After President Obama’s big call for “executive action” on gun control at today’s press conference, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) has threatened to move for impeachment of the president if he insists on harsh gun measures through that mechanism. Said Stockman, “”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 continued, “Any proposal to abuse executive power and infringe upon gun rights must be repelled with the stiffest legislative force possible. Under no circumstances whatsoever may the government take any action that disarms any peaceable person — much less without due process through an executive declaration without a vote of Congress or a ruling of a court …. If the president is allowed to suspend constitutional rights on his own personal whims, our free republic has effectively ceased to exist.”
It is, of course, virtually impossible that President Obama would ever be impeached with a Senate Democrat majority, no matter what sort of usurpation of power he pursued. Nonetheless, Stockman’s outrage represents that of a growing number of Americans uninterested in an imperial presidency.