but better late than never.

I think that, in his heart, Trump doesn’t quite mean for things to sound like they’re sounding, but I also think that it would be for the best if he’d just stop commenting on the whole thing and just let the investigation take place.

Because, as the NRA said, if you have a legal right to be somewhere, you have the right to be armed while there.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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