Unintended Consequences

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Summary: A must read book on the gun-control debate.
Review: Ross has used the classic didatic technique of "the medicine of cherries" in this through history of anti-2d Amendment action by our government and by the courts mixed delightfully within a rousing novel of sex and violence. As a PhD in English Literature with 42 years federal service I could quibble with the literary quality of this book, or with some of the details of federal police action, but nevertheless I recommend it to you without reservation--whatever your position on gun control. You will l

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Summary: Most readable review of anti-gun laws ever!
Review: You will love this book or hate it, but you will most certainly learn something about the most important struggle for the American values of freedom and independence since the Revolutionary War

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Summary: Ross has written a flawed but compelling paean to liberty.
Review: I can't imagine that the BATF is happy that this book was published. I can't imagine that any government bureaucrat is happy about Unintended Consequences. With this book, John Ross has called governments to task for their excesses over the years; he has shown how greed for power, cowardice, and ignorance have resulted in tyranny and the loss of life. Ross celebrates those few who stood up for their freedom, often sacrificing themselves in the process. Unintended Consequences isn't perfect, of course -- some characterizations come off flat, a few plot elements are bit too convenient, and the violence is ... well ... graphic. But flaws and all, the book gripped me, bringing alive African safaris and grim War-era ghetto conditions. I read through it as if it were half its tome-like length. If you believe in liberty, this book is worth reading

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Summary: To freedom-haters, this is a dangerous book.
Review: http://www.access.digex.net/~croaker/unintend.html#TO

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Summary: AN ABSOLUTE MUST-READ
Review: Note--I have no connection with anyone involved in thecreation or publication of this novel. I bought this book at the Dallas Gun Show in March, following a recommendation by a friend. It was a $28.95 investment, so you can imagine it was a solid recommendation. I got a lot for my money. UC is a hardback running 861 pages, and there's a lot of print per page. It is published by Accurate Press, St Louis, Missouri. If you are the impatient type, understand this: READ THIS BOOK NOW! BUY IT FOR EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THE GUN CULTURE. IMPERFECT THOUGH IT MAY BE, THIS ONE COULD REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Excuse my shouting. This is easily the best novel about the gun culture I have ever read. I don't agree with all of it, but it includes an informed, logical and passionate statement of everything I have ever wanted to express about bureaucracy and the loss of personal freedom. The novel covers the period from 1906 to 'The Present day' (which is actually the period of office of the next President of the USA). John Ross has read his 'How to Write a Novel' books. In a contemporary style the book describes how, even during the golden age of America (pick your own dates), freedom has been jeopardised. Through reconstruction of the events surrounding the passing of the gun laws in 1934, 1968 and 1986, Ross illuminates the encroachment of the freedom of all Americans. The present day harrassment of dealers and owners of restricted weapons: machine guns, suppressors, and short-barrelled long arms by the ATF, is documented in immense detail. Some firearm owners may feel this doesn't concern them, but it does. The restricted weapons' owners are just at the bleeding edge of bureaucratic totalitarianism. Waco, Ruby Ridge and a number of other atrocities are told with considerable attention to detail. The author makes no pretence of putting together a 'balanced view', rather making the case against the ATF with the precision of a high court prosecutor. The result anticipated by Ross is a bloody one. As with all revolutions, large and small, the innocent suffer with the guilty. Revolutionaries incite and anticipate revolutionary fervour in the general population. With the inertia of a large number of well-fed people to overcome, innocent blood is going to be shed. To his credit, Ross does not shirk this issue. The reader must make up his own mind. Be assured you will find no racism, homophobia or religious fundamentalism in Ross' arguments. There is some kinky sex, although this seems more at the advice of Ross' literary agent than due to any real need within the book. The dust jacket is similarly lurid. Politics and history apart, this book should be read for its arcana of firearms' matters. Here you will find good information on: -body armor; -machine gun mechanisms; -suppressor technology; -long range rifle shooting; -dangerous game hunting, and many other topics. I learned a lot, and I've been reading about firearms for twenty years. If I wasn't living in Switzerland, I'd buy a case of these books and give them away as Christmas, birthday and retirement presents to everyone I know.

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Summary: A well structured, informative, exciting political warning
Review: This book has a lot to do with American culture and the self-perpetuating cycle of political power. It describes the nicer aspects of recreational use of firearms, and the use of guns against political tyranny, and slowly builds the stories of the protaganists and current laws. The underlying message is common in the logical explanations of pro Second Amendment folks - that guns are not evil, and only criminal individuals and governments with guns are evil, and that gun control is not about guns but about control. The book is an excellent amalgamation of fact and fiction, and does well to describe terrible acts by the US government, from the bonus army quelling to various raids by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The ATF are shown as the ultimate bad guys and abusers of power, attempting to intimidate the US citizenry into unconstitutional disarmament, and the protagonists are out to stop them. This is a bloody civil war on a small, graspable scale - the book is a warning against abuse of government power, without covering the broader spectrum of the gun control debate (e.g. the assault weapons ban barely mentioned). The plot is somewhere between realistic and far fetched, and generates plenty of interest and willingness to read on. Most of the major characters are believable and are survivors. Well worth reading and lending to friends who have no stance on the issue of the 2nd Amendment - the book may well prevent one of the greater evils - the indifference of good men.

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Summary: barely good enough to change your life or way of thinking..
Review: this is a terribly constructed novel. maybe the editors are nra members who thought this one is a newly found bible to their organization instead of deleting at least 350 pages? just got two thoughts when i decided to drop it in the middle(even i am not tree hugger): think about how many poisonous lead scatterd and littered in the wilderness of this great land by those shooting gun crazy guys, not just on those target shooting ranges. just visualize those places, the hillside, the mountainsid, the forest, the creeks, the streams, the rivers....visualize those lead bullets disolving and seeping gradually down to the underground water systems....endless purposeless shootings, at cinder blocks, clay pigeons... as their target shootings... for fun? for sports? for what else? yeah, this is of course your darn civil right to bear arms, but the constitution never clearly stipulated clearer that you should not keep shooting for fun just to abuse your right and homeland so pointlessly during the peaceful time. and how these gun crazy guys could afford so much money in buying guns and ammo? that's beyond my wit. give me a break.

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Summary: Never heard this in school
Review: A very good book. The use of historical detail to demonstrate the issue of government abuse of power is compelling. Details of the Weaver case from this book were corroborated in other books I've read. I recommend this book to anyone who fancies themselves as thinkers.

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Summary: A novel that seduces you, and then poisons your drink
Review: John Ross has written two novels here. The first several hundred pages are very serviceable historical fiction: entertaining, informative, and quite readable. Then, the setting changes to the "present day", and the work gradually unmasks an implicitly racialist POV, rapidly devolving into a "Turner Diaries"-style orgy of cleansing violence.

In the first half of the book, we meet the protagonist's father, an eminently likeable and supremely competent Naval Aviator during the Second World War. We flash forward and watch his son, Henry Bowman, grow up with a love of aviation and marksmanship. Along the way, various vignettes serve to both illuminate key historical events and introduce the supporting cast of characters. There's sometimes an overdose of foreshadowing, but by and large, it's an enjoyable and rewarding read.

Then, the author springs his trap. The wary reader saw the warning signs early in the book: the omniscient narrator earnestly highlighting, without a trace of irony, that Randy Weaver was not a White Supremacist, but merely someone who, "like many", had "no great affection for Blacks, Jews, or big government"; the breezily rosy depiction of Rhodesian "democracy", where only landowners could vote. But now, in the latter half of the book, subtlety is no longer the order of the day, and the message is no longer veiled. Having lured the reader this far, the author slams the doors shut and drops in the gas pellets.

Now, finally, the author feels free to use the term "Jewish" as a near-complete physical description for a character, as in "[he is]talking to the bald Jewish guy." The implicit prejudice just keeps getting worse, like listening to David Duke slowly get drunk. The novel's most carefully drawn Black character is a hastily sketched minstrel-show parody, an overweight female BATF agent who -- unlike every other character in the book -- speaks her lines in misspelled words connoting a ghetto dialect; her name is jarringly played for laughs, as the punch line after her summary execution: Gonnorhea Gaily Jackson.

Adding insult to injury, a parade of tin-foil hat conspiracy theories are portrayed as fact: Oswald was framed, the new 20-dollar-bills are designed to be detected by magnetometers, and the Jews pull secret levers of power in Washington. As the Maraschino cherry on top of this grotesque vanilla cream confection, the book concludes with the graphic depiction of the "good guys" murdering a former government official who bears striking -- but undoubtedly coincidental -- similarities to Janet Reno.

At the end of this book, you will feel used and dirty.

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Summary: Not A Nut Book
Review: Contrary to the listed review, this book does hit at the heart of the middle. The author uses a long time friend (in the book) who comes back to the US after 30 years abroad. The insights of that event were fantastic. This is not a how to but a real and true account of policies and politics. I am putting this book into my library with a reread note.