‘The goal was to silence people’: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence

Paul Gosar was censured for a video depicting a colleague's murder but physical assaults were a feature of the pre-civil war era

As the House debated whether the Republican congressman Paul Gosar should be censured for depicting the murder of his colleague, one Democratic leader took a moment to reflect on the chamber's long history of violence.

Speaking on the House floor last week, the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, argued that Gosar had grossly violated the chamber's rules of conduct by sharing an altered anime video showing him killing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.