COEUR d’ALENE — While area students spoke out Wednesday, supporters of the Second Amendment rallied in the rain at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds.

Organized by Brian Welch of the North Idaho Carry group on Facebook, the event drew dozens of citizens concerned with applying governmental Band-Aids to a deeper social problem.

“We feel the loss of the Parkland students, the Sutherland Springs churchgoers” and other victims of violence, said Welch, but those murders were the result of evil and not guns, he said.

“Doing away with guns will not do away with evil. A gun ban won’t cure the cancer of the soul.”

The rally included a call to prayer plus a plea for reason. Welch counseled that kneejerk political reactions often injure the populace.

“When you try to ‘do something,’ sometimes you don’t do the right thing,” he said.

Current and future owners of the AR-15 and other semi-automatic rifles shouldn’t have their rights taken away because of something evil done by someone far away, he added.

“I won’t let my grandchildren be punished for someone else’s action,” he said.

Welch criticized the claims of Coeur d’Alene High School senior Ashley Romanowski, who told local media Feb. 26 that Wednesday’s student protests were a response to feeling afraid at schools. That claim was “very disingenuous” because the student walkouts had become all about pushing a partisan political agenda, he said. While expressing respect for the students protesting Wednesday, Welch said any attempt at gun control would meet stiff opposition.

“We’re not going to roll over and let you take away our rights,” Welch said.