After Mass Shootings, Democratic Congressman Says Moments Of Silence Make His 'Head Explode'

In 2018, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) described lawmakers' honorary gestures for shooting victims as "negligence" on "The Daily Show."
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A Democratic congressman is still tired of lawmakers lowering flags and not speaking instead of passing legislation to stop gun violence.

In a throwback video from “The Daily Show” in 2018, Rep. Jim Hines (D-Conn.) talked about refusing to participate in moments of silence in the wake of mass shootings. He described how lawmakers in Washington offer 10 seconds without talking rather than one hour of work that could solve real problems.

“That’s what we offer to the people who have been so traumatized by the events in Las Vegas, the events in Sandy Hook, the event in Orlando,” Himes said at the time. “It’s just the drum beat of that impotence and that silence. I’ll tell you, it just makes my head explode.”

Himes’ district is adjacent to the site of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, a shooting that left 26 people dead at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school. He began waving off moments of silence in 2016 after 49 people died in a mass shooting at an Orlando-based LGBTQ nightclub in 2016. In a series of tweets at the time, Hines said silence mocked victims of the tragedy and the gesture became an “abomination.”

In this throwback interview, which Himes retweeted on Thursday following the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, he also described lawmakers’ gestures like lowering flags after tragedies as “negligence.”

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