The move by the White House on Wednesday to feature four children at President Barack Obama's gun-control news conference set into motion a new debate over the role of young people on the political stage.

In unveiling his proposals to address gun violence, Obama was accompanied by four children who had written to him in favor of stricter firearms laws in the wake of the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 20 children and six adults.

The prominence of children in Obama's presentation prompted an immediate backlash from some conservatives. The right-leaning Drudge Report website ran a photo of Obama high-fiving one of the children gathered at the White House along with the headline "Let's play take the guns."