INDIANAPOLIS - Top Republican hopefuls for the 2024 presidential race vowed Friday at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention to defend the Second Amendment at all costs, suggesting that new firearms restrictions in the wake of mass shootings around the country would only hurt law-abiding gun owners.

The three-day gathering with thousands of the organization’s most active members at Indianapolis’ convention center came mere days after mass shootings at a school in Nashville and a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. Last year’s NRA convention followed the massacre at a school in Uvalde, Texas.

That illustrated the stark reality that such shootings have become enough of the fabric of American life that the NRA can no longer schedule around them. Nor does it really want to: The convention also fell on the second anniversary of the mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis that killed nine people.

None of that stopped top Republicans from flocking to the event, underscoring the political power of the NRA.

“Gun-hating politicians should never go to bed unafraid of what this association, and all of our millions of members, can do to their political careers,” said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, suggesting that his group could play a dominant role in the 2024 election after turmoil in recent years over a failed bankruptcy effort, a class-action lawsuit and a fraud investigation.

Instead of fewer guns, former Vice President Mike Pence called for federal funding for armed school officers and more institutions for the mentally ill, though mental illness is not the main driver of mass shootings. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he had resisted implementing any gun restrictions in his state despite that stance being unpopular.

Former President Donald Trump crowned himself as “the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president” in the nation’s history. “I will be your loyal friend and fearless champion once again as the 47th president of the United States,” he told the crowd, pledging to create a new tax credit to reimburse teachers “for the full cost of a concealed-carry firearm,” as well as gun training “from highly-qualified experts.”

Some of the Republican politicians speaking at the event said they were saddened by the recent shootings, but most spent more time criticizing Democrats, slamming COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines, and discussing security along the U.S.-Mexico border. That was fine with many attendees, who don’t think gun restrictions are the answer to mass shootings.

“No one wants to see the violence you see in schools and stuff today,” said Randy Conner, a pistol and rifle instructor for the NRA from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. “But I don’t think taking the guns away from ordinary citizens is going to change any of that at all.”