Representative Gohmert Wants to Take Congress Back to the 1850s

Yesterday, Representative Louie Gohmert from Texas is introducing a bill that would allow Congressmen to carry firearms on the Senate and House floor. Gohmert argument for this bill is that members of Congress do not feel safe. Gohmert told Politico that,"[He knew] friends that walk home from the Capitol. There’s no security for us.” His solution to this problem is to allow members to be armed.  This does not seem like a good idea, because of the history of firearms on the floors of Congress.

Firearms and Congress historically do not mix well. The best period of history to look at this mixture is between 1830 and 1850s. According to Joanne Freeman in her New York Times article When Congress Was Armed And Dangerous that violence was normal on the floors of Congress at this time. It was found that if Representatives wanted to gain the upper hand in a debate a weapon was a valuable tool.  For example Freeman gives is stories about Representatives threatening each other if angered by a fellow Representatives statement. This attitude slowly came to a stop when telegraph was invented and when Civil War started. Violence was toned down and their were a few fist fights during the Civil Rights Era. After that Congress was more behaved.

Now according to Think Progress the reasoning for Gomhert's bill is that he fears that Congress' civility will deteriorate and duels will come back. This seems like flawed logic. Looking at Freeman's article we see that weapons did not deter violence, but increased it. Congressmen  used weapons to intimidate fellow Congressmen. Weapons should not be on the floor of Congress. If we allow this to happen we are reverting back to the 1850s. With the violent rhetoric used by some members of Congress, giving them the ability to have a weapon of any kind on the floor is dangerous and not needed.

We as a nation need to be civil towards each other. When we form a society, we trust each other to act in accordance to the ideas of law created by that society. When these laws are broken, we break the trust of society. As a society we make these laws to protect society against acts of violence. We should not as a society revert back to violence or threatening themes to get what we want. By allowing Representatives of Congress to have firearms, we will revert back to a Congress of the 1850s. We suggest opposition to any law or rule that will decrease the civility of any society.

Updated: Media Matters has an interview of Representative Gohmert with Fox and Friends. Gohmert argued that, "guns are the great equalizer." Here is the interview below.