Sunday, March 30, 2014

• California State Sen. Leland Yee Indicted on Weapons Charges, Was Gun Control Crusader by ALYSSA NEWCOMB



A California state senator busted on arms trafficking and corruption charges in an FBI sweep has a legislative record of fighting for stronger gun control laws.

Behind the scenes, Leland Yee, 65, offered to connect an undercover FBI agent with an international arms trafficker -- all in exchange for campaign donations, according to a federal complaint.

 


 

During the investigation, the undercover agent mentioned his desire to spend as much as $2.5 million on automatic "shoulder-fired" weapons and missiles, the complaint said.

After several months of planning, a meeting with a trafficker was facilitated earlier this month in San Francisco, the complaint said, in which the group discussed their plan for getting the weapons from the Philippines.

"Once things start to move, it's going to attract attention. We just got to be extra-extra careful," Yee said, according to the complaint.

Yee Spearheaded Gun Control Legislation

One month after the Sandy Hook massacre, Yee helped introduce what was seen as one of the toughest pieces of gun control legislation in the country to ban the "bullet button."

The device allows for quick-change magazines on military-style assault weapons and is legal under California's assault weapons ban.

Yee's legislation was eventually folded into a package of proposals that were vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2013.

After the veto, Yee said he was "recommitted" to passing his legislation and said it would "protect the public while keeping an appropriately narrow scope."

Lawmaker Busted in Sting

Yee was arrested Wednesday on federal weapons and corruption charges.

"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," Alan Gottlieb, chairman for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said in a statement.

Among the other 25 defendants caught in the sting were Yee's campaign aide, Keith Jackson and Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader known as "Shrimp Boy."

Yee, a former San Francisco mayoral candidate who is running to be the next California secretary of state, has been released from jail.

His attorney, Paul DeMeester, told the Associated Press that Yee planned to plead not guity to the charges. He declined to further comment on the case.





SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Before he was arrested and indicted on numerous federal charges Wednesday , including allegations of gun running, State Sen. Leland Yee was a major advocate for gun control and pushed to ban a device called a “bullet button.”

In 2012, KPIX 5 reported on what gun control advocates called a huge loophole in California’s ban on assault weapons. The reports focused on the bullet button, a device that gun manufacturers designed in order to legally sell guns such as the AR-15 in California.

The bullet button enables the magazine of a semi-automatic rifle to be removed quickly, with the tip of a bullet. Removable magazines in combination with other features like a pistol grip and telescoping stock are banned under California law. But the bullet button is legal because it doesn’t work with one’s finger, so the magazine is considered “fixed.”

The report prompted Yee to introduce SB 249, which would have banned the bullet button. Yee received a lot of heat from gun advocates over it. Opponents even put up billboards on Bay Area freeways.

In an interview on KPIX 5, Yee said that he was not going to be intimidated, because he believed so strongly in keeping guns out of the hands of bad guys.

“This is not an easy issue,” Yee said. “But I am a father, and I want our communities to be safe, and god forbid if one of these weapons fell into the wrong hands.”

Yee’s bill was eventually merged with other gun control bills, but in the end Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the legislation.

According to Wednesday’s indictment, Yee is charged with conspiracy to deal firearms without a license, along with conspiracy to illegally transport firearms. He is also accused of running a scheme to defraud citizens on his services and wire fraud.

The government’s affidavit said that in August of 2013, at the same time Yee was pushing gun control laws, an undercover agent was being told the senator “had a contact who deals in arms trafficking.”

In January of this year, the affidavit said Yee told that same agent that the arms dealer “Has things that you guys want.”

The affidavit also said Yee claimed to know a weapons trafficker who he had known for years, who was supplying “cargo containers” of heavy weapons to Muslim rebels in the Philippines.

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