Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said gun dealers in the US should ignore any executive order from President Obama that would require new background checks on gun buyers.

"There should certainly be an absolute, unapologetic — just complete ignoring of such an order by those gun-shop owners, because the president can't make law," Huckabee told "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview. "He just can't."

Huckabee said "the more that we surrender the Constitution to a president who supposedly taught constitutional law ... the more he keeps that going."

Obama is considering circumventing Congress and issue an executive order that would impose background checks on anyone who will purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers, reported the Washington Post.

Dealers who exceed a number of sales each year would be required to get a licence from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and conduct background check on buyers.

The President was reacting to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on Oct. 1.

Huckabee said gun store owners should "stand up and say: 'No, we're not going to do it. We're just simply not going to do that, because you don't have the authority to order that.'"

For former House Majority Leader Tom Delay, the new background check without approval of Congress is an impeachable offense.

"The very fact that you might bring it before the Judiciary Committee and investigate it and determine whether it's an impeachable offense is a very healthy thing to do," DeLay, who served in the position from 2003 to 2005, told "Newsmax Prime."

DeLay said Congress needs to stand up to Obama on any such action.

"The House needs to use its power of hearings to start letting the American people know that this is a lawless president, we have a lawless Supreme Court — and the judiciary needs to step up and show the American people what this president is doing, which will support any other efforts to defund the president," he said.