United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Congress, of course, doesn’t just pass legislation. According to the Constitution of the United States, it carries several other crucial powers. These powers are useful for Second Amendment supporters to understand – after all, we never know when we might have need of their proper use to protect our rights.
One of those powers, under Article I, is the impeachment of those holding offices in the executive branch and judicial branch. We’ve seen this happen twice in recent years. The House of Representatives can issue that impeachment with a majority vote. Once that takes place, the Senate then ends up holding a trial to determine whether or not the impeached official should be removed from office. The Senate can also disqualify a person from ever holding office again. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote.
Moving along from that nuclear option among congressional powers, there is also confirmation.
That is one held by the Senate alone. When the president is picking his team, he doesn’t get carte blanche – the Senate has to confirm the appointees. While not unheard of, rejections can happen, like that of John Tower as Secretary of Defense in 1989, which led to the rise of Dick Cheney (Cheney did have a strong pro-Second Amendment record as a Representative).
Senate control can matter a lot here. When the Republicans controlled the Senate after the 2014 election, Mitch McConnell held the nomination of Merrick Garland up and enabled the replacement of Antonin Scalia with a pro-Second Amendment justice. From 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009, Democrats bottled up George W. Bush’s judicial nominees when they had control.
Congress also has control over the funding of various agencies.
This also centers from Article I, which states in Section 9 that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law.”
This means that Congress can halt enforcement of certain laws by telling ATF it can’t spend money to say, re-define an AR-15 pistol with a shoulder brace as a short-barreled rifle. ATF’s “relief from disability” program has been placed on ice by a similar prohibition.
Coming with the spending power is oversight – Congress can call the people at the federal agencies (who ultimately work for we the people) to explain just what they are doing. All too often, this oversight has become toothless in terms of addressing abuses – see the lack of accountability over Operation Chokepoint or Operation Fast and Furious.
With Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader, these powers will be wielded in an effort to unjustly punish us for crimes and acts of madness we did not commit. But we are not helpless. You can always contact your Representative and Senators to urge them to oppose anti-Second Amendment legislation and anti-Second Amendment extremists that will be nominated by Joe Biden to the courts and to executive branch positions. Then be sure to support the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action and Political Victory Fund to improve our odds in the next Congress and to ensure that the Biden-Harris regime is a one-term wonder.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
It would be a whole lot better for the entire country if every Republican would choose one Democrat to beat the living daylights out of, until that Democrat could no longer get up off the floor to vote. Problem solved… next problem. [*Sadly, that will not happen in real life. John Wayne would have responded to the Democrats’ felony voting fraud in that precise manner, but today’s Republicans are too cowardly to use that option… and they have completely forgotten that although Might never makes Right, Might is always required to enforce Right. Therefore our country is doomed to outright… Read more »
Shame on every Gun Owner who voted Democrat. You sold out our country, and don’t deserve the @nd Amendment or any other protection.
If course, that partly assumes that Democrats actually had a majority vote. The minute that idea is assumed to be true, we are boiled and stewed enough to never be able to return to the republic that we once had. We are now, and have been for some time, a “banana republic”, controlled by an oligarchy that feeds us the illusion that the people still rule themselves. That Trump was ever elected only shows that the oligarchy miscalculated. They will work hard never to do that again. If anyone looks at what happened during the 202 election and then turns… Read more »
You are correct. If the voting system isn’t returned to normal there will never be another fair election. No ID no vote. The federal government instituted the “Real ID” and made citizens jump thru the hoops to get one so use the “Real ID” to vote. Mail in voting should be highly regulated.
Where I vote in Flyover Country, a government issued ID is required to vote. Only in Liberal precincts are voter IDs not required.
In Oklahoma, voter ID is required. We have had no – NO – significant problems of any kind, so the system undoubtedly, unarguably, works… quite smoothly,
For those who are not at least as old and/or as informed as I am on the subject of communism I suggest you take the time to read some if not all of this. It makes a decent primer on the subject and will inform you about those who will control the US government in a few days.
Anti-communism – Wikipedia