Jim Himes, a Democrat who represents Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, walked out of the House’s moment of silence to honor the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando. In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, Himes explained why. “Silence won’t do anything to prevent gun violence.” While Himes supports Second Amendment rights – “I enjoy recreational shooting” – he writes, “there is no such thing as an absolute right, that your right to buy a military weapon without hindrance, delay or training cannot trump Daniel Barden’s* right to see his eighth birthday.”
Himes reports that the House held five moments of silence last year. He calls the now regular moments of silence on the House floor “an affront. In the chamber where change is made, they are a tepid, self-satisfying emblem of impotence and willful negligence. It is action that will stop next week’s mass shooting.”
* Daniel Barden was one of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut
