A major donor to Republican political action committees, campaign organizations and candidates said Saturday he will no longer write checks to those anyone who does not support a ban sale of military-style weapons to civilians.
“For how many years now have we been doing this — having these experiences of terrorism, mass killings — and many years has it been that nothing’s been done? It’s the end of the road for me,” Al Hoffman Jr. tells The New York Times.
In an email to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is considering a U.S. Senate run in 2018, Hoffman said no money unless he campaigns for the ban. Same for any other Republican he backed in previous election: No ban support, no money.
Emails also went out to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and any other candidate he has supported in the past. “I will not write another check unless they all support a ban on assault weapons,” Hoffman says. “Enough is enough!”
In his emails, Hoffman added:
If we go from Orlando to Las Vegas, and now Parkland, you just have to know that there are others around the country just dreaming about staging another mass murder.
Hoffman is a rare Republican, one willing to put life before guns and a sense of humanity against the demands of the National Rifle Association.
Other Republicans could care less about the deaths of students, children and adults at the hands of mass shooters. Nearly all click their heels and raise their hand when the NRA barks out its orders.
This writer once belonged to the NRA — as mistake I corrected and have apologized for many times. I’m a gun owner who grew up as a hunter. I have owned assault-style weapons. No more. Never will again.
Some other GOP campaign contributors support Hoffman’s move. Peter S. Rummell of Jacksonville, Fla., says his checkbook is closed to the Senate Leadership Fund, Majority leader Mitch McConnell’s primary PAC to keep the Senate in GOP hands. Rummell is a past contributor to the PAC and his checks usually are six-figured ones.
“I’m going to email every single door I know in the Republican Party and try to get them on board. We’ve really got to start a little movement here,” he told the Times.
The movement begins with long odds. Gov. Scott continues to genuflect to the NRA. So does Sen. Marco Rubio. Both ignore strong, growing support for anti-gun action among students — in schools like Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schools where the gunman with an AR-15 killed 14 students and faculty members this week — and in other parts of the country.
Many of those students are 18-year-old seniors old enough to vote or will be soon. They have parents, aunts and uncles and other relatives who may have supported the widespread sale of assault-style weapons to civilians but now are reconsidering their positions.
Votes matter to the politicians. So do large campaign donations: A one-two punch in the gut for the gutless.
It’s a start.
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2 thoughts on “Beginnings of a real movement to stop assault-style weapons”
It’ll never happen with the Koch Bros. As a matter of fact, any (proposed) legislation by ANY Republican will look great at its inception. But you can be assured that any finished product would be so watered down that it would be ineffective. And Trump and the GOP will promote it as the greatest thing since the interstate highway system.
What has to happen now is to somehow convince the Evil Koch Brothers to follow suit and withhold ALL of their contributions to ALL candidates at ALL levels who do not support legislation banning assault-style weapons. PERIOD!!
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