It wasn’t the symbolic 25,000 women organizers touted in the lead-up to Monday’s protest at the state Capitol.

Still, more than 1,000 mostly White women are staging a sit-in on the Capitol grounds Monday – and plan to do so through the rest of the week – to advocate for dismantling the Second Amendment. They say Colorado will be the first place that fight will start.

The advocates, who say Gov. Jared Polis has not done enough to rein in gun violence, presented what his office calls an unconstitutional request: to ban all firearms and declare gun violence a “disaster emergency.”

Here 4 The Kids was founded by former Denver resident and congressional candidate Saira Rao just after the shooting at a school in Nashville, Tenn. in March. The group came together three weeks before lawmakers in Colorado, including Democrats, turned down efforts to ban assault weapons.

The protest’s composition is deliberate. The organization, through its website, calls on White women to “put their bodies on the ground as marginalized communities have always done and continue to do.”

Monday’s sit-in included a demand Polis issue an executive order declaring a state of disaster emergency due to the gun violence risk in Colorado. That, according to advocates, would enable state agencies “to coordinate for response and mitigation efforts.”

As part of the order, the advocates also called for a “total ban on all guns and a comprehensive, mandatory buyback program.”

That’s unconstitutional, the governor’s office said in a pair of missives issued to reporters hours after the first of the group showed up at the Capitol.

The initial statement from Polis’ office touted the five major gun control laws the governor has signed his year, and included an elaborate explanation of why he can’t do what the protesters asked. The second communication included background information, stating Polis’ staff met with the organizers to tell them their request is unconstitutional, and that a second meeting was offered with his legal counsel to point out why their request was not possible. The governor’s office said the second offer was declined.

The governor does not have unlimited authority under a disaster declaration, and certainly not one that would suspend either the U.S. Constitution or the Colorado Constitution, the statement explained. In addition, the governor does not have the authority to create a new state law, which is what would be necessary to implement a buyback program, nor does he have the ability to access state funds that are not appropriated by the General Assembly.

None of that matters, Wolf Terry, one of the organizers of Monday’s event, told Colorado Politics. She said Polis’ resistance is based on what she believes to be an effort to angle for run for the White House.

Terry said the constitution “is a living document” and their organization wants to repeal the Second Amendment in favor of a 28th Amendment banning guns.

“It should be done. It will be done, and this is the first step,” she said.

Polis is just another politician, and no different than DeSantis, she added.

“He is afraid and trying to save face with as many people as possible so that one day he can run for president,” she said. 

The executive order went to all “blue” governors, Terry said.

“Polis went to sleep on an AR-15 ban, shot down in his administration,” she said, adding she doesn’t care about three-day waiting period or other laws signed this year.

“Guns are the No. 1 killer of children” in the U.S. and Polis is seeking excuses on why he won’t get rid of the guns, Terry said.

Terry said they intend to stay at the Capitol until 8 p.m. Monday, and continue every day this week until Polis accepts their demands.

While more than 1,000 showed up early in the day, Terry believes their numbers could reach 5,000. She called the 25,000 number that she touted to the press in the leadup to the sit-in largely symbolic and equal in size to the protests after the death of George Floyd three years ago.

The protest is occurring just a few days after mainstream gun violence prevention groups stood shoulder to shoulder with lawmakers and Polis as he signed into law a bill banning ghost guns.

Also on Friday, high school students, including some from East High, stood alongside Polis, with several reading aloud a proclamation on Gun Violence Prevention Awareness Day that the governor later signed.

But Polis was not alone in opposing what Here 4 The Kids demanded. 

The Denver Post Monday published a letter from state Sens. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial and Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, among the leaders of the legislature’s gun violence prevention caucus, who wrote: “There are certainly folks who want us to pursue more extreme solutions such as an executive order to ban all guns and instituting mandatory buyback programs – but those ideas are unconstitutional and they diminish decades of work by policymakers and activists who have labored tirelessly to stop gun deaths and could undermine and demoralize those efforts going forward.”

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners called the movement and Monday’s inability to draw 25,000 people as advertised a “massive failure.”