More than 100 students left their classrooms and marched out the front of Tappan Zee High School in Orangeburg to protest stricter gun control. 

The walkout was one of hundreds held across the country Thursday protesting gun violence in the wake of the Uvalde, TX mass shooting.

"We should all be safe going to public places and not have to worry about someone shooting us," said Zahra Schenck, a 12th grade student at Tappan Zee High School.

The day of action was organized by Students Demand Action, a national student-run organization that advocates for gun control laws to prevent school shootings.

"Students deserve to live and learn without fearing for their lives," said Kara Dixon, a 12th grade student at Tappan Zee High School.

Dixon is the president of the social justice club at Tappan Zee High School and helped organize the walkout.

"I want to see change, I want to see changes in our laws and in our actions," she said in front of a crowd of students outside the school. "I don't want to see a huge social media movement that goes nowhere."

Students at the rally said they want to see national laws background checks for guns and more restrictions on automatic and semi-automatic guns often used in mass shootings.

The calls for action come from a generation that's grown up with lockdown drills, frequent mass shootings at schools and children and teens like them buried before their time.

"This is not about taking the right to carry guns away," said Schenck. "We want to ensure that guns don't get into the wrong hands."

Walkouts were also staged at Ossining High School and Lincoln High School in Yonkers.