
Ex-CA. State Sen. gun control champion heads to prison for weapons trafficking - Gaessaki
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/25/ex-calif-state-sen-leeland-yee-gun-control-champion-heading-to-prison-for-weapons-trafficking/
======
brbsix
It's important to note that these are the sort of people who directly profit
from gun control: gangsters and politicians. To say nothing of law
enforcement, the legal system, or prison systems. The Philippines (apparently
where the weapons were to be trafficked from) is rife with arms manufacturing,
both legitimate and black-market. [0] Enact further gun control in California
and these are precisely the sort of arms that will be in the hands of cartel
soldiers, gangsters, and criminals, with no commensurate bulwark in the
civilian population.

Also I just have to laugh at the levels of hypocrisy here from the left. Quite
an interesting change of pace from the typical marital infidelities of
"family-values" Republicans.

[0]:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-21840183](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-21840183)

------
ceades
Some context for that year in CA politics: State Senator Ron Calderon was
indicted by the feds in a pay-to-play sting on a film tax credit, State
Senator Rod Wright was sentenced to 90 days in prison for breaking the law
about living in your district (he served only a few hours, CA prisons are too
overcrowded), and then State Senator Leland Yee was indicted by the feds in a
sting that was actually meant to get Raymond Shrimp Boy Chow but ensnared a
State Senator by chance. The State Senate actually suspended all three
members.

CA remains a popular target for federal stings, Shrimpscam was a famous
example of a federal sting that ensnared many members way back, but now there
are much more recent examples. It was a crazy year, and the indictment for
Leland Yee was nuts, it read like a crime novel.

~~~
DrScump
Interesting thing about the Wright case:

 _Many_ CA legislators were infamous about running for districts in which they
did not live. One of these was David Roberti, a member of the Democrat
leadership who built his career on firearms ban (CA's first "assault-weapon
ban" was officially the Roberti-Roos act).

The CA media generally refused to report on this until he was term-limited
out.

I always wondered if one of the reasons that Wright was left to twist in the
wind was that he dared oppose the Democrat leadership on some issues... like
gun bans.

<The State Senate actually suspended all three members.>

I don't know if any was suspended _before_ suffering felony indictments.
Calderon was not only _not_ suspended, he officially remained in office
(drawing full salary and benefits) for the rest of his term. Wright was not
suspended until _after_ his felony _convictions_.

------
mfoy_
>As a legislator, Yee supported strict gun control laws and was named to the
Brady Campaign’s Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll.

Well that's ironic.

~~~
protomyth
I look at it as gun control laws would get rid of the legal competition to his
gun running and drive up the value of his product.

~~~
mfoy_
Yeah, it seems like he was simply a very successful sociopath.

~~~
bossmojoman
So..... He's a politician?

------
merpnderp
Well making guns illegal was always going to be about as effective as making
meth illegal. And with the same side effects, like making black market
sociopaths, like Lee, rich and powerful.

~~~
bediger4000
I'm not trying to be obstinate, but does that argument apply to anything, or
just to attractive things, like drugs and guns? Or are there just certain
arbitrary things, that we find out by experience, that are subject to that
"making X illegal only causes a black market" logic?

I'm asking because I'd like to have an easy-to-use argument to trot out for
things like making copyright stricter, or other things that hinder my ease of
use.

~~~
merpnderp
Is there a market that isn't being met with current copyright law? Because it
seems to follow something like "People want X. If you make X illegal, people
will still want X, only now it will be supplied by criminals."

------
rm_-rf_slash
Bismarck said something to the effect of "the less people know about how law
and sausages are made, the better they sleep at night."

Cases like this can sometimes make it look like there are rare bad apples in a
given political system, but I'm sure we would be nothing short of outraged if
we knew the full truth of every politician's back-room dealings in this
country.

------
speeder
Yee was also one of the most vocal critics of video games, and wanted a ban on
video games that portray gun violence.

EDIT: Why I was downvoted for pointing out a fact?

~~~
rosser
Probably because the fact in question has negligible relevance to The Fine
Article, and comes across more as sniping at Yee's character. "Yeah, and he's
_this_ kind of doody-head, too!"

EDIT: That's not to say there isn't plenty to snipe at about the man, because
obviously there is. It just doesn't contribute a lot to the discussion.

------
nsajko
ot: He skipped a court appearance and the (minor) case was _dismissed_!

Shouldn't skipping a court appearance be a crime of itself??

------
throwaway21816
Gun control is a joke

