BOISE - A rally in support of the Second Amendment brought a few hundred people to the steps of the Idaho State Capitol Saturday.
Rallies in support of gun rights were planned for every state capital -- held simultaneously across time zones. The Boise rally began at 12 p.m. Mountain Time.
Saturday's rallies, under the banner of "Americans for America," were scheduled in part as a response to the March For Our Lives on March 24 and school walkouts that took place on March 14 -- both nationwide events organized after 17 people were shot and killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida, and both events that included signs and speakers calling for new gun control laws.
Rep. Christy Zito (R-Hammett) was one of the speakers at the Second Amendment rally. She said the March For Our Lives was represented as one thing, and "turned out to be something else."
"It's heartbreaking for me to know that so many of our kids don't really understand the true meaning of the Second Amendment. They've been taught that guns are dangerous, that it's all the fault of the firearms when it's really not," Zito said. "(A gun) is an inanimate object. They don't really understand the significance of the Second Amendment, and why it was written into our Bill of Rights, and why it supports every other right that we have.
"It was written by citizens who had just relieved themselves of the tyranny of a government," Zito continued. "And they knew how important it was to defend themselves against that, and they left that legacy for us."
Saturday's rally ended with an address from Eric Parker, who was accused - but acquitted - of conspiring to intimidate federal agents in the April 2014 standoff at Cliven Bundy's Nevada ranch. At the rally, he said that teachers should be allowed to use firearms to protect students if necessary.