NYT:

A prominent Republican political donor demanded on Saturday that the party pass legislation to restrict access to guns, and vowed not to contribute to any candidates or electioneering groups that did not support a ban on the sale of military-style firearms to civilians.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

“For how many years now have we been doing this — having these experiences of terrorism, mass killings — and how many years has it been that nothing’s been done?” Mr. Hoffman said in an interview. “It’s the end of the road for me.”

Mr. Hoffman announced his ultimatum in an email to half a dozen Republican leaders, including Jeb Bush and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida. He wrote in the email that he would not give money to Mr. Scott, who is considering a campaign for the Senate in 2018, or other Florida Republicans he has backed in the past, including Representative Brian Mast, if they did not support new gun legislation.

“I will not write another check unless they all support a ban on assault weapons,” he wrote. “Enough is enough!”

Mr. Hoffman, a former ambassador to Portugal, has donated millions to Republican candidates and causes over the years, including more than $1 million to Right to Rise, a “super PAC” that supported Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign in 2016.

A critic of President Trump, Mr. Hoffman has continued to donate heavily to other Republicans.

[ … ]

Peter S. Rummell, a Jacksonville-based donor who gave $125,000 to Jeb Bush’s “super PAC” in 2016, said he was on board with Mr. Hoffman’s plan and would only contribute to candidates supportive of banning assault weapons. He said the Parkland shooting was a turning point: “It has to start somewhere,” Mr. Rummell said, of controlling guns.

Even on its own, Mr. Hoffman’s money will be missed: He contributed heavily to Republican congressional candidates in 2016 and gave $25,000 last spring to the Senate Leadership Fund, a group backed by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, that is focused on defending Republicans’ Senate majority.

I couldn’t give a rat’s ass in hell what this guy says or does.  But I have to admit that in a way I do.  I hope he succeeds.  He’s just doing what comes naturally to him, to wit, bullying people with his purse.

It’s not a lot different than, say, calls to repeal the second amendment, or “journalists” who run with that editorial and claim that if suburban moms just get involved, things will change.  As if suburban moms are ready to go door-to-door and confiscate guns, or are ready for the bloody carnage that would follow upon such an edict.

But it’s no accident and actually quite amusing that this prominent donor was significantly behind Jeb Bush’s campaign.  We know where the heart of the GOP is, and the valuable lesson in all of this is that just as it was necessary to divide the sheep from the goats, identifying and ejecting the impostors and traitors from our midst and making sure that the internecine warfare has ended is a necessary exigency in the campaign for liberty.

This is good.  At one time I argued data, endless numbers and definitions and connections and correlations.  I probably will still do that given my profession, but the important thing here is that the opposition doesn’t care any more about that than I care about whether this donor bullies people with his money.  We’re beyond that now.  We’ve gone many miles in our dance together.

You see, you can change the constitution if you wish, and I won’t change a thing about myself or what I do.  My rights come from God, not the constitution.  I’ve oft repeated that the constitution is a covenant, an agreement, just like in marriage or work.  There are blessings for those who honor that covenant, and curses for those who don’t.  Under the second amendment, the government has covenanted and contracted not to infringe.  The constitution isn’t God and cannot issue rights or duties – it’s an agreement before God and men.  As for infringe, they have many times, of course, and if not for the longsuffering nature of the American people, the curses of covenant breakage would have already obtained.

But the American people are not longsuffering forever, and what must happen will eventually happen, for it must.  So if you want to go full orbed, full on, all out covenant breakage, go right ahead and do that.  It may be the last straw.  All the opinionator is arguing for is a civil war, since he must be presupposing that gun owners will go peacefully into the night as long as enough people vote for it.

This is a dangerous presupposition, and the suburban soccer moms aren’t ready for what ensues.  So queue up your best soccer moms, or even your best SWAT teams.  We know where they live, and there aren’t anywhere nearly enough of them.  Come and get them if that’s what you want.  We’re waiting.