Filibuster abuse destabilizes government and is unconstitutional
Filibuster has become a popular tool for legislators.
“Republicans have held the U.S. Senate hostage despite their minority
status and losses in the last election,” says Merton Bernstein, emeritus
professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Indeed, the threat of a filibuster enables the
minority to exact concessions that the electorate had already rejected
in several elections. This sabotage of the democratic process not only
shuts down the legislative process, short circuits the confirmation of presidential
nominees, but also threatens large foreign purchases of U.S. bonds that
lower interest rates for federal, state and business borrowing.”
First Amendment weakens gun rights advocates’ insurrection argument
Many gun rights advocates have asserted that the Second Amendment – which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms – serves a collective interest in deterring and, if necessary, violently deposing a tyrannical federal government. “The strength of this assertion is significantly weakened by the power of the First Amendment,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “We have spent almost a century developing the First Amendment as the main vehicle for dynamic political change. Debate and political expression is preferable to insurrection as a means of political change and our legal culture’s attention to the First and Second Amendments reflects a long-settled choice of debate over violent uprising.”
Gun owners, sellers needn’t worry with Obama as president, says Second Amendment expert
An expert on the Second Amendment says that gun owners and sellers should not be sweating bullets over Barack Obama’s election as president. Despite Obama’s record on gun control, David T. Konig, Ph.D., a professor of history in Arts & Sciences and a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be an issue that Obama will address as president early in his term — if at all.