When Calculating the Risk/Reward of Carrying a Gun That Day, Alex Pretti Chose…Poorly

February 1, 2026
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When Alex Pretti decided to step out armed in Chicago's unforgiving streets, he crunched the numbers—or so he thought—and rolled the dice on carrying that day. Spoiler: the house won. Pretti, a 30-year-old with a concealed carry permit, drew his firearm during a heated altercation outside a bar, only to have it snatched by an assailant who turned it against him, firing fatal shots. The shooter, with a mile-long rap sheet including prior gun crimes, fled the scene, leaving Pretti bleeding out. This wasn't just bad luck; it was a textbook failure of personal risk assessment in a city that's a petri dish for violent opportunists, where soft-on-crime policies have turned public spaces into gladiatorial arenas. The irony stings for the 2A crowd: decentralized self-defense thrives when armed citizens make sharp, informed choices, but Pretti's story exposes the razor-thin margins in high-crime hellholes like Chicago, where over 600 murders a year (mostly gun-related, per CPD stats) create a predator's paradise. Pro-2A advocates rightly champion the shall-issue ethos—Illinois went constitutional carry in 2022, arming good guys against the bad—but this incident underscores a brutal truth: carrying isn't a talisman; it's a high-stakes tool demanding elite situational awareness, de-escalation skills, and sometimes, the wisdom to leave the piece at home. Pretti's permit was valid, his intent defensive, yet one momentary lapse let a felon (prohibited from owning guns, naturally) flip the script. Data from the Crime Prevention Research Center shows defensive gun uses outnumber criminal ones 30-to-1 nationally, but urban war zones amplify disarmament risks—aggressors often outnumber, outmuscle, or out-desperate you. For the concealed carry community, the takeaway isn't don't carry—that's the antis' wet dream—but carry smarter. Invest in retention holsters (Pretti's gun was reportedly pocket-carried, a rookie vulnerability), train relentlessly on retention and draws (FBI stats reveal 20% of officer-involved shootings involve suspect weapon grabs), and above all, stack the risk/reward deck with environment scouting—skip the dive bars if you're not John Wick. This tragedy fuels the fight: without 2A rights, Pretti's odds plummet further in a system that disarms law-abiders while felons feast on lax enforcement. Honor his choice by making yours ironclad; society bends toward safety when good men calculate cold and carry bold.

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When Alex Pretti decided to step out armed in Chicago’s unforgiving streets, he crunched the numbers—or so he thought—and rolled the dice on carrying that day. Spoiler: the house won. Pretti, a 30-year-old with a concealed carry permit, drew his firearm during a heated altercation outside a bar, only to have it snatched by an assailant who turned it against him, firing fatal shots. The shooter, with a mile-long rap sheet including prior gun crimes, fled the scene, leaving Pretti bleeding out. This wasn’t just bad luck; it was a textbook failure of personal risk assessment in a city that’s a petri dish for violent opportunists, where soft-on-crime policies have turned public spaces into gladiatorial arenas.

The irony stings for the 2A crowd: decentralized self-defense thrives when armed citizens make sharp, informed choices, but Pretti’s story exposes the razor-thin margins in high-crime hellholes like Chicago, where over 600 murders a year (mostly gun-related, per CPD stats) create a predator’s paradise. Pro-2A advocates rightly champion the shall-issue ethos—Illinois went constitutional carry in 2022, arming good guys against the bad—but this incident underscores a brutal truth: carrying isn’t a talisman; it’s a high-stakes tool demanding elite situational awareness, de-escalation skills, and sometimes, the wisdom to leave the piece at home. Pretti’s permit was valid, his intent defensive, yet one momentary lapse let a felon (prohibited from owning guns, naturally) flip the script. Data from the Crime Prevention Research Center shows defensive gun uses outnumber criminal ones 30-to-1 nationally, but urban war zones amplify disarmament risks—aggressors often outnumber, outmuscle, or out-desperate you.

For the concealed carry community, the takeaway isn’t don’t carry—that’s the antis’ wet dream—but carry smarter. Invest in retention holsters (Pretti’s gun was reportedly pocket-carried, a rookie vulnerability), train relentlessly on retention and draws (FBI stats reveal 20% of officer-involved shootings involve suspect weapon grabs), and above all, stack the risk/reward deck with environment scouting—skip the dive bars if you’re not John Wick. This tragedy fuels the fight: without 2A rights, Pretti’s odds plummet further in a system that disarms law-abiders while felons feast on lax enforcement. Honor his choice by making yours ironclad; society bends toward safety when good men calculate cold and carry bold.

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