Former CA Sen. Leland Yee
Leland Yee, the disgraced former California state senator and one of the most ardent gun control advocates, drew a five-year federal prison sentence for racketeering and conspiracy, including a scheme to traffic in firearms.
Yee was indicted in 2014 along with several other people, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, described by the Sacramento Bee as a “flamboyant leader of a Chinese fraternal organization—the Ghee Kung Tong” in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
In 2006, Yee was named by the Brady Campaign to its “Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll,” while serving as Speaker Pro Tem in the California Assembly.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, pointed to the irony of this case.
“Yee is easily the biggest hypocrite on gun control to have ever walked the halls of the capitol in Sacramento, if not the entire United States,” Gottlieb observed in a statement to the press.
“Maybe the Brady Campaign should do universal background checks on people it decides to honor,” Gottlieb suggested. “Remember, the Brady bunch and Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown group think gunowners should all be treated like criminals. Well, here’s a guy who pushed the gun control agenda, and he is a criminal.”
At his sentencing hearing, the Los Angeles Times noted, US District Judge Charles Breyer said there was no reason to be lenient. However, Yee’s critics contend that the five-year sentence is far too mild for the ex-lawmaker, who didn’t simply betray the voters’ trust, he became involved in a plot to illegally traffic in guns after having worked hard to ratchet down on the rights of law-abiding California gunowners.
The Associated Press reported that Breyer “called the weapons allegations against Yee…unfathomable and said it was frightening that Yee would be willing to go entirely against his public position on guns in exchange for money.”
But according to Gottlieb, hypocrisy by anti-gun public officials is nothing new. He pointed to the Mayors Against Illegal Guns lobbying group founded by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City. Several members of that group have run into legal troubles and some have even gone to prison for assorted crimes.
