9/11 first responder John Feal told the Daily Beast that seeing Mister-lied-about-being-accepted-into-the-Naval-Academy-Cawthorn messing around with a gun during this important meeting “was immature. He’s a child. He lacks common sense. I think the congressman was overcompensating for something that he lacks and feeling inadequate among the heroes on that call.”

Cawthorn worked on his pistol out of sight for several minutes, two people told The Daily Beast, but it became plainly visible during the testimony of Jen Burch, a veteran who spent six years in the Air Force serving in Japan and Afghanistan.

Here’s an image of Cawthorn shot by Lindsay Church and tweeted out a short while later.

Why might Cawthorn be so disrespectful to a military veteran like Jen Burch? What has Burch’s position been during these committee meetings? “Cost wasn’t a driver when Congress and the White House sent us to war, so we shouldn’t shy away from paying for what was incurred. The time to act is now, for the sake of the current veterans and our future veterans.” The issue right now is that while everyone on both sides of the aisle agree that something need to be done to help veterans who continue to suffer physically and mentally due to toxic hazards they were exposed to in service of our country, only one side of the aisle seems to be interested in paying for it.

I’ll let you guess by reading this quote from the committee’s ranking Republican member, Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois: “I remain committed to finding a way to support toxic exposed veterans in a way that is fiscally responsible for future generations. I believe we can do that … Veterans are taxpayers too. We should be mindful of how we spend their money on their behalf,” and juxtaposing it with Democratic Rep. Mike Levin from California’s quote: “What message does it send to service members and veterans to dismiss comprehensive reform that we need due to the cost?” 

If that isn’t clear, maybe we can guess based on House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Democrat Mark Takano of California: “Toxic-exposed veterans have held up their part. We cannot renege on our responsibility to take care of these veterans because of any preconceived sticker shock.”

Playing with your gun and cleaning your gun is not much different than playing with yourself. It’s not against the law per se, and it is totally fine if you want to do it any number of times. It’s your gun and as long as you aren’t hurting or threatening anyone with it, go nuts. But it is also something that you should do in the privacy of your home. On your time. And if you want to involve other people in watching you play with and clean your gun, you should make sure that they are enthusiastic about it. If you can’t do that then you should just wait until everyone is gone and then you can clean your gun.

The Daily Beast, while unable to confirm, said it looks like Cawthorn is playing around with his gun inside of his office on at the Capitol. While it is illegal to bring a gun into the House chambers—something that Cawthorn is suspected of having done on Jan. 6, 2021—representatives are allowed to have guns in their office.

The below broadcast does not show all of the people on the virtual call at the same time, but if you want to know what fidgety Madison should have been paying attention to instead of his gun, you can listen in below.