SALT LAKE CITY — Dallas Johnson, 18, stood at the top of a hill here on Saturday, flanked by men with pistols and children gripping protest signs.

He held a pole, and a giant flag flapped above him, bearing a rifle and a message in black: “Come and take it.”

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in cities on Saturday calling on officials to enact stricter gun laws, but they were not the only ones to demonstrate.

Across the country, supporters of the Second Amendment gathered at state capitals and in city centers, hoping to counter the swell that has emerged in the wake of a February massacre that killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla. Their message in many cases was that the surviving Parkland students have it all wrong — more guns, not fewer, is what will end the violence that has ripped through so many American communities.