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Louie Gohmert Is Not A Sit-In Fan

by Kristina DeGiovanni

If you happen to be one of the dedicated C-SPAN fangirls who watched the network's live Periscope coverage of House Democrats' sit-in, you may have caught the impassioned interruption by a flustered Republican Congressman Wednesday night. Rep. Louie Gohmert cut into Rep. Brad Sherman's speech on gun legislation to point at Orlando victims’ pictures and exclaim, “Radical Islam killed these people." So, who is Congressman Louie Gohmert?

Gohmert is a staunchly conservative Republican representative from Texas’s 1st District, who has made headlines multiple times in the past for expressing some, shall we say, fiery sentiments. Democrats were certainly fast to respond to him Wednesday night. While many proceeded to shout over him "No bill, no break," Sherman added, “It appears the gentleman is afraid to vote and afraid to debate."

Gohmert doesn't limit his outrage to gun control legislation. He garnered attention for his statements about Islamic terrorism, and in 2013, he said in an interview on WND Radio that the Obama administration "has so many Muslim brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America." As the Huffington Post reported, Gohmert also raised concerns that al Quaeda was training Muslims to “act like Hispanic(s).” See him aggressively attacking Anderson Cooper on the subject in the video below:

Gohmert has also gone out of his way to speak out about impeding transgender rights as a way to protect veterans, caution against gay space colonists, and highlight the necessity of a Texas oil pipeline for caribou “dating” patterns.

After the 2012 shooting in Aurora, Colorado, Gohmert said it was part of "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs." Unsurprisingly, perhaps, based on his recent response to the gun control sit-in, Gohmert also said, “It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?”