Enemies Foreign And Domestic

Written in the budding tradition of Unintended Consequences, Enemies Foreign and Domestic is a "gun novel". That is to say, it's protagonists are members of the "gun culture", independently-minded shooters, and the novel's antagonists are government agents of the BAFTE and legislators minded to ban firearms. As such, it's the sort of book that's likely to get you put on a government list -- but then, if you're reading it, you're probably already on that list.

The book opens with a "Stadium Massacre", where a single sniper kills thousands by firing long-range into a crowded stadium. The few people hit are far outweighed by the number of people who die in the panic, rushing for the exits and trampling each other. That one incident sparks a legislative ban on all semi-automatic rifles, while the protagonists are still trying to decipher the cryptic hints they have stumbled across -- hints that suggest the Stadium Massacre might have been a setup.

This novel is an expression of the fear that haunts gun owners in modern times; the knowledge that their hobby and sometimes their livelihood is something restricted more and more to governments alone. The tradition of American militiamen resisting tyranny is under attack from all sides, and seemingly with every highly-publicized massacre the screws tighten. Speculation that some agency, foreign or domestic, is actively behind all, or at least some, of these conveniently-timed incidents is on the border between conspiracy theories and legitimate speculation.

If you're a member of the "gun culture" and care about these issues, you'll like the book. The prose is servicable rather than sophisticated, and the characters sometimes suffer from having read the script rather than thinking things through on their own. While Unintended Consequences is a peculiar mix of history and fiction, Enemies Foreign and Domestic falls squarely into the fictional; there are none of the informative digressions that make Unintended Consequences accessible to people outside the gun culture who are not familiar with it.

It's a good read if you are in the target market. It's unlikely to convince anyone of anything they don't already believe, though.