KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Often after a tragedy like this, Congress will hold a moment of silence. If that happens in the coming days to remember the victims in Orlando, Jim Himes says he won't be part of it.
Himes is a Democratic congressman from Connecticut. And on Twitter yesterday he said these moments of silence in the House have become an abomination. Today, he used even stronger words on the House floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM HIMES: Silence - that is what we offer in America that supports many of the things we could do to slow the bloodbath, silence. Not me, not anymore. I will no longer stand here absorbing the faux concern, contrived gravity and tepid smugness of a House complicit in the weekly bloodshed.
MCEVERS: That's U.S. Congress Jim Himes of Connecticut.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The 49 victims killed yesterday come from all walks of life. Some were lifelong Florida natives like Luis Vielma. He was 22 and worked at Universal Studios where he sometimes worked as an operator at the Hogwarts ride in the Harry Potter section of the park.
MCEVERS: Author J.K. Rowling tweeted a photo of him in his Harry Potter-style uniform writing I can't stop crying. Vielma's parents told the telegraph they'd moved from Mexico to Florida decades ago and that their son Luis loved to dance.
CORNISH: Another victim was a bouncer at Pulse nightclub. Friends of Kimberly Morris or K.J. said she always had a smile on her face, a rare trait for a bouncer. Morris had just moved to Orlando from Hawaii to be with her mother and grandmother.
The Orlando Sentinel also reports that she was a former college basketball player and passionate about mixed martial arts. She was 37-years-old.
MCEVERS: On Saturday night, Amanda Alvear and her friends Mercedez Marisol Flores decided to spend their night at Pulse. Throughout the night, Alvear shared videos from the club on Snapchat showing her and her friends dancing, smiling, holding drinks to the backdrop of loud music. Her last post shows her looking confused as the sound of gunshots ring out nearby.
CORNISH: Jean Carlos Mendez Perez was 35 and worked at a perfume shop in Orlando. The Orlando Sentinel says that one of the customers Perez charmed at that shop was Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon. Both were killed at the nightclub Sunday morning. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
