Minnesota shooting blurs political lines around guns
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What incident sparked a debate over gun rights and safety in Minneapolis?
Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Thursday, January 29th, 2026. I'm Tamara Keith, I cover the White House.
I'm Mara Liason, Senior National Political Correspondent.
And we're joined by domestic extremism correspondent, Odette Youssef, Hi, Odette. Hey, Tamara. We are recording this at 1.05 p.m. Eastern Time, and today we're looking at how the fatal shooting of Alex Preddy by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis is scrambling the political lines around guns. President Trump's response to the shooting, specifically the fact that Preti was carrying a gun, has sparked pushback from the NRA and other Second Amendment advocates. We're going to get into that in a minute.
How has the political response to Alex Pretti's shooting affected gun rights discussions?
But first, Odette, I want to ask you about some of your recent reporting. We typically think of gun rights as a conservative cause, but that's not what you found to be the case in Minneapolis, right?
That's right. So what I found is that there are specific circumstances in Minneapolis specifically that have really yielded a mix in terms of who's got permits to carry, who owns firearms. And I started learning about this about a year ago, actually. I was in Minneapolis to report on how LGBTQ residents were showing a significant increase in interest in gun ownership and learning to use guns after Donald Trump was reelected. And so while I was there, I hooked in with a small outfit called Sequarity. They offer training and permit to carry classes specifically geared toward what might be considered non-traditional clients. meaning, you know, people who, because of their race or ethnicity or gender identity, felt kind of uncomfortable showing up for those classes with more sort of traditional conservative people around them.
What unique trends in gun ownership are emerging in Minneapolis?
And so, so Sequarity, this group that I was, you know, profiling, they were dealing with a surge of interest, but really, This shift, they told me, really had even started happening five years before that.
And of course, what happened five years before that is George Floyd was killed and then widespread protests broke out.
That's right. So, you know, this was something that I really came to understand more deeply when I was there, is that the killing and the unrest that followed fundamentally changed how many people Residents in Minneapolis look at law enforcement. You know, the neighborhood around where George Floyd was killed was basically abandoned by police. I don't know if you remember this, Tamara, but like the precinct, the police precinct in that area was burned. The police vacated it and then they never came back.
Right.
And so those nights of unrest, there were chaos agents that were driving into those neighborhoods, white nationalist biker gangs coming from suburban Minneapolis and scaring people of color who lived in that area. And so people were realizing that they couldn't rely on police to keep them safe. They had to create their own safety. And so for some, that included learning about and buying firearms. So that was a huge shift that took place five or six years ago.
Well, do we have any idea of whether this is a national trend? One thing we've seen in the past is that after Barack Obama was elected, all of a sudden gun sales in red states shot up as if Obama was coming for their guns. And I'm wondering if now what you're seeing, at least in Minneapolis, where people leaning more left are arming themselves, does that mean... that this country, which is the most heavily privately armed country in the world, is getting even more armed and potentially dangerous?
How did George Floyd's death influence perceptions of law enforcement and gun ownership?
Or do you think this is a one-off thing in Minnesota?
I think we've seen reporting that indicates that things such as the reelection of Donald Trump has caused more people from the left to learn how to use firearms and so on. I just don't know if I can say that the growth in interest among people on the left in other parts of the country equals what happened in Minneapolis as a result of the George Floyd killing.
So we've talked a little bit about who is deciding to arm themselves. But can we talk a little bit about why?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What incident sparked a debate over gun rights and safety in Minneapolis?
0:04–0:47
2
How has the political response to Alex Pretti's shooting affected gun rights discussions?
0:47–1:55
3
What unique trends in gun ownership are emerging in Minneapolis?
1:55–4:02
4
How did George Floyd's death influence perceptions of law enforcement and gun ownership?
4:02–4:54
5
What are the current standards for the use of force by federal agents?
4:54–7:03
6
How do federal use of force policies differ from local law enforcement?
7:03–9:27
7
What implications does the government funding fight have on ICE and gun policies?
9:27–12:06
8
What concerns do experts have about the future of community safety and gun ownership?
12:06–17:12