A Republican congressman is threatening to impeach President Obama if he moves ahead with a plan to use his executive powers to address gun violence.
“The White House’s recent announcement they will use executive orders and executive actions to infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms is an unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic,” Rep. Steve Stockman said in a statement Monday afternoon. “I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment.”
Stockman, a staunch conservative who was elected in November and had served a previous term in the 1990s, added: “The President’s actions are not just an attack on the Constitution and a violation of his sworn oath of office—they are a direct attack on Americans that place all of us in danger. If the President is allowed to suspend constitutional rights on his own personal whims, our free republic has effectively ceased to exist.”
There’s no indication that Obama intends to go outside what the Constitution allows.
“I’m confident that there are some steps that we can take that don’t require legislation and that are within my authority as President,” he said at a press conference earlier Monday, adding that this might include issues like, “how we are gathering data, for example, on guns that fall into the hands of criminals, and how we track that more effectively.”
Zachary Roth