A pro-gun control rally was held on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where students, families, and many other activists demanded tighter gun control in the U.S., according to BBC News. There is a strong, and growing movement for the reform of gun laws in order to protect American citizens from atrocities like seen with the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida this past Wednesday, which took the lives of 17 people.

President Trump addressed the tragedy in a speech on Friday, and with no mention of gun reform, he focused on the intersectionality of mental health and criminal activity in America. In contrast to this, Trump signed a bill in 2017 that makes it easier for people who are mentally ill to purchase guns, according to NPR. The bill rescinded an Obama-era law, which required the Social Security Administration to release financial records of the mentally ill during background checks for gun purchases, in virtue of Second Amendment rights by denying due process. This affected around 17,000 individuals in the U.S. and was first enacted in response to the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

It is unclear if the rescinded law would have prevented Nikolas Cruz, aged 19, from coming into possession of the weapon he used on Wednesday, while it was legally purchased by Cruz prior to the attack. The image of the American who demands the right to bear arms for personal defence under the Second Amendment is very different from the image of the mentally unstable teenage criminal who operated under the same rights to commit the murder of 17 innocent people. This begs the question of whether the right to bear arms protected by the Bill of Rights, which was introduced when self-defence was critical for individual safety throughout the Revolutionary War, is still as relevant in comparison with the reoccurring acts of violence in American schools and other public locations. Additionally, the modern innovation of automatic weapons has increased the individual’s capacity for causing wide-spread violence. However, if the purchasing of weapons in America becomes entirely illegal, it would still leave the individual at the mercy of armed law enforcement as well as owners of weapons smuggled into the U.S. or purchased on the black market.

Despite the political limitations that are expected to thwart pro-gun reform activism in America, students, families, and other activists are banding together to speak out against the laws which currently allow deadly weapons to fall into the hands of malice. Many argue that gun reform is imperative for the protection of innocent lives and that lawmakers must recognize the contradictions implied by the laws currently in place. The Second Amendment was created for the protection of the American citizen, but now also makes many acts of wide-spread violence possible.