JAMES TARANTO: Yee Gods! The Astounding Story Of Leland Yee.

A child psychologist, he backed a law “to ban the sale of violent videogames to minors,” which the Supreme Court struck down by a 7-2 vote in the 2011 case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association . The most interesting aspect of that case was the two very different dissents: Justice Clarence Thomas would have upheld the law on the ground that the First Amendment was never meant to apply to children, while Justice Stephen Breyer argued that it was constitutional because it was based on sound social science.

But on one topic he held to the standard liberal line. “He was involved in efforts to regulate guns, particularly after the 2012 mass murder of children at a Connecticut elementary school, a tragedy that Yee said touched him,” the Times notes. National Review’s Tim Cavanaugh elaborates, noting that his arrest in the alleged gun-running conspiracy comes “less than a year after [he was] pushing wide-ranging bills to require micro-stamping, restrict magazine choice, and regulate private handling of legally owned weapons.”

By contrast, the Times reports that in dealing with his alleged co-conspirators, “the senator’s approach to arms dealing was ‘agnostic,’ the 137-page [affidavit] says. ‘People want to get whatever they want to get. Do I care? No, I don’t care,’ Yee allegedly said. ‘People need certain things.’ ”

One marvels at the evident hypocrisy. Was Yee’s zeal for gun control an expression of a guilty conscience–a moralist’s battle with his own inner demons? Or was he consistent in doing whatever seemed expedient? Perhaps that enigma will be unraveled as the case proceeds.

Indeed.