Ex-CA. State Sen. gun control champion heads to prison for weapons trafficking | Hacker News Reader

Ex-CA. State Sen. gun control champion heads to prison for weapons trafficking

washingtonpost.com

50 pointsGaessaki19 comments

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

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.

One might argue that political corruption has a huge negative impact on society and democracy. There are absolutely victims at all levels, for many years after their dirty deeds.

Contrast this to all people in jail for crimes that really haven't hurt anyone.

The real crooks are the ones that should be smacked extra hard.

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.

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.

>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.

I've always considered irony to be when an action meant to have one effect results in a disproportionate effect in the opposite direction - so much so that doing nothing would have attained a more favorable outcome.

But I think there are multiple correct definitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

apparently 7 or more distinguishable definitions.

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.

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

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

And don't forget the added value of disarming these guns' intended targets i.e. citizens.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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?

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.

ot: He skipped a court appearance and the (minor) case was dismissed!

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

Gun control is a joke

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