The shooting of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, during a scuffle that erupted when immigration officers got rough with peaceful protesters, is widely seen as a likely turning point in popular opposition to President Donald Trump.

The first polls show that Americans overwhelmingly view the killing as unjustified. A number of Republican politicians have urged curbing the aggressive enforcement tactics in Minneapolis, and Trump himself seems to be signaling a shift. Partly, this reaction is due to the shocking nature of the incident: Pretti was repeatedly shot in the back, and the legal handgun he had carried in his waistband had been removed by one of the agents before the first shot was fired. But the powerful backlash is also partly due to another factor: the administration’s attempt to smear Pretti as a terrorist because he was carrying a gun antagonized gun rights supporters, a major part of the conservative........

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