Crooked Hillary!

It can be done in this current situation, but it is incredibly prohibitive in what they can do, they are only in temporarily (1 year), and it would inflame every conservative in the entire country and likely throw the presidential election outright for very little gain. So, essentially, there's no point in not doing it the hard way, nothing could get done in 1 year anyway, at least not on the scope they are after.

Uh no it can't? The Senate is refusing to even have hearings much less confirm an anti-gun supreme court justice. I think you're talking about a 4-4 split decision that will just piss people off and energize the conservative voter base for the presidential election so the next justice can rule against when Trump wins? SCOTUS is full of smart people and there's no way in hell they'd do it. They'll continue to avoid controversial decisions until there's a full bench. I'll eat my hat if any (known) anti-gun justice is confirmed after the election.

Can I just say that anyone complaining about the constitutionality of Obama's unilateral use of executive orders should be equally appalled at the Republican Senators for blatantly ignoring their constitutional obligation to confirm supreme court justices. They can reject candidates, but they shouldn't be allowed to ignore them indefinitely.