Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) blasted Republicans on the days of the anti-gun student walk-out by stressing, “We don’t work for the merchants of death.”

Jeffries said this in a speech in which he said there is a “gun violence epidemic in this country” that shows itself via “mass shooting, after mass shooting, after mass shooting.”

“Yet,” he said, “the do-nothing Republican Congress is missing in action.”

Jeffries said, “The overwhelming majority of the American people support universal background checks. The overwhelming majority of the American people support limiting access to weapons of war. The overwhelming majority of the American people support raising the age of purchase from 18 to 21, yet the do-nothing Republican Congress is missing in action.”

He later added, “Tens of thousands of students … are walking out of class for 17 minutes to demand that Congress pass commonsense gun violence prevention legislation.” He stressed that Congress must either “stand with the students or … stand with the NRA.”

Jeffries said, “We don’t work for the NRA. We don’t work for the gun manufacturers. We don’t work for the merchants of death.”

Just BLASTED DO-Nothing Republican Congress on House floor for refusing to address America's gun violence epidemic #Enough #WalkOutWednesday #Parkland pic.twitter.com/PaTpIFEFnF — Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) March 14, 2018

California has universal background checks and a ban on “assault weapons,” which Democrats like Jeffries refer to as “weapons of war.” Yet a 36-year-old man armed with a “high-powered rifle” entered the Yountville, California, Veterans Home on March 9, took hostages, and killed three people.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.