Yes. The most notable instance happened in 1954 when 5 House Members were shot and wounded by Puerto Rican nationalists who fired down into the chamber from the visitors' galleries. The attack occurred about 2:30pm. Two armed men and one woman were arrested in the gallery left of the Speaker's rostrum after they had fired 30 shots at the 243 Representatives estimated then to be in the chamber. One Member, Rep. Alvin Bentley [R-Michigan], was on the House rostrum and took a direct hit. He was critically wounded and almost died. Other Members were able to flee the chamber; most ducked behind chairs or hit the floor.

Members have also used gunfire against one another. In fact, there were so many duels over the years in Congress that the public finally demanded an end to them. Congress eventually had to enact a ban on dueling in the District of Columbia. The last duel between two Members of Congress took place in 1838 between Rep. Jonathan Cilley of Maine and Rep. William Graves of Kentucky. Cilley apparently offended Rep. Henry Wise of Virginia during debate on the House floor. His friend, Rep. Graves, then challenged Cilley to a duel and Cilley was killed on a field in Bladensburg, Maryland.

In "Violence in Congress," Donald Bacon wrote that:

Congress in the 1800's was no place for the timid. It was for most of the century an unruly arena into which poured men of vastly differing cultures, education, experiences, and temperaments. From frontier states came rugged individualists, some more accustomed to settling disputes with fists or weapons than with gentlemanly compromise. From the South came a number of hot-tempered aristocrats schooled in the manly arts, brave to a fault, and alert to any slur on their honor.

And in their book, "Kings of the Hill," Dick and Lynne Cheney wrote:

In the 1850's, a pistol concealed in a House member's desk accidentally discharged. Instantly, there were "fully thirty or forty pistols in the air," recalled Rep. William Holman of Indiana, who was present.

Even reporters resorted to weapons. In 1890 former Rep. William Taulbee of Kentucky got into an altercation with a reporter from the Louisville Times, Charles Kincaid. Taulbee was angry about an article Kincaid had written, lunged at him, and pulled his ear. Kincaid pulled a gun. The Congressman was shot dead on the southeastern stairway of the Capitol, right in front of the entrance to the House restaurant. You can still see the blood stain on the marble steps today. Kincaid claimed self-defense during his trial for murder -- and was acquitted.

Things may not be as bad today as some think when they complain about incivility in the Congress. At least today the weapons are verbal rather than lethal!