Did President Trump post on Truth Social that "HE HAD A GUN, ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS ON OUR STREETS, WE NEED LAW AND ORDER" as a viral screenshot claims? No, that's not true: The image, which also contained the signature "Thank you for your attention to this matter" catchphrase, did not show a real post from Trump's Truth Social account. Trump did make a post after the shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minnesota on January 24, 2026 but it contained no references to criminals being the only ones carrying guns on the streets.
One example of the fake image appeared in a post on X (archived here) where it was published on January 25, 2026 with a comment that read:
Hey MAGA
Your president Donald Trump believes if you have a gun you're a criminal.
Wonder what the @nra thinks about this 🤔
This is what the image in the post looked like:
(Image source: X post by @DavidLeavitt)
The text in the image read:
HE HAD A GUN, ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS ON OUR STREETS, WE NEED LAW AND ORDER. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Lead Stories searched for the phrase "ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS" on the @realDonaldTrump Truth Social account of President Trump and did not find any matching posts (archived here).
A Google search for the phrase "ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS" limited to links containing site:truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump using the "site:" search operator returned no results (archived here), indicating Google didn't recently index such a post either.
All screenshots of the supposed post reviewed by Lead Stories showed exactly the same comment, share and like count, using the same layout. If the post had been real the expectation would be that there were more screenshots circulating showing different view counts and/or layouts (night vs. day mode, mobile vs. web interface...).
Trump did make a post (archived here) in the aftermath of the January 24, 2026 shooting in Minnesota which, alongside many other things, did include references to a gun and criminals but it did not mention streets and it did not contain the "Thank you for your attention to this matter" phrase:
(Image source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115951636521315703)
