Gunfight In Congress

I was recently reading a book concerning the lead up to the American civil war. One of the bits that really struck me as interesting was the fact that before the outbreak of fighting one of the signs of the coming conflict was the fact that numerous congressmen and a very large number of observers were armed. In fact from what the book said every single congressmen carried a firearm.

So simply put imagine some singular spark erupts in this powder keg. It could be a malicious act or simply a accident. So what would the ramifications of a full blown firefight erupting in the capital building be?
 

The Vulture

Banned
An earlier split? This is going to be seen as a direct attack on the rights of states to send representatives to make their grievances known, for sure.
 
I don't find this surprising at all in those days everyone went heeled. I agree with Vulture's analysis of it though, depending upon the situation that starts the gunfight I could see that happening. One thing to remember is that people didn't use guns lightly, the situation would really have to disintegrate.
 
I'd be more interested if this happened today for what would happen if instead of screaming "you lie", the congressperson instead pulled on a member of the other party. With the level of hyper partisanship today, I would not be surprised if there was an incident some day.
 
I'd be more interested if this happened today for what would happen if instead of screaming "you lie", the congressperson instead pulled on a member of the other party. With the level of hyper partisanship today, I would not be surprised if there was an incident some day.
I can only see it happening if there was a lame-duck Congress sitting and an absolute wingnut (voted out of office but filling out his term) did it as a premeditated action.
 
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