By Alan M. Gottlieb – Criminal charges, including conspiracy to traffic firearms, have been brought against CA anti-gun State Senator Leland Yee.
If these allegations are true, Sen. Yee is easily the biggest hypocrite on gun control to walk the halls of the capitol in Sacramento, if not the entire United States.
Hypocrisy and lies are nothing new to the anti-gun crowd. We’ve seen similar cases against members of Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns but nothing as major as these allegations.
Yee is charged with conspiracy to traffic in firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms, as well as six counts of scheming to defraud citizens of honest services. Each corruption count is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000, while the gun-trafficking count is punishable by up to five years and $250,000.
According to the Associated Press, Yee was to receive campaign donations in exchange for various favors, including working through a Muslim rebel group. The people with whom the deals were made turned out to be undercover FBI agents.
Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder fired automatic weapons and missiles, through a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bring them to the United States, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.
This is the same man that voted “yea” for the proposed California assault weapons ban (SB 374) in 2013. He also voted “yea” for the ban on lead hunting ammunition and “yea” for background checks for ammunition purchases.
The 137-page complaint is simply staggering. Here’s a prominent anti-gun Democrat state senator allegedly involved in a gun trafficking scheme, among other alleged crimes that include wire fraud and dealing firearms without a license. And this guy has spent a considerable amount of energy in the California legislature trying to deny law-abiding Californians of their gun rights.
The gun trafficking scheme allegedly involved activities in the Philippines, with the cash to be broken up into “legitimate campaign donations,” according to the court documents.
It is hard to fathom this kind of activity on a scale as massive as these court documents allege. If Sen. Yee and his fellow defendants are convicted, they’re going to wind up in one of the biggest gun-free zones in the country, a federal prison.
Alan M. Gottlieb is the Founder of the Second Amendment Foundation