President Donald Trump affirmed to reporters last week that the shooting at Florida State University would not move him to implement new restrictions on the Second Amendment.

The mass shooting in Tallahassee, during which two people were killed and six were injured, provoked Democrats to renew their calls for gun control legislation, yet Trump asserted that such restrictions are not ultimately effective at limiting the number or severity of mass killings.

“These things are terrible. But the gun doesn’t do the shooting, the people do,” Trump said. “As far as legislation is concerned, this has been going on for a long time. I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment. I ran on the Second Amendment, among many other things.”

Trump has signed an order instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi, who formerly served as Attorney General of Florida, to remove previous Biden administration gun control provisions.

An official statement from the Florida Democratic Party used the shooting to condemn efforts from state lawmakers to lower the firearm purchase age to eighteen, with Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried saying lawmakers should “take real steps to make our students safer.”

“Any elected officials or lawmakers who would support rolling back that law would be complicit in the continued threat of gun violence on college campuses,” Fried said in the statement. “It’s time for the Florida Legislature to stop working for the gun lobby and start working for Floridians.”

Luis Valdes, the Florida state director for Gun Owners of America, said that as a former law enforcement officer, he could attest that police are “first responders, not first preventers.”

Rather than opposing efforts to remove gun control, Valdes called on Republican leaders in the Florida Legislature to pass campus carry instead of blocking the legislation, asserting that the statute would better enable individuals on college campuses to protect themselves and others.