Protestors waved signs that read "Don't Tread on Me" and vowed to fight for their Second Amendment rights.

"You know the Second Amendment protects the First and all the others," gun control opponent Jason McAtee said.

Another gun control opponent remarked, "You tell Americans they can't have something -- they go out and get it."

Gun control wasn't even on the president's second-term agenda until last month's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Now,the president has said it's his mission to protect America's children and that's why he's pushing his new gun control package.

"I will do everything in my power to make them a reality because, while we may not be able to prevent every senseless act of violence in this country, if there is even one thing we can do to reduce it -- if even one life can be saved -- we've got an obligation to try," the president said.

But gun advocates insist the president's plan is not the way to prevent gun violence.

"This is not designed to actually solve the problem of violent crime. This is designed to assuage liberal partisans," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said.

"I'm not John Wayne. I'm not Clint Eastwood or Dirty Harry. I'm not a cop. But I have the capability of protecting the innocent and I have the right and obligation to do that," protestor Derrick Callahan said.

The White House is working to engage the American people in the gun control debate.

"He's going to seek common ground," Obama senior adviser David Plouffe said. "He's going to find every way he can to compromise. But he's going to be pretty clear, and we're also going to bring the American people more into the debate than we did in the first term."

The president is urging Americans to pressure a Republican-controlled House holding strong against his gun control package.

Meanwhile, a CNN/Time Magazine poll indicates that Americans generally favor stricter gun control and think it's too easy to buy guns in this country.

They don't believe, however, that stricter gun laws would reduce gun violence all by themselves.