Hey, Palin-What Did The Declaration Say About Gun Rights?

06/10/11 · 11:08 am :: posted by Richard  

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
-Amendment II, Constitution of the United States.

The GOP's leading Presidential pretender, Gunpowder Puff Sarah Palin, has been flitting about lately, parroting the gun-rights drivel  she gets from right-wing media outlets and blog sites.  Her latest pronouncement was how Paul Revere's ride from Boston into Middlesex County was really all about asserting the colonist's right to own guns by telling the British troops that his fellow rebel patriots had lots of guns.  That, supposedly, was gonna scare the bejeezus out of the highly regimented and heavily armed redcoats according to Ms. Palin -you betcha!

Never mind the inconvenient fact that Revere told the Brits that the colonists were armed only after he had completed his part of the real  mission carried out by some forty or so rebels -to warn their comrades that an armed British invasion was underway.  Never mind that Revere told the Brits that his comrades were armed at gunpoint, only after he had been captured by the them. Never mind the fact that giving such information about your comrades to the enemy, if done before your mission has been completed, would be tantamount to betrayal -no different from a captured G.I. in Afghanistan today telling the Taliban all about American troop strength and weaponry.

No, those are all just historical facts, and to Palin "facts are stupid things" just like the Gipper said.  What's really important to Palin and her Teabagger cohorts is ideology, and that ideology demands that history be revised to make Revere's ride all about gun rights under the Second Amendment, as if the American Revolution stood for nothing else.

Well, despite Ms. Palin's narrow-minded ideological slant, let's take a look at what the American Revolution was really all about, as clearly stated at length in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration, remember, is not the founding document of our democratic government -the Constitution is.  But the Declaration gives us a crystal clear insight into the ideals, ideas and purposes of the founders which they then incorporated into the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Declaration was drafted by a committee of the Continental Congress that included Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston, all of them what Palin and her fellow Teabaggers would today call intellectual "elitists."  They were in fact adherents of the European Enlightenment which was the "liberalism" of the late Eighteenth Century and abhorrent to those who would be called conservatives today, including the Americans  known as Tories who remained loyal to the British crown.  Many of the founders, including Jefferson and Franklin were decidedly men of faith who believed in a God as creator, but  were Deists and  not "Christians" in any doctrinal sense.
 
That group of Eighteenth Century liberals drew up the Declaration of Independence, declaring that "all men are created equal," and  endowed by the Creator with "certain inalienable rights" such as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -truly radical liberal notions for an era of monarchical rule that defined the politics of the time.  They declared that governments are instituted, not by divine right but by deriving their powers from the consent of the government, for the sole purpose of securing such basic rights to the people.  They did not list gun ownership as one of those inalienable rights, however.

That group of Eighteenth Century liberal radicals took great pains, out of a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind," to explain in very specific and detailed  terms why the American colonies must secede from British rule,  i.e. "the causes which impel them to the separation." That  lengthy list of grievances against the King of England, taken verbatim from the text of the Declaration, is as follows:

 He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

 For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they  should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing   therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

 He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

That's it folks, nothing about a sacred right to own guns or the "right to bear arms."  In fact, one of the specific grievances against the Crown was that Americans were being impressed into military service and required "to bear arms" against their fellow countrymen.  It was sort of like the military draft that Cheney dodged back in the 'sixties -you know, the one the SDS and other "traitors" took to the streets against, but without a draft board or exemptions for chicken hawk "patriots" like Cheney and Teabagger guru Rush Limbaugh.

 So, to Ms. Palin and her fellow historically challenged comrades on the right, I must ask where exactly does the Declaration  provide any support for your inane notion that advocating for  gun-rights was one of the purposes for which Revere and his comrades made their ride throughout Suffolk,  Middlesex, Essex and other Massachusetts Counties?   Revere, surely,  knew what the Revolution was about, and if it had been about gun rights that concern most certainly would be stated  among the comprehensive list of grievances set out in the Declaration.

Don't bother looking , because I'll answer the question for you.  There's not  one word about gun rights in the Declaration of Independence -nothing, nada, zilch.   The Declaration provides, out of the founders' respect for the opinions of mankind, a comprehensive and exhaustive list of the causes for the American Revolution, and  gun rights didn't make the list -period!


The Second Amendment states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," but it also states a significant qualification that Ms. Palin and fellow right-wing ideologues like Justice Antonin Scalia  must   read out of the text in order to find that gun ownership is an individual right under the Constitution, which is the "importance of a well-regulated Militia," as being  necessary to the security of a Free State.  Scalia's opinion in U.S. v. Heller,   replete with convoluted rationales as to why the Militia clause should not be a read as a qualification of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, though correct in result, is purely an exercise in right wing  judicial activism, in marked contrast with his prior "conservative" jurisprudence, such as  his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, for example.  (For a more detailed analysis on this point click on the link to my prior post on Scalia's judicial activism in Heller.  http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2009/06/07/title-250?blog=214#comments ).

Scalia's  reasoning in Heller focuses on selective historical factoids  in an activist attempt to contradict or render meaningless the actual purpose  for which the founders ratified the Second Amendment, which was to protect their freedom through "well regulated" militias against a tyrannical government that separated the military from civilian control.  That purpose was expressly stated in the Declaration as one of several important reasons for separating from the Crown.  That separation was in fact  initiated by  the well regulated  local militias in armed resurrection against the established government, under the command of men like Ethan Allen from Vermont and John Parker of the Massachusetts Minutemen, engaging the highly organized British army with privatelyowned firearms.   Those several militias, which then organized themselves as units of the Continental Army under the command of George Washington, are unquestionably what the drafters meant when they drafted the Second Amendment beginning with the  Militia clause. 

So the Second Amendment was in fact ratified to secure an individual right to bear arms, but that was clearly and specifically secondary to the more fundamental rights for which the American Revolution was fought, including civilian control over the military as through the local civilian militias that initiated the armed Revolution itself.   If Palin's claims about the purpose of Paul Revere's ride had even a shred of accuracy, then there would surely have been a statement in the Declaration saying, in effect if not verbatim:

He has seized and taken away the rightfully owned firearms of the citizenry and has banned their sale and possession.

But such a statement is conspicuously absent from the Declaration's lengthy list of causes for the American colonist's separation from England.  It is clear beyond any doubt, therefore, that depriving the colonists of their right to bear arms was not among the reasons for either the Revolution itself or Paul Revere's ride in service of that Revolution, contrary to Ms. Palin's smugly ignorant revisionist view of American history.

http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2011/06/10/title-439?blog=214

Mexican Guns Tied to U.S.

American-Sourced Weapons Account for 70% of Seized Firearms in Mexico

The U.S. was the source of at least 70% of 29,284 firearms recovered by authorities in Mexico in 2009 and 2010, according to new U.S. government figures.

The statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are expected to add to controversy over the U.S. role in fueling drug-cartel violence in Mexico, which has killed more than 40,000 people since 2006.

U.S. gun-rights groups long have disputed assertions by the U.S. and Mexican governments that trafficking from the U.S. is a major source of weapons in the cartel wars. They have contended the majority of Mexican guns come from Russia, China and elsewhere.

The controversy was fueled in recent years when U.S. officials backed off earlier claims that up to 90% of firearms recovered in Mexico were of U.S. origin.

The findings come as the ATF defends itself against congressional critics for its Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, which lawmakers say inadvertently eased trafficking of weapons to cartel gangs.

Lawmakers say the agency lost track of firearms and allowed 2,500 weapons into the hands of suspected traffickers. A weapons cache found in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in April included five firearms that the ATF has now linked to suspects in the Fast and Furious operation., The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The ATF figures show that 21,313 firearms recovered in Mexico in 2009 were submitted for tracing by the agency. Of these, 10,945 were manufactured in the U.S. and 3,268 were imported into the U.S. from third countries before ending up in Mexico. The origin of 7,100 firearms couldn't be determined.

Of 7,971 firearms recovered in Mexico in 2010 and traced by ATF, 4,186 were manufactured in the U.S. and 2,105 were imported into the U.S. The origin of 1,680 firearms couldn't be determined.

Collectively, the data show that of the 29,284 firearms recovered in Mexico in 2009 and 2010 and submitted to the ATF for tracing, 20,504 or 70% passed through the U.S. at some point. The period is the most recent for which data are available.

The ATF said it traced the guns based on information provided by Mexican authorities. The Mexican government doesn't submit every firearm it recovers for tracing.

Mexico has strict restrictions on gun ownership, with most legitimate sales processed through one store on a military base near Mexico City.

ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson provided the data to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), who requested the information. It represents the first such analysis to be made public by the agency. The law limits how ATF can share the data it obtains from tracing guns used in crimes.

Sen. Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, said in a May letter to Mr. Melson that "military-style weapons are arming Mexico's brutal drug trafficking organizations at an alarming rate. Releasing data on firearms recovered in Mexico that originate in the United States will ensure that the American public and policymakers are aware of the severity of this problem."

The figures prompted strong reactions from advocates on both sides of the U.S. gun-control debate.

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said he doubted the ATF figures. He said given the ample resources of drug cartels, traffickers easily import weapons from Russia, China, and Central America, rather than risk trying to smuggle firearms from the U.S. "I think all these numbers are phonied up for politics," Mr. LaPierre said in an interview. "The law enforcement people I talk to tell me this doesn't make sense."

Dennis Henigan, vice president of Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said: "The traffickers are following the path of least resistance. They're going to American gun shops, exploiting the permissive U.S. gun laws. It's beyond time for the United States to strengthen its gun laws and shut down the trafficking."
Write to Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375961350290734.html

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Sides argue CU regents' authority in concealed-carry gun ban

By Sara Burnett/Denver Post

From the National Rifle Association and Colorado's sheriffs to the Greater Denver Million Mom March and state lawmakers, people have weighed in for and against the University of Colorado's campus gun ban.

But the question before the Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday wasn't whether concealed weapons on campus make students more or less safe — it was whether the CU Board of Regents has the authority to make that call, CU attorney Patrick O'Rourke said.

The Colorado Constitution, state statute and previous high-court rulings give the board that authority, he argued.

"This court has said the regents have the unique position to determine what's best (for its institutions)," O'Rourke said.

James Manley, an attorney for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, disagreed, saying the Concealed Carry Act of 2003 allows permit holders to carry in all areas of the state.

"I think the statute is clear," Manley told the justices.

The case stems from a 2009 lawsuit filed in El Paso County on behalf of three students who were told they could not carry concealed weapons on campus, even with a concealed-carry permit.

CU's policy bans weapons on campuses, leased buildings and any area under control of university police. The minimum sanction for students is expulsion. For employees, it's termination.

The policy states that possession of firearms and other dangerous weapons "threatens the tranquility of the educational environment" and "seriously undermines" the university's academic mission.

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus argued the ban violated the Concealed Carry Act and the Colorado Constitution.

That act states that a person with a permit may carry a concealed weapon "in all areas of the state," with the exception of some federal properties, K-12 schools and buildings with fixed security checkpoints, such as courthouses. It also states that "a local government" may not enforce an ordinance or resolution that conflicts with the law.
Universities are not included among the exceptions to the concealed weapons law, and the CU regents aren't specifically listed as exempt from the ban on local government regulation of concealed weapons.

Still, El Paso County District Judge G. David Miller dismissed the 2009 case, saying the Board of Regents is not considered a local government, but a "statewide authority with its own legislative powers over distinct geographic areas."

Last year, the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the decision, saying it was clear the Concealed Carry Act was intended to apply statewide.

In a 5-4 vote, the regents decided to appeal to the state's high court, in part because the ruling could have consequences for the board's authority in other areas.
Several organizations then weighed in through "friend of the court" briefs.

In one, the County Sheriffs of Colorado and the Independence Institute pointed to murders that have been prevented by citizens with lawful firearms. They called the regents' prohibition on guns "highly dangerous," saying victims wouldn't have "the tools necessary to save lives" if such an incident occurred at CU.

A brief by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners included statements from Republican state Sens. Ted Harvey and Greg Brophy, who said the legislature clearly intended the 2003 law to apply to college campuses.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence urged the court to uphold the ban, saying that allowing concealed weapons on campus "is dangerous, extreme and seriously threatens public safety."

O'Rourke did not address the friend-of-the-court briefs at any length Wednesday but noted that because the regents are elected to their posts, citizens may vote them out if they disagree with their policies.

Four of the seven justices asked questions during the one-hour hearing, but none gave a clear indication of which way he or she was leaning.
The court will rule at a later, undetermined date.
Sara Burnett: 303-954-1661 or sburnett@denverpost.com

Read more: Sides argue CU regents' authority in concealed-carry gun ban - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18235687#ixzz1OlmH22mj
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Brady Center Sues Florida Over 'Gag' on Doctors Asking About Firearms

Published June 07, 2011

| FoxNews.com

A top gun control group has filed suit against a recently passed Florida law restricting doctors from asking patients about whether they own firearms, claiming the policy tramples on First Amendment rights. 

The first-in-the-nation law, signed last week by Gov. Rick Scott, would prohibit doctors from recording information about whether a patient owns a gun. It also restricts them from asking about whether patients own a gun unless that information is relevant to their medical care. 

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, along with another law firm and groups representing doctors, filed suit Monday asking a U.S. District Court judge in Florida to strike down the law. 

The suit, which disparagingly refers to the policy as the "physician gag law," complained that it was too vague and too strict and could lead doctors to "self-censor" -- to the detriment of their patients. 

"By severely restricting such speech and the ability of physicians to practice such preventative medicine, the Florida statute could result in grievous harm to children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly," the suit said. 

firearms if that information is not relevant to a patients' care or the safety of others. 

"The law ensures respect for a patient's right to own or possess a firearm and protects them from potential discrimination and harassment in cases where it is not relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of anyone else in the home," spokesman Lane Wright said in an email. 

Backers of the law, including author Rep. Jason Brodeur, claimed they were trying to prevent doctors from invading personal privacy. The law was spawned after a Florida pediatrician told a mother to seek another doctor after she refused to answer questions about firearms in her home. 

Sponsors also expressed concern that medical records reflecting information about firearms could be shared with insurance companies, potentially leading to higher rates. Indeed, the law includes a provision barring insurance companies from raising premiums or denying coverage based on whether an applicant owns a gun. 

But the American Academy of Pediatrics, a party to the suit, claimed the law would do harm because pediatricians should be able to provide "anticipatory guidance" to prevent injury to children. 

The Brady Center said doctors should be urging parents to keep firearms under lock and key, and away from kids. 

"This gun lobby-backed gag law is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of doctors and patients to discuss the severe risks posed by guns in the home, particularly Brady Center President Paul Helmke said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/07/brady-center-sues-florida-over-gag-on-doctors-asking-about-firearms/#ixzz1OftrWPw6to children,"

LAPD seeks tighter regulations on toy guns

Chief Charlie Beck urges law requiring BB guns to be brightly colored to avoid confusion with authentic firearms.

By Sam Allen, Los Angeles Times June 7, 2011

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is proposing that the city require BB-gun replicas of actual firearms to be brightly colored so that police officers don't mistake them for real weapons.

The proposal, which the Los Angeles Police Commission will consider Tuesday, comes after two shootings involving officers and people with replica weapons, including one in which a teenager was wounded. Under the new rule, all such toys sold inLos Angeles would have the "entire exterior surface of the device white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink or bright purple."

Guns would also be allowed if they were "constructed of transparent or translucent materials which permits unmistakable observation of the device's complete contents."
"This change will not ban such devices but will aid law enforcement in differentiating real firearms from BB devices and imitation firearms. It will also prevent the sales and possession of BB devices and imitation firearms in the city of Los Angeles that are similar in size and appearance to actual firearms," Beck wrote in a memo.

The guns come in various models that closely resemble real weapons such as Berettas, shotguns and pistols. Law enforcement experts say the toys can easily be mistaken for the real thing, especially in a situation in which an officer must react quickly and decisively.

On Dec. 16, three boys were playing with the guns on North Verdugo Road in Glassell Park when two LAPD officers stopped to investigate. An officer fired at one of the boys, believing the boy's gun was a real weapon, according to an LAPD news release. The boy was shot in the torso and underwent surgery.

Capt. David Lindsay, who headed the Northeast Division when the shooting occurred, said the division had faced several incidents in recent months involving toy guns, and noted that they have been taken from gang members and robbery suspects.

"It's a consistent issue for us. I saw the guns the kids had that night from a distance of 3 or 4 feet; when you first look at them, they look identical to a particular style of handgun, a Beretta 92F," Lindsay said in an interview earlier this year. He has since been transferred to a different position.

Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith said the December incident alarmed him and his staff because a local activist warned them about the toy guns several months earlier.
Les Salay, a Vietnam veteran, firearm instructor and father of three, had contacted Smith and presented him photographs of Airsoft guns that his daughter had purchased from ice cream trucks outside two schools near his family's Chatsworth home.

Salay said he had asked his daughter Ashley, 12, to try to purchase the guns because he wanted to see if vendors would sell them to her. She was able to buy several guns from the ice cream trucks, he said, two of which had warnings on them that they were intended for ages 18 and older.

"At an ice cream truck, there is no parent who can say 'no, no, no, you can't have that,' " said Salay, who also teaches gun safety to Boy Scouts. "To sell a 12-year-old girl a gun that looks like a real gun is a tragedy waiting to happen. And now it has happened."

The Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance banning the sale of toy guns from ice cream trucks in 2005, but several distributors interviewed by The Times said some trucks still carry the guns.

"It's a few renegade trucks that do it," said Fred Karamati, owner of Avalon Ice Cream, a distributor in Los Angeles. He said that he no longer sells the guns to truck operators, but that they are widely available at toy wholesalers throughout the city.

Smith, who is also an LAPD reserve officer, said the guns pose a problem for police because officers typically have only seconds to react in a situation in which they believe a subject is armed. He considered a citywide ban of the replica weapons earlier this year.

"If you see something that just looks like a gun, you're going to shoot," Smith said after the Glassell Park shooting. "That's what you're trained to do. Your mind doesn't have enough time to process whether it's a real gun or a fake gun."
His office said Monday that he supported Beck's proposal.
sam.allen@latimes.com

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-fake-guns-20110607,0,7534310.story

Marking D-Day with massive paintball battle

Sun, Jun 5 2011

By Steve Olafson
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Mighty forces are gathering in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, and they're itching for a fight. They're well-organized, high-spirited and heavily armed -- with paintball guns.

In one of the largest paintball games in the world, some 3,000 people will relive the events of June 6, 1944, D-Day, when German-occupied France was invaded by Allied Forces, marking a turning point in World War II.

This year's Oklahoma version will mark the 14th time a D-Day-style paintball game has been staged. There's an Allied side and a German side, of course, and even the French Resistance is represented, but it's not just a paintball free-for-all.

Instead, in a rugged, 800-acre park, Allied Forces and the Third Reich will compete to achieve certain goals based on the many individual battles that occurred 67 years ago.
There are mock tanks rumbling around, pyrotechnics exploding and soldiers tumbling out of plywood landing craft amid a cacophony of clacking paintball guns.

"The field sorts out the men from the boys," said Andy Van Der Plaats, a 64-year-old marketing consultant from North Fort Myers, Fla., and a high-ranking officer in the Allied paintball chain of command. "The adrenalin is just cranked. It's stressful."

It's a big deal in Wyandotte, population 500, where Dwayne Convirs created the event in 1997 to honor his grandfather, Enos Armstrong, a combat engineer who fought his way through Europe after landing in Normandy on D-Day.

The first version of Oklahoma D-Day drew 135 players, Convirs said. Since then as many as 15,000 people - including the families of players -- have shown up to either camp out on the grounds of Oklahoma D-Day Adventure Park or stay in nearby motels.

"This is their vacation," Convirs, 46, told Reuters. "It's not really about the game, it's about the event."

The big D-Day paintball battle takes place this year on June 11 after a week of preliminary activities including a flag-raising ceremony, a parade, military-style chapel services, and evening showings of movies such as "Patton," "The Longest Day" and "Band of Brothers."

At Oklahoma D-Day, the outcome is definitely not guaranteed. The Axis side has won the past three years.

While the ultimate result may not always match history, pains are taken to recreate certain historical missions, such as the capture and defense of bridges, churches, crossroads and towns. And all the while, thousands of paintballs are flying through the air; if you're hit, you have to sit out awhile in a "dead zone."

The game is taken seriously by those who spend $100 to play and a tidy sum to buy gear, including paintball guns, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred bucks to several thousand dollars.

REVERENCE
Despite the fun-and-games atmosphere in Oklahoma, there is a palpable undercurrent of patriotism and reverence for those who fought the real fight on D-Day.

For the past two years, Jake McNiece, 92, a D-Day paratrooper who is a member of the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame, has been a guest at the D-Day paintball games. He's going back this year.

McNiece, who lives in Ponca City, Oklahoma, is dismayed how little young people know about World War Two. The Oklahoma D-Day event, he said, keeps the history alive.

Blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, McNiece is not shy about telling stories of his own experiences, whether it was when he parachuted into Normandy to blow up a bridge before the Allied troops came ashore or when he parachuted into Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

"We don't brag about it and we don't apologize for it," he said. "War is hell. It's a killing game."

He talks to the participants, young and old, and, with his wife, Martha, sells copies of his book, "The Filthy 13," which details his experiences with the 101st Airborne Division.

"It's unbelievable the amount of respect he gets, especially from young people," Van Der Plaats, the Florida marketing consultant, told Reuters.

Even though it's just paintballs being fired, the tactical maneuvering, frequently uphill if you're on the Allied side, is physically taxing in the summer heat, Van Der Plaats said.
Meanwhile, there's a cat-and-mouse game of strategy going on.

Both sides are known to use scanners to intercept the radio communications of their foe and aircraft have been employed to determine the enemy's positions, Van Der Plaats said.

Finally, if it all gets too intense for the paintballers, there is a "chaplain" available to talk it over.

Overseeing this with a certain amount of amazement is Convirs, who remembers the event's humble beginnings and the stories of his grandfather, who helped build 200 bridges in Europe, usually while under fire from the Germans.

"We try to make it patriotic and make people think about life," he added. "There's a lot of people who gave their lives for us to have freedom. A lot of people forget that."
(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Jerry Norton)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/05/us-dday-oklahoma-paintball-idUSTRE7541GB20110605

Ex-Tijuana mayor taken by troops over gun cache

Associated Press | Posted: Sunday, June 5, 2011 1:09 am

Soldiers swept into the compound of flashy gambling tycoon Jorge Hank Rhon around 3:30 a.m., hustling him and his family from bed. They left with a cache of arms and the powerful Mexican politician in custody.

Saturday's raid was a bold strike against Tijuana's former mayor, who has prospered through decades of suspicion that his family's fortunes are linked to illegal drugs.

Troops found 88 guns in the house, along with 40 rifles and 48 handguns, 9,298 bullets, 70 ammunition clips and a gas grenade, authorities said.

Mexican law limits ownership of large firearms to the military and requires licensing of most other guns. Violations can be punished by as long as 15 years in prison in some cases.

Hank Rhon, 55, was flown to Mexico City later in the day. Ten others were also in custody.

His wife, Maria Elvia Amaya de Hank, said she, her husband and their children were "violently" awoken by soldiers who didn't show a search warrant. After arresting several of Hank Rhon's security guards, the soldiers told her they were recovering arms intended solely for military use, she said.

Amaya de Hank insisted all the weapons in the house had permits and demanded that her husband be released.

"I am fully confident that our authorities will quickly resolve the painful affair and do it with transparency, for my husband has been incommunicado until now," she said in a statement Saturday.

Amaya Hank was hospitalized after the army raid, said her press secretary, Martina Martinez.

The federal Attorney General's Office said the troops staged the raid after three armed people detained near a hotel told them that weapons were hidden in the compound, which Hank Rhon's spokesman said includes the home, a casino, the ex-mayor's private zoo, a soccer complex and a school.

Heriberto Garcia, Baja California's human rights ombudsman, said Hank Rhon told him that armed men in hoods, some in civilian garb and others in military uniform, broke into the house and disarmed his security guards.

Hank Rhon was mayor of Tijuana from 2004 to 2007, but lost in a run for Baja California state governor that year. He is a self-proclaimed billionaire who owns a dog track, a nationwide chain of off-track betting parlors and the Tijuana soccer team that last month won advancement into Mexico's top soccer league.

His supporters charged that the arrest was an effort to tarnish his once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ahead of Mexico's 2012 presidential election and the 2013 vote for Baja California governor. Hank Rhon has been widely considered a potential candidate to try again to wrest the governor's office from the National Action Party.

"They want to finish off his chances in the election," said Edgar Velasquez, a 23-year-old dance teacher who wore a red T-shirt from Hank Rhon's failed 2007 campaign and was among a crowd of about 200 protesters outside the federal attorney general's office after the arrest.

But the PRI's president, Humberto Moreira, said he saw no evidence of a strike against his party. "I don't think it is part of a 'witch hunt,'" he said of the raid, speaking to reporters in the central city of San Luis Potosi.

Hank Rhon is the son of a legendary figure in the PRI, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. He served in Mexico's Cabinet, was governor of Mexico State and later was mayor of Mexico City. Hank Gonzalez died in 2001. He started his career as a school teacher and died a billionaire after a life in public service.

Hank Rhon's Tijuana-based gambling operations, which include a giant casino in the center of the city, have long drawn suspicion from U.S. regulators. Law enforcement agencies often see gambling as an easy way to launder illegal money, and Tijuana is a major corridor for drug traffic to the United States.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/world/article_b470e139-a80b-52c5-a6d5-dde4122915e9.html

Posted in World on Sunday, June 5, 2011 1:09 am Updated: 4:02 am. | Tags: