For any freepers who don't know, I am writing a novel (which is 99% finished) about the federal government's assault on the 2nd amendment which follows a scenario which could be put into action at almost any time in this era of the "Patriot Act". I think my novel will be more accessible than John Ross' fine novel "Unintended Consequences", (certainly it will be shorter, at under 400 pages, and it will not be gratuitously, needlessly sexual).
The novel starts in Washington FedEx stadium when bullets begin to fly into an upper deck, which causes a panic stampede for the exits. The bullets continue to hit spectators, all this is on television of course since it is an NFL game, this adds to the panic. The crush of people high in the stadium fleeing down to the ramps causes the spectators near the upper deck rails to be pushed right over the edge to drop to the lower decks, all filmed on television by a dozen cameras. More people die in jams in the narrow ramps and exits; the total death count is over 1000. Dozens of U.S. Senators and Congressmen are eye witnesses. That is how the novel opens.
The shooter is found and killed 1200 yards outside of the stadium by a SWAT sniper in a police helicopter, a semi automatic so-called "assault rifle" at his side. He turns out to be an unemployed Desert Storm vet with a history of mental and physical problems attributed to "Gulf War Syndrome". This scrawny loser is soon connected to a group of hunters and shooters in southeastern Virginia ("Tidewater"). Jihad literature is found near his body in Arabic taking credit for the massacre in the name of an Islamic terrorist group. The "obvious" intent of the shooter was to blame Arab American Muslims for the massacre, but "luckily he was killed and the evil plan revealed". That is what the media and the sheeple believe. They are led to believe the shooting was actually planned and carried out by white yahoo rednecks from Virginia, trying to stir up hatred and armed reaction against Muslims in America. The motive is "obvious", all the evidence points to that conclusion. In fact, the shooter is a patsy dredged out of a VA hospital by the actual conspirators.
The massacre is predictably blamed on the easy access to high capacity "assault rifles", even by lunatics fresh out of the loony bin. On Monday following the stadium massacre both houses of Congress pass an emergency bill in record time outlawing the private possession of all centerfire semi-auto rifles, with a one-week turn in period and no buy-back. The few pro 2nd Amendment congressmen willing to speak are shouted into silence, the bill is passed and signed by the president, public opinion polls show overwhelming support for it.
The next Friday night there is a "gun store kristallnacht" in SE Virginia as "mobs of outraged citizens" in the dead patsy's home town torch them with gasoline bombs. The mobs are actually gang bangers on parole recruited by the actual organizers of the stadium massacre, who are two deranged and power mad BATF officials. They hope by creating a massacre blamed on easy access to high capacity "assault rifles" to become the leaders of a new anti-gun federal law enforcement division with sweeping powers and unlimited funding.
A decorated Viet Nam Green Beret officer is killed with a bomb secretly placed in his car, then it is leaked to the media that he was on his way to blow up a federal building when "his bomb went off prematurely". Other "false flag" black operations of this sort lead to a public climate of fear and hysteria over "right wing militia terrorism". The aim of the plotters is to have the president secretly authorize the creation of a special covert federal unit which will be permitted to act outside the constitution to pro-actively terminate "suspected terrorists" using Phoenix Program death squad tactics on American soil during "the emergency". Since federal SWAT teams are already made up to a great extent by former Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and others used to fighting terrorism overseas by "any means necessary", it is no problem putting together a secret domestic anti-terrorism unit which will combat our own "right wing terrorists" by the same extra-legal methods.
That is just the beginning, but as you can imagine, the plot does not exactly go according to plan. A new division of the BATF is secretly named the "lead agency" in the repression of "gun nuts and militia fanatics", when actually it was a rogue BATF senior official who orchestrated the stadium massacre in order to increase his power and his budget in the predictable reaction to the "right wing militia massacre and bombings". In fact, this official had conveniently already written contingency plans for this type of new counter terrorism unit, and is (as he planned) named the first chief of the new covert unit.
Anyway, the situation evolves into a sub rosa "dirty war" of secret arrests, covert "interrogation centers", "disappearances", assassinations and counter assassinations, with the JBTs using the latest technology, and the other side using scoped deer rifles one shot at a time against anti Bill of Rights politicians. A computer hacker posts the addresses of all FBI and BATF agents in Maryland and Virginia and puts the feds on the defensive as amateur snipers take potshots at "targets of opportunity".
Running throughout the book is the race to solve the mystery of the stadium shooter: was he truly, as reported, a deranged former Marine, or just a hapless patsy? Did he even fire a shot? If he is a patsy, who put him there with the rifle and why?
Needless to say, ABCNNBCBS has one opinion (the anti gun govt. line) while the internet forums are a hotbed of opposing theories. Coservative websites plays a major role in revealing the details of the plot, the truth and the outcome is left up in the air until the very end, as some of the targeted "right wing gun nuts" take the dirty war back to the secret government death squad unit. The full truth about the stadium massacre and aftermath is readied for airing on one new major news network, while the secret government death squad races to stop the story from airing by all the means at its disposal, including bombings and assassinations.
The background of my plot is that if the JBTs (Jack Booted Thugs, federal SWAT teams) cannot find actual "right wing militia terrorists", it may prove very tempting to some in the "anti terrorism industry" to create them. It would really be simple to do: it would only take a few arranged massacres blamed on "right wing gun nuts" to create the proper atmosphere of hysteria. The FBI's budget grew from 2 to 4 billion dollars per year during the 1990s in the "war on terrorism", and this was before 9-11. You can only imagine the kind of money being directed against terrorism now, and the temptation that kind of money might provide to the unscrupulous who will direct and control that cash flow, and the federal law enforcement promotions which will be handed out as new departments are created and manpower rolls swell with new recruits.
But almost all of the new funding is going to the FBI in its battle against foreign born islamic terrorists. The BATF is again being left on the sidelines.... until in my novel an evil high ranking BATF official figures out a way to jump start a "war on right wing domestic terrorism" with his bogus stadium massacre, a massacre blamed on too easy access to "assault rifles". This puts the BATF center stage, and directs the money flow to this rogue BATF official, as he had planned.
The book is 99% finished, I just have to start typing a smooth copy, get it proofed and then print it.
Do you have a publisher, Travis?