A friend called and during our conversation mentioned the book "Unintended Consequences" (UI) by John Ross. Even though I have a PDF copy downloaded some months ago I had never read the book. (Out of print copies can be purchased for between $200 and $400. There are announcements for a new release or a paperback edition but none are available. So I opted for a copy reportedly posted by the author. When an edition becomes available from a source where the author gets paid, I will purchase a copy. I quite honestly think the nature of the book discourages after-market or tiers of purchase price. I use Ross' discussion of the three-tiered pricing of certain weapons due to absolutely ridiculous weapons laws to justify the download.) The recent conversation brought it into focus so I sat down, read the novel (It's an easy read and I finished all 749 pages with research in just under 14 hours.) and researched some of the points made in the book. The following is my review/opinion of the book and contents.
First, let me say that Ross has taken the term unintended consequences to a new level of understanding. In essence, everything we do has unintended consequences but in the novel, consequences aren't always associated with or even mostly associated with negatives. This applies to seemingly meaningless things, things that are legal one day that turn illegal the next, use and misuse of power, egotistical behavior, government excess and arrogance and applications of ideology over human rights along with relationships, belief in freedom over slavery, self-reliance and the belief that the founders got it right. UI deals with the unintended consequences of weapons laws, the actions of totalitarian governments, government agents gone wild, (Ross used the incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco to highlight government actions gone wild with disastrous consequences. Maybe Ross should have titled the novel: Disastrous Consequences.) and a basic situation where human rights have become subservient to those of self-appointed authorities. But the central character learns to fly and this has unintended consequences. He becomes a weapons expert and this has unintended consequences. He grows up with a belief in American values of freedom and self-reliance and these beliefs have unintended consequences. He meets others of similar mind and these meetings have unintended consequences. The Germans killed thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and millions during the Holocaust and these have unintended consequences. As many Jewish, Democratic congressmen and senators as there are who advocate gun control in the name of progressivism, there are an equal number who belong to organizations like "GOA" Gun Owners Association and JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.)
The novel follows the exploits and life journey of Henry Bowman. Henry starts out as a kid who loves guns, shooting, targeting, hunting and all the other aspects of what has been described as "The Gun Culture." Basically this culture is comprised of law-abiding citizens with interests in all kinds of shooting from skeet, to target to just blasting off thousands of rounds through a machine gun for the pure fun of wielding that much fire power. As described in the novel, the gun culture has people from all walks of life and all income levels. Gun collectors tend to be financially stable professionals. There are the few "redneck gun nuts" but these are an isolated lot who are not embraced the great numbers of responsible owners. Race is not a factor and the novel delves into the idea that much gun control legislation was initially passed to keep minorities, including ex-slaves, from owning guns. Ross posits the theory that current gun laws are directly aimed at keeping blacks and hispanics from arming themselves. The fact that others come under the blanket of gun control is simply an intended consequence of such laws.
A side note from my own experience. Some twenty years back, I got involved with archery. When I was learning, I used to go to a range in a public park across from one of the movie studios. I met two other archers there regularly. What turned out to be a chance meeting became a friendship and they invited me hunting. They were great shots and showed me things about bows, aiming and hunting with a bow that I had never known. I bagged my first kill with a bow on our second trip and even though I moved some distance away, we still converse. These guys knew bow hunting but also shot rifles (Both had large collections.) and they got me involved with black powder rifles. All in all, we had a great time together and when I moved away, these guys threw me a barbecue and party. By the way, both of these guys were black and they mentioned several times that gun control was aimed at blacks. I never really believed them or thought that much about it until reading Ross' book.
Ross knows the culture well and research into the various gun meets, shoot outs, competitions all proved to be accurate. Also very accurate is his description of the kind of people in the "gun culture." They are universally law abiding, self-reliant, trustworthy hobbyists who like to shoot, collect, compete and talk about weapons of all kinds. The great majority feel that current gun control laws only affect them and do nothing to control criminal elements which are supposedly the cause of gun legislation in the first place. But I'll get into that later.
Henry is a product of the Midwest and contrary to popular opinion, the great heartland has seen some of the most restrictive gun legislation in the country. Henry gets the bug to collect weapons and his father supports his passion by buying and training his son in safe weapon use. By his teens, he has a large collection. He also learns to fly because his father was a flight trainer during WWII. Basically, Henry's an all-American kid growing up in a family that thought weapons were as much a part of life as a computer is now. But Henry is exceptional. He reads about famous marksmen/women who did amazing things with guns like shooting skeet with a bolt-action, centerfire rifle. He practices and gets quite proficient with different rifles and falls in love with a semi-auto configured BAR also known as the Browning Automatic Rifle made famous during WWII. He can shoot single shots at 2" blocks thrown into the air like famous marksmen from the past. He describes some, like Ed McGivern, who shot over 50,000 such cubes in a long time period with minimal misses.
So Henry can shoot and he gains a reputation as a crack shot. He is a respectful lad and makes friends of all ages he meets at gun shops, shows, meets and through acquaintances. He is a quick study and his fast mind is a library of knowledge about loads, calibers, rare and famous guns. His life-long quest is to get a 4-gauge, double-barrel rifle also known as an "elephant" gun. These were made in the late 1800s and were noted for the huge cartridge (It's just over 1" in diameter and about 4" to 5" long.) At eighteen, he gets a federal permit to collect and own machine guns and while he is a legal collector, this starts his troubles.
The novel takes place right after WWII to present (1995) and Henry meets several veterans. One of the people he meets is a relative named Max who married a Polish woman, brought her to America and later divorced her. But, he brought her to America which she found so incredible that she accepted the divorce even though it saddened her. Her sister married a Jew named Irwin Mann. Irwin was a grocer in Danzig who had never fired or owned a weapon in his life. When the Germans started relocating Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto, Irwin's family was broken apart, his wife sent to be a sex toy for German soldiers and he was moved to the Ghetto where he joined one of the resistance groups. In the ghetto, he did learn to shoot and learned the value of weapons to defend one's life. He was one of the few who escaped the Ghetto just before it was burned and he made his way to America.
What does the Jewish experience in Warsaw in WWII have to do with post war America? Just before the German soldiers isolated the Jews, they confiscated all guns by imposing legal but draconian weapons laws that severely limited the guns people could own. And this is a major point of the book: The right of American's to keep and bear arms. While the second amendment to the Bill of Rights states that citizens have this right, how it has been interpreted is a matter of debate. The interpretation Ross uses in his novel is based on letters and other writings found in The Federalist Papers, diaries and other documentation used to support the constitution. This interpretation is that to insure that the government cannot get so strong as to impose its will on the people, the people should be armed on par with the government forces. In other words, there is no special category to keep and bear certain arms for government employees than there is for the average, law abiding citizen. This point is brought out several times in the novel.
Henry's experience and world view are formed around his love of shooting in a responsible, safe way. His experiences are interesting and pointed. Each experience described in the novel is a lesson of sorts but the lesson isn't presented in cookbook form but thrown out as concepts. If one reads this book as a primer, one finds all kinds of ways to manipulate and operate in systems that are perceived to be moving towards totalitarian modes of operation. But those "lessons" are not the main point of the book and since the book was written in 1995, certain modes have changed in fifteen years. However, getting a new identity is easy even in this day of computer scans and id tracing. You see, these things only work on people who follow laws. People that break laws and do not adhere to the "formulas" used to track and identify people move through society quite easily. For example, if one wants a gun, current gun laws make it rather difficult. There are cooling off periods, registration requirements that you have to pay for and tracing as well as purchase limits. If you are a crook willing to purchase unregistered guns, any number are available and can be found even in such places as Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco and/or any other major American city. There is a whole industry based around unregistered weapons. This did not exist before the government decided to impose gun control laws on law-abiding citizens. But, interestingly enough, the only unregistered weapons used in the novel are those carried by law enforcement officers. These are commonly referred to as "throw aways."
While the novel focuses on registration and ownership requirements of machine guns or guns that can be "rewatted" (This means that more than one round fires when the trigger is pulled. Making a machine gun into a semi-auto weapon is known as "dewatting." Sometimes dewatting includes filling barrels with lead, sealing the trigger mechanism, drilling holes in the barrel or some other way to disable the gun.) into rapid fire weapons, rapid fire weapons are only used by government agents much to their detriment. Only certain qualified dealers can keep, sell and use these weapons. But getting a permit is next to impossible and even those that do must adhere to strict taxation.
Taxing of weapons is discussed in the novel quite extensively. I researched most of the references and found them to be accurate. The taxation is so onerous that few get involved in collecting the guns unless they have licenses grandfathered into current laws. But as much as the novel discusses laws governing machine guns, cannons and other weapons that exceed single shot or semi-automatic weapons, none of these weapons are used to achieve any of the goals defined in the novel. These goals are simply a complete reversal of all gun control laws where law-abiding citizens are concerned.
While Ross uses Ruby Ridge and Waco as examples, other incidents drawn from real events are used to support the generally anti-government tone of the novel. Several raids by BATF agents are described including one where a gun owner's cat was stomped to death when the agents could find no illegal weapons in the person's house. Was this a true story? Yes, as it turns out. In fact, a simple internet search turns up lots of evidence of misdeeds by agents from all federal agencies. Surprisingly, there are many more than ever make the news but do make for law suits against the agents and the agencies.
So in the novel, Henry and three other federally licensed machine gun collectors have their houses raided. The raids are illegal and a rogue BATF supervisor wants to plant evidence to get the collectors thrown into jail and their collections confiscated. This singular act set into motion a series of events that bring into focus one of several major questions posited by the novel: At what point does a person recognize that a government (In this case, the government of the United States.) has so grossly overstepped its bounds, that the average law-abiding citizen deems it necessary to kill off a sufficient number of federal agents to evoke change?
Also, other questions arise: At what point does the usurpation of civil rights by the government, regardless of how noble the intent, warrant it's demise? How does one justify a death based on legislative misdeeds? At what point is the limit reached where Jefferson's admonition (When people fear their government, there is tyrany, When government fears the people, there is liberty.) is finally recognized by the people and they do something about it? And ultimately: How would one go about forcing the government to change without using the ballot box but by using carefully applied force? Where should that force be used?
The novel answers these questions with one scenario. Is this scenario possible? I suggest getting a copy of "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross and find out for yourself.
Now back to "Dare to Inquire."
FB
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