Unintended Consequences.

John F. Ross.

Dedication.

This book is dedicated to the three women in my life:.

My mother, Lucianna Ross, who taught me by her example that you have to spend on your talent and do what you believe is right; My wife, Caroline Ross, who urged me to start this project and who believed this book needed to be written; and My daughter Lucy, who I hope will have more individual freedom when she becomes an adult than her parents did.

Acknowledgments.

I am indebted to a number of people for the help they gave me with this book. Much more than anyone else, Tim Mullin was a constant source of inspiration, not only for his friendship, encouragement, and advice, but also his encyclopedic knowledge of political history.

Dr. Martin Fackler, Greg Jeffery, Neal Knox, James Pate, Joe Tartaro, and Aaron Zelman were invaluable in helping me flesh out the details of several of the real-life events portrayed herein. If any technical errors have crept in, the fault is mine, not theirs.

In alphabetical order, Joe Adams, Colonel Rex Applegate, Dale Blaylock, Dave Cumberland, Richard Davis, Art Freund, John Holmes, John Huffer (Chief AJ), Lee Jurras, Richard Kayser, Arnaldo LaScala, Bob Landies, Kent Lomont, Brace McArthur, Stokely Meier, Tim Mullin, David Scott-Donelan, Paul Reed, Britt Robinson, Dan Shea, Charlie Steen, Joe Tapscott, Piers Taylor, and Leroy Thompson all provided technical expertise in the areas of shooting competition, aerial shooting, small arms design, close quarter combat, accuracy gunsmithing, load development, body armor, explosives and demolition, inve stigative techniques, field interrogation, live pigeon competition, African hunting, and desktop publishing. Frank Y. Gladney at the University of Illinois, Urbana, was a great help with appropriate Slavic names.

I would also like to thank the agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Secret Service who helped me with sensitive background material but who wish to remain anonymous.

I am indebted to the Olin Corporation for the photos of Ad Topperwein and Herb Parsons on pages 18 and 120, to the American Rifleman for the photo of Ed McGivern on page 123, to Gilbert Early for the photograph of the cape buffalo shot with a 4-bore on page 392, and to Caroline VanStavern Ross for use of the lyrics to "Poopy Diaper Baby." Passages quoted from the Guinness Book of World Records and Gun Week are used with permission.

Most writers have had a mentor at one time or another. In my case it is Robert Stone that I owe for giving me much-needed criticism when my writing skills were first developing, and Stuart Kaminsky for doing the same thing more recently. Albert Zuckerman at Writer's House, out of sheer kindness, also took time from his hectic schedule to counsel someone he barely knew on how to tackle this ambitious project. Last of all, I would like to thank my publisher, Greg Pugh at Accurate Press, for believing in this book and publishing it.

This is a work of fiction with a story line based on political history and historic precedent. The real-life events that comprise much of the book have been re-created to the best of my ability using as many sources as I could locate. Court documents, news footage, recordings of phone conversations and police radio transmissions, medical records, coroner's reports, FBI reenactment tapes, and sworn testimony of impartial eyewitnesses were all used. In some real-life events described herein, there are conflicting accounts as to what actually happened. In these cases, I have chosen to describe the version that is consistent with the physical evidence and the various laws of nature. To help tell the story, I have at times invented specific thoughts and dialogue and ascribed them to real people. I did this where specific facts were nonexistent or unobtainable, as in the case of people now dead, or where the subjects were not available to be interviewed. The reader should remember that this is a work of fiction.

Alex Neumann, who first appears as a minor figure in one real-life event, is a product of my imagination. So are all members of the Bowman, Mann, Collins, Bedderson, Caswell, and Johnson families, and virtually everyone in the 'Present Day' section of the book. Real-life figures in this story are used fictitiously.

Finally, for those readers who have no experience with the shooting sports: All of the shooting feats described in this novel are achievable. The more difficult would require roughly the same amount of talent as you would expect of a ten-year-old who was serious about mastering a musical instrument and who had been playing for two or three years. The most difficult accomplishments, in this author's opinion, are some of those achieved by the late Ed McGivern. Anyone interested in accurate speed shooting would do well to read his book Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting, which is once again in print.

Author's Note-A Warning and Disclaimer.

A friend in law enforcement told me that because of this book's content, I should not let it be published under my own name. Violent events happen in this story, and our country's current situation is such that these events could indeed come to pass. My friend's fear was that this book might precipitate such violence. He told me to expect to have drugs planted in my car during routine traffic stops, or have other similar miseries befall me and my family. He advised that if I did have this work published, I should use a pseudonym, employ an intermediary for all publisher contact, and in general prevent myself from being linked to the finished work, to avoid reprisals.

I didn't do that, not only because of free speech considerations, but because I disagree with my friend's hypothesis. I believe that if the instigators glimpse what may lie ahead, they will alter their behavior before wholesale violence becomes unavoidable. It is my hope that this book will reduce the likelihood of armed conflict in this country.

History has shown us that government leaders often ignore the fundamental fact that people demand both dignity and freedom. Because of this disregard, these decision-makers then initiate acts that are ultimately self-destructive. To illustrate this point I will remind the reader of the origin of two of modern history's most destructive events, and of all the warning flags that were frantically waving while the instigators rushed headlong towards the abyss.

In the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, European leaders formed two major alliances. Germany, Austria, and Italy comprised one coalition, and Britain, France, and Russia the other. Belgium remained neutral per an 1839 treaty signed by all of these nations except Italy. The smaller European countries became indirectly involved in the two aforementioned alliances. One such example was Serbia, a country Russia had pledged to aid in the event of war between Serbia and Austria. Despite Russia's presence, Austria annexed a large part of Serbia, a province called Bosnia, in 1908.

Few people remain emotionally indifferent when their culture and country are taken over by an aggressor, and the Bosnian Serbs were no exception. Many Bosnians despised the government that had chilled their independence. In spite of this obvious fact, the Austrian leaders sent an archduke to the capital of Bosnia to survey the people Austria now ruled. This archduke was resplendent in full military ceremonial dress, festooned with medals and other military decorations, and accompanied by his elegantly-dressed wife. An objective observer might at this point have said, "Stripping motivated people of their dignity and rubbing their noses in it is a very bad idea."

Archduke Ferdinand and his wife arrived in Sarajevo in an open vehicle, and the only protection either of them had was their chauffeur. This man was expected to drive the car and at the same time protect the Archduke and his wife with only a six-shot revolver he carried in an enclosed holster, and no spare ammunition. Our theoretical observer might here have said, "This is a recipe for disaster."

Almost as soon as the Archduke and his wife arrived in Sarajevo, a Serbian National tossed a bomb under their car. Its fuse was defective and the bomb did not explode. Here, our observer might have advised, "A miracle happened. Go home. Now. Immediately."

Despite this obvious wake-up call, the Royal Couple shrugged off the assassination attempt and continued their tour of the Bosnian capital. Later that same day, a second Serbian National shot them with his .32, killing them both. The Austrian leaders blamed the Serbian government for the assassination and demanded a virtual protectorate over Serbia, issuing Serbia a list of demands. Serbia acceded to all but one of Austria's stipulations. Here, our observer might have said to Austria's leaders, "Russia has pledged to aid Serbia in any war with you, and Russia has both powerful allies and powerful adversaries. Serbia has agreed to almost everything you demanded. Settle, and avoid a world war." Instead, Austria shelled Serbia's capital with artillery fire.

Our observer might here have told Russia's leaders, "Serbia is not worth starting a world war over," but Russia honored its commitment to Serbia and mobilized its army, sending troops to the Russian-Austrian border. Since this left Russia vulnerable to attack from Austria's ally Germany, the Russian Army mobilized against Germany as well.

This forced the German Army to mobilize. Since France was allied with Russia, the Germans feared an attack by France in the west while German troops went east. So Germany decided to invade France immediately, VIA Belgium. Here, our observer might have said, "Saying this is your 'destiny' is not going to be good enough, Germany. When you invade a neutral country and rape their women and slaughter their livestock and bum their houses, Britain is not going to just look the other way."

When the Germans invaded Belgium, Britain honored its commitment to defend Belgian neutrality, and declared war on Germany. Every major country in Europe was now at war.

Four years later, over thirty million people were dead, half of them killed directly in the war itself, and the rest so weakened through shortage of food and medicines that they succumbed to the influenza epidemic. In addition to the lives lost, the war's monetary cost in 1918 was almost three hundred billion dollars.

No sooner had the war ended than the victors demanded their pound of flesh at the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty required Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the war. It dictated that German military leaders were to be tried as war criminals. It prohibited the German army from possessing heavy artillery. It abolished the General Staff and the German air force, and prohibited Germany from producing military aircraft. As in 1914, our observer might have said, "Stripping motivated people of their dignity and rubbing their noses in it is a very bad idea." But if such words were in fact uttered, they fell on deaf ears. A humiliated Germany was ripe for the nationalist message of Adolf Hitler, and in this fertile soil were planted the seeds of the Second World War.

Today in America, honest, successful, talented, productive, motivated people are once again being stripped of their freedom and dignity and having their noses rubbed in it. The conflict has been building for over half a century, and once again warning flags are frantically waving while the instigators rush headlong towards the abyss, and their doom.

It is my hope that these people will stop and reverse their course before they reach the point where such reversal is no longer possible.

John Ross.

September 1995.

Foreword by Timothy Mullin.

For those of you who pause to read this introduction before plunging into this book I would like to say a few brief words, perhaps to help you better appreciate the work.

The voyage on which you are about to embark will be an enjoyable one, yet one which is an important trip. This book chronicles an attempt to destroy a culture, and it also gives at least one view of a possible resolution of the issue. I was present when John Ross first started writing this story, and I spent many enjoyable hours reading the initial draft of the material and discussing the story line. I predict you will feel good just reading of the characters and their experiences. Many of them will seem like old friends that you once knew, now perhaps long gone.

This novel tells the tale of a young man growing up with classic American values and living immersed totally in the 'gun culture'. His story is much like that of a Native American who grows up in a society where the rules were simple: 'To ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth', to quote a well-known advertisement. You will find much that is familiar in all of the characters herein and you will no doubt feel at home with them. Others who seek to stamp out this 'gun culture' will be appalled at the valor portrayed here of free men who seek to live their lives unfettered by government chains. So much the worse for them.

Guns are an important element in any truly free society, for a society that does not trust its citizens with individually owned weapons really does not trust its citizens. However, words are also important, and in this book many will no doubt be encouraged to continue the good fight to protect a cultural value that is worth defending vigorously. By making it clear that the attack is not on guns but rather on a cultural group, this story may provide much inspiration to the millions of people who are in that group.

In recent years we have witnessed violent attacks on people in the gun culture. These attacks amount to genocide. It is my hope that this book will cause those who blindly seek to destroy the gun culture to pause for a moment and recognize that their random actions are in error, and to reconsider their evil ways. This could come from an intellectual conversion and a new appreciation of the culture's values. It could also result from a pragmatic concern for the inevitable consequences of continuously attacking a cultural group who wishes to be left alone and whose overriding philosophy is one of freedom. Either way, it doesn't matter. The goal is to stop the attacks and prevent a violent confrontation which could prove harmful for all parties concerned.

Enjoy the book, follow the characters' action, and think of old friends. As you find yourself drawn into the story, remember that to the anti-gun zealots of HCI et al, this book will be like a nightmare penned by Stephen King!

T.J. Mullin is a former Captain in the U.S. Army who has taught police weapons training for more than twenty years. He is the author of Training the Gunfighter. which Elmer Keith said was one of the ten best books ever written on the subject, and the 'Testing the War Weapons' series. The first volume, The 100 Greatest Combat Pistols, is now available from Paladin Press. Mr. Mullin currently practices law in St. Louis, Missouri.

Present Day.

It was late afternoon when he finally heard them coming to kill him. The wind was blowing gently towards him, and it carried the sound well. Two choppers, he judged from the pitch of the engines, possibly three. Henry realized that his first emotion upon hearing the sound of rotor blades approaching was an overwhelming sense of relief. The waiting was over.

His next thought concerned the relatives of the men that were about to die. The widows will never understand that their husbands died because the government got a little too heavy-handed after June of 1968. He scanned the sky until he spotted the aircraft approaching from the north.

That isn't quite right. The Kennedy and King killings weren't the first links in the chain that dragged us here. No, the death sentence was handed down before World War II. Henry settled in behind the big Solothurn and checked his field of view through the weapon's optical sight. The gleaming example of Swiss craftsmanship had been manufactured in 1939. The irony was not lost on Henry Bowman.

In March of that year, the U.S. Supreme Court had heard a case involving a moonshiner who had been arrested in 1938. A Federal District Court had thrown out the charges as being unconstitutional, and the government had appealed. At the hearing, something very unusual had happened. Neither the moonshiner nor his lawyer had seen fit to appear before the Court to argue the case. They didn't even bother to file a brief on the moonshiner's behalf. The Court ruled for the government, judicial precedent was set, and the issue was never again heard by the Supreme Court. The 1939 ruling became the foundation on which many additional laws were constructed.

Supreme Court's been ducking that issue ever since Henry thought as he strained to hear a change in the approaching noise. Well, guys, the tide has turned. It's time you thugs had a little history lesson. I don't suppose you're familiar with what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. A small smile appeared on his lips, as Henry remembered something. It's just like the story Uncle Max told me when I was a kid. About Billy Dell, pulling a Paul Bunyan.

Henry Bowman's right hand tightened around the walnut grip of the Solothurn S18-1000. The weapon had been a present from his father, given to him on his fourteenth birthday in 1967. Cost $189.50 back in the sixties Henry thought irrelevantly. / thought that was a steal. Dad's friends thought it was astronomical. Wonder what they'd think now.

As he followed the progress of the helicopters through the binoculars, Henry Bowman reflected that the 1930's era weapon would now likely cost over ten thousand current dollars to manufacture. It had been made in a time when production methods and philosophies were much different. Fewer than 500 of the obsolete Swiss guns had been imported over a ten-year period in the '50s and '60s, before the law change.

Pay attention here, guy Henry chided himself as he focused on the problem at hand. You don't get any practice runs with this one. Henry twisted his head methodically and arched his back as he lay there on his stomach, working the stiffness from his body. He had lain prone for over an hour with his face pressed against a pair of binoculars, and he needed to be loose for what he was going to have to do.

The helicopters appeared over a ridge that Bowman had previously determined was a little more than two miles distant. They were following a heading that would take them to the spot that he had selected, next to the water-filled quarry pit. He steadied the binoculars by resting his right wrist on the top of the Solothurn's receiver and cranked the zoom control from ten power all the way up to twenty. The binoculars amplified the heat waves in the air that are invisible to the naked eye, and called 'mirage' by competition shooters who use high magnification optical sights.

The boiling, shimmering image in the glasses gave a surrealistic appearance to the approaching choppers, but Henry could make them out well enough. Three of them. Bell turbine model, Jet Ranger or its descendant. A door gunner with a belt-fed machine gun poking out of the right side of each one. Possibly the Belgian MAG-58, but more likely M60s, he thought with derision.

They should have brought armored Apaches carrying napalm, he thought. Or nukes. A grin split his face. Oh, those poor bastards.

Part One.

SEEDS.

The sun no longer shows his face, and treason sows his secret seeds that no man can detect. Fathers by their children are undone. Might is right, and justice there is none.

-Walther von der Vogelweide.

December 11,1906.

The 2 1/4" pine cube spun in the air, and a cheer went up from the crowd as the wood block bounced in the dirt. There was a grey-ringed hole through the center of it.

"That's the last one, Topp," one of the men said unnecessarily. "Fifty thousand with only four misses. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been here."

The lean, mustachioed rifleman with the broad-brimmed black hat lowered his gun to waist level. It was a Winchester Model 1903, a semiautomatic rifle introduced three years before. It held ten rounds of .22 Auto, a new rimfire cartridge loaded with the recently developed smokeless powder. Ammunition loaded with black powder, such as many existing stocks of .22 Long, would foul autoloading weapons in short order.

The man withdrew the magazine tube from the rifle's buttstock and dumped the five remaining rounds into his hand, then worked the action and ejected the round that was in the chamber. He handed the empty rifle to one of his loaders, who was already holding a second Model 1903.

Adolph Topperwein held the world's long-run record for percentage shooting of aerial targets with a rifle. The rules regarding this sport had been laid out by the exhibition shooter Doc Carver three decades before: Targets were to be wooden cubes or clay balls not more than 2 1/2" across, and were to be thrown vertically twenty to thirty feet in the air by a person standing not less than twenty-five feet from the shooter. Other long-run shooters had shot at 50,000 targets, but they all had missed more often. The previous recordholder had missed 280 targets out of 60,000.

The young thrower bent over and picked up the final block. Instead of tossing it onto the pile with the others, he walked over to Topperwein and handed it to him. Topp reached out gingerly and took it from the boy. His arm and back muscles were screaming in protest from being made to throw a rifle to his shoulder once every four seconds, eight straight hours a day, for a full week. It was an effort for him just to remain standing.

Ad Topperwein examined the piece of wood, noting that he had hit it almost dead center, then looked over at the mound of blocks he had shot in the past week. The pile was eight feet high and over thirty feet in diameter. He tried to massage his arm muscles, but his own fingers had no strength.

"Ready for a hot bath and a soft bed?" Ad's wife Plinky asked. "Or can I get you some lunch first?" Plinky Topperwein was also an exhibition shooter for Winchester. The company had hired her after she had set a world trapshooting record in 1904 at the St. Louis World's Fair.

"Not just yet, hon," he said to his wife.

"If it's not too hard for you, Mr. Topperwein, we'd like you to sit on top of the pile of blocks for a picture." This was the San Antonio State Fair's photographer speaking.

Topperwein gave a slight grin. "Sure, I can climb up there. It may take a little longer than normal, that's all." He turned to one of his loaders. "We've got use of the fairgrounds and the assistants paid for another three and a half days, Ed. Seems a shame to waste it." He narrowed his eyes. "Cap Bartlett shot 60,000 back in '89." Topp nodded at the huge pile of wood cubes. "Have the kids go through and pull out the ones that aren't split in two. I want to keep going." His loader's jaw dropped in astonishment.

"And get hold of the Winchester rep. Tell him we're going to need more ammo by tomorrow afternoon. Six cases, just to be on the safe side." He pitched the 50,000th block underhanded onto the pile where it disappeared among the others. "I'm going to take about twenty minutes to cool off these arms and get a sandwich. Let's get going again about one-thirty." He turned to the photographer. "Just before I start shooting again, I'll climb up there for your picture. Pile isn't going to get any bigger. But no awards or any of that stuff. I got a few more good shots in me. Let's see where we end up." He turned and started back towards his trailer, leaving the knot of helpers and spectators standing there speechless.

When the San Antonio fairgrounds closed on December 15, 1906, Ad To pperwein, using three semiauto Winchester 1903 rifles, had shot at 72,500 wooden blocks thrown in the air. He had missed nine. More than a half-century later, another man, employed by Remington, would hit over 100,000. His throwers, however, would stand by his left shoulder and gently toss the blocks straight out along the same path that the bullet would take.

Topp's record, shot under the rules laid out by another man in the 19th century, would never be broken.

In 1906, skilled riflemen were universally admired, and people like Ad and Plinky Topperwein spent much of their time urging young boys and girls to learn gun safety and hone their shooting skills. The phrase did not exist in 1906 when Topp set his record, for a special term was unnecessary, but years later the fact would be evident: Ad Topperwein and his wife Plinky were part of the gun culture.

May 10, 1918 "Matt, I know I've been dealing with these government people for thirty years, but I tell you I will never get used to it. I had the water-cooled gun finished almost twenty years ago, and offered it to them for next to nothing. They didn't show a lick of interest until after our country joined the war. It's not as if they didn't have any advance warning. Germany has a quarter million eight millimeter Maxims up and running." A gust of wind threatened to blow John Browning's hat off. He pushed it farther down on his head, then went on.

"What did we have when we entered this war? Less than two hundred of my old air-cooled '95 Colts, a few hundred of those French things, and less than three hundred Colt 1904 Maxim guns. Every one of those weapons is an entirely different design, and not one was originally designed to use the current issue .30 caliber round!"

John Browning knew he was repeating himself, but he couldn't help it. He also knew his brother would let him go on as long as he liked. / had the Model 1901 water-cooled medium machine gun ready to go almost two decades ago he thought. The government showed a complete lack of interest in it.

What was particularly maddening to John Browning was that he was not some stranger the government had never heard of. Browning was the man who had made the country's first gas-operated machine gun in 1889, had demonstrated for the Navy in 1891 a machine gun which fired 1800 rounds in 3 minutes without a single stoppage, and who had designed the first machine gun ever used by the U.S. military, the Model 1895 Colt 'potato digger' machine gun adopted by the U.S. Army in that year. In 1900, three-quarters of the sporting arms made in the U.S. were Browning designs. With sidearms, it was Browning's Model 1911 .45 automatic that the government had adopted when .38 caliber army revolvers had failed to stop the crazed Moro warriors during the Philippine insurrections in 1898.

"So last year," John went on, "with the country on the brink of war, the War Department finally realizes that U.S. soldiers armed with handguns and bolt action rifles are going to face hundreds of thousands of Maxim machine guns already in use by the German army." John Browning shook his head. He did not say it, but he was thinking of the great irony of this.

Hiram Maxim, an inventive genius the equal of John Browning, was an American. Maxim, however, had no prior designs which had been adopted by the U.S. Armed forces, and he had taken his inventions to Europe, where their value had been immediately appreciated. Now hundreds of thousands of American soldiers would face these lethally efficient weapons, designed by an American but manufactured by seven German arsenals and issued to German troops.

"I have serious doubts about this idea of 'walking fire'," John said to his brother, "but my gun will do it all right."

"You got it done faster than you said you would, too," Matt said. The U.S. Government had implored John Browning to design an automatic rifle that could be carried by one man and fired with full control 'from the hip' on full automatic. It was the experts' theory that a line of soldiers equipped with such weapons could sweep an area clean. Browning had obliged with the 17-pound Browning Automatic Rifle whose design had been finalized three short months after the government's initial request.