No, President Biden Proposing Tougher Gun Laws Isn't "an Impeachable Offense"

In response to President Biden's gun control speech on Thursday night, Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, told Fox News viewers that his remarks constituted "an impeachable offense.":

I think it’s comforting for simple-minded people to think that restricting the natural right to keep and bear arms would solve all of our problems, that destroying the Constitution would solve our problems. We have a natural right of self-defense and to guard against tyranny in the Second Amendment, this is something that makes us American.

And Joe Biden showed that he does not respect the Constitution. He does not support this natural right. That really is an impeachable offense to talk this way against something so foundational to the country.

For starters, discussing public policy is not and never has been an impeachable offense. President Biden's proposals, if implemented, might prove ineffective. But ineffective policy isn't the same as impeachable conduct.

Indeed, I find it laughable that Hemingway would claim that President Biden "does not respect the Constitution" for merely discussing the Second Amendment. Hemingway, of course, is a well-known apologist for defeated former President Donald Trump, a man who will not exactly be remembered for his fidelity to the Constitution. 

In discussing the Second Amendment, Biden invoked the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia stating, “Like most rights, the right…” — Second Amendment — the rights granted by the Second Amendment are “not unlimited.”

To be precise, Biden was referring to Justice Scalia's majority opinion in the 2008 case D.C. v. Heller. Although that ruling deemed Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban to be unconstitutional, Scalia did make a point of stating:

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose (italics mine): For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

Based on the above, one must ask if Hemingway if it was an impeachable offense for Scalia to talk in this way. 

This isn't to say that President Biden's proposals are necessarily workable and some will undoubtedly raise constitutional questions. Biden made a point of proposing a requirement that gun owners lock up their weapons with trigger locks something the D.C. v. Heller ruling deemed unconstitutional. 

Nearly all American Presidents have implemented policy measures which the courts have deemed unconstitutional. These are the checks and balances which has made the American system of governance renowned all over the world. 

However, there is world of difference between President Biden merely quoting a Supreme Court justice's opinion of the Second Amendment and defeated former President Trump withholding congressionally approved military aid unless that country opens an investigation into his political opponent and subsequently inciting a riot to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. These are impeachable offenses. Talking about Second Amendment isn't.