Before you answer, here’s a surprising fact: The San Francisco Democrat, who has been called one of California’s leading gun-control advocates, has never successfully authored a gun-control bill. Not a single gun bill authored by Yee has been signed into law.

During his 11 years in the state Legislature, currently as a state senator, Yee authored 181 bills, of which 138 bills were eventually signed into law. Not a single one of these signed bills was related to gun control, according to an analysis of his legislative accomplishments.

It’s true that Yee has repeatedly proposed gun-control bills, including a ban on assault weapons, 3-D printing of weapons and “bullet buttons.” None of these proposals has been implemented.

2013: Yee failed to pass gun control “study bill”

Yee, who was arrested on March 26 on weapons trafficking and public corruption charges, has been surprisingly ineffective at turning his headline-making-gun-grabbing into law. He has even struggled to convince his colleagues to pass minor gun-control proposals.

In 2013, he authored a bill to require safe storage of firearms. When Senate Bill 108 failed to gain traction, it was turned into a study bill. Even that minor “study” bill died in the State Assembly.

And his legislative ineffectiveness with respect to gun control isn’t the result of overall legislative ineffectiveness. Yee has a high overall success rate, having gotten 138 bills signed into law during his 11-year career in the Legislature.

Moreover, his legislative successes have included controversial proposals, such as an unconstitutional ban on the sale of violent video games in 2005; and a 2012 law that grants juveniles sentenced to life without parole an opportunity for a rehearing.

Gun-control group: Leland Yee California’s “2nd most outspoken gun-control advocate”

Yee’s surprising ineffectiveness with respect to gun-control legislation hasn’t stopped gun-control groups from heralding him as a leader of the movement.

“Ironically, while he’s being charged with gun trafficking, next to [U.S. Sen.] Dianne Feinstein he was probably the second most outspoken gun-control advocate,” Paul Song, the executive chairman of Courage Campaign, told the Associated Press. “This really leaves us scrambling for someone to pick up that mantle.”

Throughout his career, Yee has been quick to grab the spotlight on gun control and use national tragedies for political gain. Shortly after the Newtown, Conn. shooting, he said, “The NRA’s response is pathetic and completely unacceptable.”

He also used the incident to push for two gun-control bills the following year.

“The horrors of Newtown, and countless other mass shootings are still with us,” Yee said in a 2013 press release on two of his gun-control bills. “With this in mind, it is our responsibility to make sure our laws protect the innocent from the threat of gun violence.”

Does Yee’s ineffectiveness spoil the irony?

Following Yee’s arrest and indictment, media outlets have been quick to point out the irony of a gun-control politician secretly running guns. The Huffington Post described Yee as the “California Senate’s Top Gun-Control Advocate.”

“Trying to stop gun trafficking while trafficking guns,” joked The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. “That’s what’s known in the business as a win-win!”

About the only people who have noticed Yee’s ineffectiveness have been California’s leading Second Amendment advocacy group.

“It’s quite possible that Senator Yee’s civilian disarmament bills were really just a way to ensure the health and welfare of gangsters like Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow,” said Brandon Combs, president of the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, which closely monitors California gun-control legislation.

He added, referring to the indictment of Yee and two other state senators — each on different charges, “At this rate, so many Democrats in the Legislature will be prohibited from having firearms that the caucus will soon have to use toy guns and Photoshop to pitch their anti-gun bills.” Convicted felons are banned from owning guns.

Referred to as “Uncle Leland” by those indicted as his co-conspirators, Yee allegedly offered to smuggle millions of dollars’ worth of automatic weapons into the United States from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines, according to the FBI affidavit.

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO – It took only days before California’s legislators reacted to the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy with a fusillade of bills designed to take California closer to Democratic leaders’ unstated but obvious goal: making it essentially illegal for Californians to own firearms.

I write “essentially” because the strategy isn’t to ban guns outright, but to mire ownership in so many layers of regulation that owning a gun becomes even more frustrating and costly than operating a business in this state. Legislators aren’t stupid. Direct assaults on gun ownership generate pushback, but killing this constitutional right through a thousand cuts is less confrontational.

California already has the toughest gun regulations of any state, yet legislators (including a Republican) have introduced a long list of new proposals at news conferences where they used the Connecticut tragedy to grandstand.

“They were mowed down,” Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Kevin de Leon said. “I think that, viscerally, it will give a lot of political officials around the country the political courage to do the right thing.” It’s not clear what de Leon means by the right thing.

California has passed 45 gun control laws in the past 23 years.

(Liberal Connecticut has tough gun laws, too.)

California has long waiting periods, background-check requirements, limits on the number of gun purchases, bans on gun sales to people with mental illnesses and felony convictions, bans on high-capacity ammunition magazines and on concealed weapons. The governor recently signed a law banning the open carrying of unloaded long guns. The list goes on.

That’s in addition to myriad federal restrictions.

If you think we’re safe from gun violence because of all those rules, check out the murder rates in Los Angeles, Oakland and San Bernardino.

Targeting ammo

Now, de Leon is targeting ammunition. “We don’t think about the fuel that feeds the violence, and that’s ammunition. If you want to fish, you have to secure a license to fish. If you want to cut down a Christmas tree in California — this is legally factual — you have to secure a permit at a cost of $10. Yet anyone who walks into any gun store in California can buy all the ammunition they want.”

That statement is more of an indictment of the kind of society we’ve become — so regulated and taxed that one isn’t allowed to cut down a Christmas tree without getting government permission — than about firearms. But I digress.

Like everyone, I’m still shaken by the Newtown school shooting. I’m all ears when it comes to finding real solutions to violence, but am tired of cheap, predictable attempts to turn tragedy into another assault on our liberties and wallets.

After this week’s legislative frenzy, I headed to one of the largest Sacramento-area gun dealers to purchase that 12-guage shotgun I’ve been considering — only to find the shelves virtually bare. The Daily Beast reports on a similar situation throughout the country.

Americans realize that an assault on private gun ownership is coming, and it’s best to buy a weapon now, while they still are available at a store, rather than only on the black market.

Perhaps de Leon and others might ask their constituents why they would want a gun. This morning, my wife handed me the local newspaper with a story about three men arrested for murdering one of my neighbors in October during a robbery. Is it unreasonable to want the wherewithal to defend one’s family? The cocking of a shotgun — an internationally understood signal that “you’re not welcome here” — would be all it takes to dissuade most intruders.

Utopians

Gun control advocates are utopians. Their perspective is that, if guns are no longer readily available, violence will evaporate. But there are so many guns in circulation that it would take decades to reduce their availability — unless legislators adopt the police-state policy of sending cops door-to-door to confiscate firearms. Even then, there would be black markets and other methods for evil folks to commit mayhem.

It’s better to let people arm themselves. An operator of a private school told me that California’s 1995 Gun-Free School Zone Act — banning guns within 1,000 feet of schools — is making it difficult to hire an armed security guard.

There’s a reason criminals are more likely to ply their trade in “gun free” zones than in heavily armed neighborhoods. There’s no better check on a diabolical gun owner than law-abiding gun owners. I personally don’t like guns and wish everyone were peaceful and kind, but it’s better to be realistic than to pursue fantasy.

Gun control laws exempt groups of government officials. Anyone who believes working for the government relieves people of the tendency to do bad things has never heard the phrase “going postal.” There are endless stories of authorities misusing their firearms, both on- and off-duty, which is a reminder of the main reason the founders gave gun ownership the second spot in the Bill of Rights.

Californians crazy enough to believe these new proposed laws will make them safer should be happy. The rest of us should find a well-stocked gun store as soon as possible.

By John Seiler

This was testimony before the U.S. Senate by Suzanna Hupp. Look for gun controller Sen. Chuck Schumer. He is protected by armed Capitol Police.

You and I are not.

By John Seiler

America still mourns the victims of the Newtown mass murder. It’s predictable that anti-gun Democratic ideologues would use the tragedy to advance their position — at the expense not only of our Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms,” but at the expense of taxpayers.

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer now is insisting that state retirement funds divest themselves of investments in gun companies. He said: “STRS and PERS should not be investing in any company that makes guns that are illegal in California, especially ones used to kill 20 innocent children and 6 innocent adults.”

If he had been forthright, he would have said, “California taxpayers should be forced to pick up the tab for my anti-gun ideology. Because twisting investment strategies in that direction will mean lower returns on fund investments, which must be made up by taxpayers.”

If we are to have these retirement funds whose performance is guaranteed by the taxpayers, then the funds should have one purpose: to maximize investment return so the taxpayers don’t have to pick up more of the tab than they already are.

Already, taxpayers are being socked for $6.5 billion a year to make up for pension shortfalls. That amount is more than the $6 billion the just-passed Proposition 30 is supposed to bring into the state.

How much?

How much are we supposed to pay to subsidize Lockyer’s ideology?

If he’s really so anti-gun, then he should openly campaign to repeal the Second Amendment.

But so long as investing in gun companies is a profitable and legal investment, then state pension funds should be free to own their stock to reduce the taxpayers’ liability.

And as to banning companies that make something illegal in California, that would mean emptying almost everything in the retirement funds’ portfolios — because so many things are illegal here. For example, California’s minimum wage is higher than in most states. So any company with workers in, say, Mississippi or Alabama not paying a California-high minimum wage to those workers should be divested.

And California investment officials should go to China to make sure factories there are complying with AB 32 in China.

Finally, here’s a thought. If Lockyer hates such dirty investments so much, how about getting the state entirely out of the pension-investment business? Let’s convert all pensions, including those of current employees and even those already retired, into 401(k)-style plans that would allow the retirees themselves to direct their own retirement funds.

That way, if some employees like Lockyer — and he will get a massive pension should he ever leave government — want to divest themselves of gun-company stocks, they would be free to do so. But taxpayers would not be forced to pay for their ideology.