unintended consequences john ross

Discussion in 'Survival Reading Room' started by OldDude49, Jul 5, 2016.


  1. OldDude49

    OldDude49 Just n old guy

    Of interest to some I'm sure... although many have probably already read it...

    this is for those that may have missed it... I guess...

    the PDF

    https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/129/Media/Unintended_Consequences.pdf

    and... enjoy... a reported letter regarding what some say were the issues that followed this printing of this book







    JAMES H. JEFFRIES, III
    ATTORNEY AT LAW
    3019 LAKE FOREST DRIVE
    GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA 27408
    TELEPHONE: (336) 282-6024

    30 June, 2000
    Honorable Bradley A. Buckles, Director
    Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
    United States Department of the Treasury
    650 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest
    Washington, D.C. 20226
    Re: Mr. John Ross
    St. Louis, Missouri

    Dear Mr. Buckles:

    I represent Mr. John Ross of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Ross is
    an investment broker and financial adviser with a respected
    investment firm in st. Louis. He has degrees in English and
    Economics from Amherst College. Mr. Ross is very active in
    community and public affairs. He is the grandson of President
    Harry Truman's press secretary, Charles Ross, and was himself the
    Democratic Party candidate for the United States House of
    Representatives from the Second District of Missouri in 1998. In
    short, Mr. Ross is an upstanding and productive member of his
    community.

    Mr. Ross has had a lifelong interest in firearms and is both
    a Federal Firearms Licensee and a Special Occupational Taxpayer
    under the National Firearms Act. Of central importance to the
    purpose of this letter is the fact that Mr. Ross is also the author
    of Unintended Consequences, a highly popular novel about the trials
    and tribulations of legal gun owners and dealers in the United
    States. Although the book is manifestly a work of fiction, it
    accurately depicts documented historical events in the long and
    sordid history of misconduct by personnel of the Bureau of Alcohol,
    Tobacco and Firearms. The book is in its fifth hardcover printing
    with some 50,000 copies in circulation and has become enormously
    popular among the gun owners of the United States. Because the
    book is highly critical of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
    Firearms, it appears that some in your agency have undertaken to
    suppress it and to intimidate its author.
    Honorable Bradley A. Buckles - page two
    For example, in 1997 the book's publisher became aware that
    individuals purporting to be BATF agents had threatened vendors of
    the book in at least three different states with "problems" if they
    did not cease their sales of the book. A full-page ad in Shotgun
    News offering a $10,000 reward for the identity of these
    individuals put a stop to that particular business.

    Now we have learned that in late May of this year agents from
    your St. Louis field office have engaged in an official effort to
    enlist Mrs. Ross, who is amicably separated from her husband as an
    informant against her husband. On or about May 24 2000, at about
    7:30 a.m. two agents approached Mrs. Ross on the street while she
    was walking her dog, identified themselves by displaying their BATF
    credentials, and proceeded to inquire what she thought about her
    husband's book. When she was noncommittal the agents terminated
    the conversation and departed. This contact had been preceded in
    previous weeks by pretext telephone calls to Mrs. Ross, by what
    were undoubtedly your agents, in an attempt to draw her out about
    her husband's book. An agent, using the pseudonym of Peter
    Nettleson, and pretending to be a great fan of Unintended
    Consequences, sought Mrs. Ross's agreement that the book was, in
    fact, "a manual for the murder of federal agents." [1]

    I note in passing that best-selling author Tom Clancy in
    recent books has murdered a Director of the FBI, the President of
    the United States, the entire Congress, the Supreme Court, the
    entire cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a few lesser
    functionaries. I presume he has not thereby become subject to
    investigation by your literary critics.

    ------------------------
    1. As an experienced federal prosecutor I am fully aware of
    what is going on here. Disgruntled former spouses are a prime
    source of intelligence for law enforcement, having as they
    frequently do both a strong bias against the subject of the
    investigation and the proximity and intimacy to know many things
    not available to others. A structured approach such as this
    required, according to your manuals, formal agency approval. It
    required the investment of time and effort in setting up the
    approach: determining Mrs. Ross's new address, learning her new
    telephone number, physical surveillance to determine her routine so
    that she could be approached in a way that she could not simply
    shut the door and where there would be less risk of confirming
    witnesses, the use of a female agent to lessen any apprehension at
    being approached publicly by strangers, etc.
    Honorable Bradley A. Buckles - page three

    What kind of people are you? Is there no honor within the
    ranks of your agency? It has long been clear, from repeated court
    decisions and congressional committee reports, that your agents
    have no familiarity with the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth
    Amendments to the United States Constitution. Now it appears that
    they have not even been introduced to the very first Article of the
    Bill of Rights.

    I am writing to express our outrage about this conduct and to
    formally demand that your agency cease and desist from this
    unconstitutional abuse of power. I am contemporaneously making
    formal Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act demands upon BATF
    for the records and files pertaining to Mr. Ross, his book, and
    these events.

    By copies of this letter I am requesting the Inspector General
    of the Treasury Department to formally investigate this unlawful
    conduct and the Attorney General to investigate to determine
    whether Mr. Ross's civil rights are being violated by the Bureau of
    Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
    Sincerely yours,

    [signed]
    James H. Jeffries, III
    cc: Attorney General of the United States
    Inspector General, Department of the Treasury
     
    Motomom34, Brokor, tacmotusn and 6 others like this.
  2. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    I never read this book! But, I will... I tried to purchase a Kindle copy because sometime the pdf doesn't work correctly on Kindle but the book is not available in eBook or at least not on Kindle.

    Do you suppose this is real ^^^^ or is it just something to just push the book because it definitely got my attention.
     
  3. Altoidfishfins

    Altoidfishfins Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    I read this book about 20 years ago. Thought it was out of print. I have an autographed hard copy dated Jan 17 1996.
    If you haven't read it, it's pretty good. I don't read much but when I got hold of this one, it was difficult to put down. In print it's about 2 inches thick.

    Glad to see there's still interest in it.
     
    Motomom34, Tully Mars and tacmotusn like this.
  4. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    I recently acquired a paperback copy of this book. A new issue reprint (long overdue). I have read the original hardback which was available at the Alachua County Florida library system on or about 2008. The book was in rather a bad condition physically. I was tempted to lose it to my personal library and pay the library system what they paid for it. Gainesville, Florida and Alachua County normally lean hard left towards the liberal Democratic party doctrine. At that time it had been out of print for 12 years, and I started searching for my own copy. I should have stole the library copy. Due to its poor condition It never made it back to the shelves. They trashed it. I got ripped off in a transaction to purchase one of 3 for $85 that a now prior Monkey offered for sale. At the time they were getting upwards of $125 for a used hardback copy on Amazon. They still draw a premium price, Hardback or Paperback. I paid about $45 for my paperback copy at Amazon. It is still available there in new or used, hardback or paperback. Unintended Consequences: John Ross: 9781888118056: Amazon.com: Books I consider it a read only copy in my library, I will not lend it out.
     
    Tully Mars, Motomom34 and GOG like this.
  5. GOG

    GOG Free American Monkey

    Actually, I think the unintended consequences won't be much longer now.
     
    Tully Mars likes this.
  6. OldDude49

    OldDude49 Just n old guy

    you can pick up a free PDF reader download off the net like foxit and read it on your computer if nothing else...
     
    Bandit99 likes this.
  7. Brokor

    Brokor Live Free or Cry Moderator Site Supporter+++ Founding Member

    It's back in print. We have threads on this book already covering this.
    We have Unintended Consequences in stock! Books for the Gun Culture and Libertarian minded Americans

    In fact, Unintended Consequences has its very own tag.
    unintended consequences | Survival Monkey Forums

    Thanks @OldDude49 for posting this letter. If it's genuine, it is a really good one.
    The FBI and most, if not every alphabet agency are trained to view the Constitution as terrorist training material. Not joking.
     
    Tully Mars, tacmotusn and GOG like this.
  8. Pax Mentis

    Pax Mentis Philosopher King |RIP 11-4-2017

    If you download a free program called Calibre, it will convert the PDFs to MOBI (or many other formats) and they work well on a Kindle. I have a number of books (including UC) that I converted from PDFs acquired online here and on other sites.
     
    Dont likes this.
  9. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    Yes, I use Calibre but the last time I tried to convert a PDF the font came out too small. I sent the PDF to amazon as they have a free conversation program that does a very good job of it. You send it as an attachment and it is sent back to you in about 90 seconds, automated of course. In the future, I will look to trying the Calibre conversion since you say it is working now. Currently, I am using version 2.53.

    @OldDude49 "you can pick up a free PDF reader download off the net like foxit and read it on your computer if nothing else..."
    Yes, I could do that but hate reading books off a laptop. I don't have a tablet. Calibre has a reader built into it also.

    I am reading the book now. I am having a problem trying to figure out where and what all these different stories have to do with the main story line, some seem obvious and some seem not connected, hard to connect the dots. I wouldn't call the prose great but it's definitely okay and is holding my attention.
     
    Motomom34 likes this.
  10. chimo

    chimo the few, the proud, the jarhead monkey crowd

    I re-read the book a couple of years ago using the PDF on my Kindle just fine.
     
  11. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    @chimo "I re-read the book a couple of years ago using the PDF on my Kindle just fine."
    Yeah, I know, some pdf's work fine and others simply don't, mainly the font is way too small. I also like how one can easily look up a word within Kindle's azw or mobi format etc., improves my vocabulary. That function doesn't work on a PDF. I don't know the reason why some work and some do not and it's simpler to convert to a format that works than find out the reason but some day I will figure it out.

    Still reading it. Read until midnight last night and today is a dark, dreary raining day so good reading day. It's good but I still haven't connected all the dots yet... The author takes one through family history first so that you get a clear picture of who they are and how they became that person. It's a good read!
     
    Tully Mars and Motomom34 like this.
  12. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    Patience...... It is a good story. And history is important. Let us know when you finish.
     
    Bandit99, techsar, Pax Mentis and 2 others like this.
  13. Pax Mentis

    Pax Mentis Philosopher King |RIP 11-4-2017

    Your Kindle won't adjust the size of the font? That was the main reason we converted them to MOBI, so the font would be adjustable.
     
    Motomom34 likes this.
  14. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    I haven't tried converting the (PDFs) in a while but that was my biggest grip was that I could not get a PDF to adjust font. So, like I said, I send my PDFs to Amazon and let them convert them to AZW. But, if I understand you correctly, Calibre will now convert PDFs correctly into a MOBI or other format which supports adjustable font size so I will try it in the near future.

    Yes, this is turning into an excellent book and I even learn something that I didn't know about History concerning the 'Bonus Army.' I knew that MacArthur was the one in charge of the soldiers that ran off the veterans but what I didn't know was that they killed some - fired into them - then burned down their shacks. US soldiers fired into unarmed war veterans...it doesn't get much lower than that and I don't give a damn that the President at the time accepted the responsibility for it. So, I was quite certain at one point in time that we would never have to fear our military but the facts of History say otherwise. I was wrong... I guess you can say I just had a rude awakening.
     
    Brokor likes this.
  15. chimo

    chimo the few, the proud, the jarhead monkey crowd

    You'll have a few more as you continue reading.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2016
  16. Pax Mentis

    Pax Mentis Philosopher King |RIP 11-4-2017

    Well...there are the upside down illustrations that are NOT size adjustable...and the occasional "box" in the place of punctuation...
     
  17. Idahoser

    Idahoser Monkey+++ Founding Member

    this place doesn't have PMs? I was hoping to send an email to Bandit. How do you share private info?

    It isn't the best written book, which shouldn't really be a surprise considering it was his first and he didn't have an editor. Still once you get done, you won't wish any of it had been left out.

    You are familiar with the half-dozen at least other books that you'll have to read too now?
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2016
  18. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    "Conversations" are the SM PM. See the little envelop at the top right by your username. Clik and run ---
     
    Idahoser likes this.
  19. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    @Pax Mentis Actually, my illustrations are okay. I do have some punctuation errors, line errors and etc. but the book is very readable And, I am enjoying it immensely! The rape part shocked me, didn't see it coming but now that I am further on I see he is covering all the bases. It really is a superb read and very in-depth and he most certainly did his homework. I wonder why it is not available in Kindle eBook? Strange...

    @Idahoser Yes, I intend to look and see what other books he has available as always looking for good authors. And, he is good!
    Writing you now...
     
    Idahoser and GOG like this.
  20. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    @Pax Mentis , @Idahoser , @Motomom34 , @Brokor , @chimo and especially @OldDude49 since he brought up the subject o fthe book...

    I finished 'Unintended Consequences' and it was by far the best book I have read this year - and I read a lot, a whole lot. I usually got 3-5 books going at the same time but I abandoned all of them while I read this. It was simple amazing and what an eye opener! I found it to be extremely informative as it was so well researched yet it flowed really well and produced a great story.

    I do not think that anyone could read this book and not be changed by it. I certainly am. He documented it well and presented it in a fashion where one could connect all the dots. I consider myself to be pretty good amateur historian but there was much in this book that I was unaware. And, many times I would become too angry to continue reading...far too many times. And, what really hit me hard was all the facts that he laid out are true. I fact checked much of what he wrote and never found an error. It's an amazing book and an amazing story! I was not stateside when it was release but imagine it must had made a big splash and hopefully some government people read it or at the very least heard of it.

    Anyway, I want to thank you folks for pointing me towards it and even offering to help me get a copy. This book is an inspiration because he really captured the essence of what has happened and where these bad decisions are leading us. I regret I am not wealthy enough to send a copy to every member of Congress...but then again, hogs got to eat too! Thanks again!
     
    Idahoser and GOG like this.
survivalmonkey SSL seal        survivalmonkey.com warrant canary
17282WuJHksJ9798f34razfKbPATqTq9E7