Gun Owner Stephen King Speaks Out On Gun Control Laws, Read What The Horror Novelist Has To Say
Horror novelist Stephen King, 67, recently opened up his views regarding gun control on his official Twitter account. The tweets were posted following the Charleston shooting in South Carolina that left nine people dead, as the Inquisitr previously reported.
In his tweets, King, a gun owner himself, talked about responsible gun ownership and the responsibilities that come with owning a gun.
Until responsible gun owners support responsible gun control laws, innocent blood will continue to flow. How many times must we see this?
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 18, 2015
Too many closed minds on gun control. Worse, far too many PROUDLY closed minds. Meanwhile, the American shooting gallery remains open.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 19, 2015
According to Bloomberg Business, gun deaths will exceed traffic fatalities in America this year. Can’t put a seatbelt on a semi-automatic.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 19, 2015
Stephen King has been outspoken in his views regarding gun control and laws. He also authored a novel in 1977 entitled Rage under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, with a plot that centers on a high school shooting. The tagline of the book reads, “His twisted mind turned a quiet classroom into a dangerous world of terror.”
Following the release of the novel, there were a few high school shooting incidents in the 80s and 90s. In one of the shootings, Michael Carneal, who was responsible for killing three people in a high school in Kentucky, was found to have a copy of Rage in his locker. This prompted King to withdraw his novel from publication, The Guardian reports.
“That was enough for me. I asked my publishers to pull the novel. I didn’t pull Rage from publication because the law demanded it; I was protected under the First Amendment, and the law couldn’t demand it. I pulled it because in my judgment it might be hurting people, and that made it the responsible thing to do.”
A year after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, Stephen King penned an essay entitled Guns, which discusses gun violence. In the essay, King urged gun owners, such as himself, to support a ban on semiautomatic and automatic weapons, the Washington Times reports.
In the essay, King wrote that “lunatics” use these weapons to wage war against innocent people.
“Autos and semi-autos are weapons of mass destruction. When lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared these are the weapons they use.”
What are your thoughts on Stephen King’s views about gun control laws? Share your comments below.
[Images via Stephen King Revisited/Larry French/Getty Images]
