(Trends Wide) — Hundreds of white Women gathered at the Colorado Capitol this Monday morning — and more are expected to join throughout the day — to make use of their “privileges” in a silent protest demanding Governor Jared Polis ban guns and create a gun removal program.

The sit-in also comes amid a national debate over gun control and nearly two months after Polis signed four gun control bills into law, including one to expand the state’s red flag law.

Here4TheKids—a movement created after a mass shooting in Nashville in March that killed six people, including three children—calls on mostly white women to sit peacefully until Democrat Polis signs an executive order banning guns. It was founded by two women of color, Saira Rao, of South Asian origin, and Tina Strawn, black. They are both mothers.

Strawn told Trends Wide that the movement calls for white women to lead the sit-in because “we know what happens when we come forward with lawsuits.”

“We know what happens when we show up in large numbers to fight for our rights. We’ve been doing it for generations. We’re always the ones in the most danger and risk,” said Strawn, author and owner of the “Speaking of Racism” podcast. .

“So I was very attracted to the idea that it was time to ask Black people and other marginalized and vulnerable communities to not participate and to allow white women and their privileged bodies, their privilege and their power to speak out. It’s time to manifest,” Strawn added.

The move has garnered support from the entertainment industry, including white actresses Amy Schumer, Michaela Watkins, and Lake Bell.

Watkins, who reported to the Colorado Capitol early Monday morning and is scheduled to stay late into the night, told Trends Wide that her initial response to the call for action to involve primarily white women was : “What? Only white women? That sounds exclusive”, but he soon understood what the intention of the conveners was.

“Statistically, white women are the least likely to be stopped or assaulted by police, so we said, ‘Okay.’ If marginalized communities have been traumatized over and over again, I guess we’ll just band together,” Watkins said. to Trends Wide as cars drove by and honked their horns in support of the protest. “We are the largest voting bloc in this country. We have power, we just forget it and have been conditioned to forget it.”

She also said: “For me it was very confrontational; it was like, ‘I’m an activist, but am I really willing to take a chance?'” she said when asked what she would say to other white women who are uncomfortable with the movement.

“If someone says, ‘I don’t understand why I have to be there,’ they don’t have to be here. But if you feel like you’re over it, over this incredible horror that we literally face every day, then you should come. “.

“This is apolitical, it affects everyone”

There have been at least 276 mass shootings in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people, excluding the shooter, are shot. Colorado has seen several mass shootings since the deadly Columbine High School shooting in 1999, including a shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub in November.

In 2021, firearms were responsible for nearly 19% of deaths among children ages 1 to 18, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wonder database, and that year nearly 3,600 children died in firearms-related incidents. Gun violence, especially school shootings, has Wolf Terry, a volunteer for the movement who is also white, nervous about her five-year-old son, who is autistic.

“If my son is in an isolation drill, he won’t be able to take it, to handle it, to participate in it without collapsing,” Terry told Trends Wide. “If there was an active shooter at his school, he would be the first to get shot along with his classmates because he would make a lot of noise and be scared and not be able to control his response to the situation. And so, every day, that’s what that I have recorded… this is apolitical, it affects everyone”.

The executive order Here4TheKids calls on the Governor to “prohibit the use, charging, possession, or carrying of all firearms in Colorado, including, but not limited to, firearms for personal protection, hunting, law enforcement or any other lawful purpose” and to create a state arms buy-back program.

A Polis spokesman said the governor’s staff has met with the group’s organizers, and has “expressed concerns that the requests being made are unconstitutional or require legislative action.”

“The Governor takes seriously the heavy responsibility of executive action and the trust Coloradans have placed in him to govern responsibly, and he will not issue an unconstitutional order that will be struck down in court simply to make a statement of relations (On the contrary,) he will continue to focus on real solutions to help make Colorado one of the 10 safest states,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Trends Wide. “Calls by these individuals to improve safety and prevent gun violence through their specific requests for an executive order banning all guns would be simply unconstitutional.”

Both Rao and Strawn said lawmakers have failed to curb gun violence, and when asked if Colorado’s new gun control laws were a start, Rao said “no,” because despite current state laws aimed at to prevent them, gun deaths still persist.

“State legislation doesn’t work, why? Because weapons can cross state borders, or weapons can be printed on 3D printers,” Rao said. “State legislation doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.”

Trends Wide’s Jennifer Henderson, Kaanita Iyer and Annette Choi contributed to this report.