I grew up mostly in western Colorado at the base of the Grand Mesa wilderness. Virtually everyone I knew owned guns and hunted, including the preacher at our local church. This gun-owning culture fit naturally with certain brands of conservatism. Although I usually don’t consider myself a conservative anymore (I’m a liberal broadly speaking with some conservative dispositions), I continue to think that the Second Amendment is an important part of the Bill of Rights, and indeed a liberal protection.

I grew up hearing warnings about the abuses of power by federal agents and even Denver politicians. Later, stories about how federal agents killed people at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and Waco in 1993 imbued the conservative movement with greater antipathy toward federal overreach. The horrific Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, motivated partly by anger over those events, offered a stark reminder that the ends of reforming federal practices cannot justify violent means.

Still, Ruby Ridge and Waco remained key examples of out-of-control federal agencies. In 1997, Colorado legal scholar David Kopel, along with Paul H. Blackman, published the book, “No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It.” (Note: Kopel is the research director at the Independence Institute, and I write a column through the Institute for Complete Colorado.)

The front-flap description of Kopel’s book refers to Ruby Ridge and Waco: “Each new incident — and there are dozens each year — forces us to rethink the role of federal law enforcement agencies and the risks that their enormous powers pose to individual rights, judicial authority, and arrest procedures in the name of public safety. Waco and Ruby Ridge were neither conspiracies nor flukes. They represent the worse-case scenario of problems that now plague federal law enforcement, including its militarization, judicial rubberstamping of search and arrest applications, aggressive and violent arrest procedures, indifference to religious beliefs, the complicity of an overzealous media, and failed congressional investigations.”

Fast-forward to 2026. If you replace “Waco and Ruby Ridge” with “ICE killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti,” the warning remains equally poignant.

Yet many of the same conservatives who warned me my entire life about the coming of the “jackbooted thugs” now stand on the sidelines and cheer as federal agents murder citizens in cold blood in the streets of America, so far with zero accountability.

Here I use the term “murder” in a moral sense, not a legal one. In the case of Good, Good’s automobile did brush or nudge or push the agent who shot her. If you watch video of the killing, you will see that the agent in question foolishly placed himself in front of the vehicle and then focused on drawing his gun rather than stepping aside, as he easily could have done, as Good turned to the right and accelerated.

As is obvious to anyone with eyes and so much as a spec of moral integrity, the agent who shot Good was intent on delivering maximum punishment, not on preserving the peace, which is consistent with the violent rhetoric of his superiors. Still, in a court of law, I doubt that a jury could agree that the killing, however unjustified on moral grounds, met the standards for a criminal conviction.

The case of Pretti is unambiguous. It was a straight-up street execution.

That DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller lied about Good and Pretti, absurdly labeling them “domestic terrorists,” “assassins,” and the like, now is apparent to everyone willing to see reality.

There are some cracks. It was easier for conservatives to dismiss Good, described by Trump as “very disorderly” and, as various conservatives pointed out, a queer woman, than to dismiss Pretti, a VA nurse and a lawfully armed white man.

On January 24, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for part of California Bill Essayli posted to social media, “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!” To this, the National Rifle Association replied, “This sentiment from [Essayli] is dangerous and wrong. Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.”

Likewise, although Gun Owners of America complained about people “antagonizing” ICE agents, it posted, “Federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm.” Although far from unequivocal condemnations of obvious abuses of federal power, such statements at least indicate nervousness about such violent displays of authority.

Obviously the move from “we need well-enforced immigration laws” to “therefore ICE agents are justified in whatever street violence they choose to administer” is a non-sequitur. Even if you accept the usual conservative call for strict immigration enforcement, the ends do not justify the means — a principle conservatives used to endorse.

My view is that we do need well-enforced immigration laws, but we should recognize that our informal immigration policy long has been different from our formal one. In cases where the federal government has nodded and winked as people in the legal shadows created lives for themselves here without engaging in crime, our government should formally let those people stay. Yet a large fraction of the immigrants detained by ICE have no criminal record.

Further, the Trump administration has turned some 1.6 million legal immigrants into potentially illegal immigrants by fiat, simply by revoking their legal status. The obvious strategy of the Trump administration is not to normalize immigration in a legal framework, but to demonize and punish all immigrants, regardless of individual character.

Regardless, there is no justification, on conservative grounds or otherwise, for the brutal displays of force we’ve seen repeatedly by immigration agents in the streets of America. Even if you think illegal immigration (and even a lot of legal immigration) is the disease, the “cure” of authoritarian expansion is worse.

Perhaps as the horror of the federal killings of Good and Pretti further sinks in, more conservatives will locate their spines and rediscover their principles.