Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. John Ross is an investment broker and financial adviser in St. Louis, Missouri. He has degrees in English and Economics from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Mr. Ross is a certified personal protection instructor, and the author of Self-Defense Laws and Violent Crime Rates in the United States, which was the first published work to empirically assess the effect of concealed-carry laws on violent crime in America. He has authored several firearms-related technical articles for Precision Shooting magazine and Machine Gun News. Since the age of eight, Mr. Ross has been an avid participant in many aspects of the shooting sports. He fires upwards of 20,000 rounds of ammunition per year and is, by his own admission, a member of the gun culture.