On Monday night a number of Democratic members of the House of Representatives protested a moment of silence for the victims of the Orlando shooting. The moment of silence was scheduled by the House’s Republican leadership, which refuses to consider any possible action on gun control, leading Democratic representatives like Jim Himes of Connecticut to accuse them of hypocrisy and driving Himes and others to opt out of what they feel is basically a face-saving photo op. Himes, whose home district is near Newtown, the site of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, argued that remembrances like this are “obnoxious expressions of smug incompetence” from a Congress that is so beholden to NRA money that it won’t discuss even minor new gun laws that are supported by a majority of Americans, despite the ridiculous amount of gun violence in the US. Since that protest Democrats in the Senate ran an almost 15 hour filibuster that ended with the GOP agreeing to allow votes on gun control next week; those votes aren’t likely to enact significant changes, but it’s the closest thing the gun control side has had to a victory in what feels like forever.