unintended consequences john ross

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Actually, I think the unintended consequences won't be much longer now.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

@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!

 

Patience...... It is a good story. And history is important. Let us know when you finish.

 

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.

 

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.

 

You'll have a few more as you continue reading.

 

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

 

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?

 

@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...

 

@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!