Leaders of the “March for Our Lives” anti-gun protest movement scrambled Tuesday to distance themselves from an op-ed in the New York Times by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens calling for the Second Amendment to be repealed.

In the op-ed, Stevens wrote that in the wake of last weekend’s nationwide protests, ” the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”

March for Our Lives leader Cameron Kasky was the first to try to contain the damage. Kasky, a student at Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School who used his platform at a CNN town hall last month to compare Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to the shooter, and who also accused National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch of being a bad mother, immediately shared the article on Twitter, though he added that it was “not what we are going for”:

https://t.co/JcFNFTA6VD Not what we’re going for here, but very interesting considering who wrote it. Feel free to give it a read. I don’t feel the same way, but it’s an interesting point of view. — Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 27, 2018

Kasky added that he supported “responsible ownership of a small weapon”:

And I mean it. I think responsible ownership of a small weapon is not something that should be revoked. It should be much more difficult to get a gun than a car and there should be frequent psychological checkups, but some weapons can protect a home. Assault weapons are not those — Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 27, 2018

Later, however, Kasky tweeted that the Second Amendment was outdated:

The second amendment was written when African Americans were still considered 3/5ths of a person… As a matter of fact, if you read it, it didn’t even call them African Americans; it called them “Other Persons” I really don’t want to listen to 200 years ago for EVERYTHING — Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 27, 2018

On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted that the Second Amendment would never be repealed:

THE SECOND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER BE REPEALED! As much as Democrats would like to see this happen, and despite the words yesterday of former Supreme Court Justice Stevens, NO WAY. We need more Republicans in 2018 and must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

That send the March for Our Lives organizers into overdrive.

Kasky launched a tweetstorm of denials, including insults directed at the president:

“I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” https://t.co/7Ry5XbJUGQ — Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 28, 2018

Fellow activist leader Emma Gonzáles retweeted:

Maybe if @realDonaldTrump actually came to Parkland to have a conversation with us he would understand that WE DO NOT WANT TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT. Man, and they say millennials like to complain. #NeverAgain #MarchForOurLives https://t.co/QkWB3DQOqM — Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) March 28, 2018

And fellow March for Our Lives founder David Hogg retweeted:

To clarify, #MarchForOurLives is not for the repeal of the Second Amendment. https://t.co/0ybz9JEB8y — Jaclyn Corin (@JaclynCorin) March 28, 2018

The student leaders of the March for Our Lives have reason to be worried: only one fifth of Americans, and just 39 percent of Democrats, support repealing the Second Amendment.

The student leaders were the public face of the protests over the weekend, and were widely credited by the media as having “organized” them. However, a new study revealed that only 10% of the protesters at the main demonstration in Washington, DC, were under 18 years old. The average age of protesters there was 49.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.