Stephen King on Guns

I haven't cared much for his work in the last decade. The Stand was great. The Gunslinger series was pretty good. Everything else is mediocre at best.

And another billionaire with layers of armed security tells the rest of us what arms he doesn't think we really need. This is a man who brings bodyguards to press interviews! And it goes without saying that neither he nor his personal entourage would be impacted by any laws he endorsed.

I am really sick of these people. Maybe we should raise their taxes.

While his political views may have become more libertarian, I think he would have been challenged the idea of our contemporary firearms.

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One of my favorite quotes from JRRT is directly relevant:

Gimli said, "But you speak of him as if he were a friend. I thought Fangorn was dangerous."
"Dangerous!" cried Gandalf. "And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord. And Aragorn is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers, Gimli son of Gloin; for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion. Certainly the forest of Fangorn is perilous - not least to those that are too ready with their axes; and Fangorn himself, he is perilous too; yet he is wise and kindly nonetheless."

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The Two Towers

We tend to view being dangerous as a bad thing. But it's entirely natural to be able to defend yourself. And even awesome power is not to be feared in the hands of a good person.

Cosmoline said:

We tend to view being dangerous as a bad thing. But it's entirely natural to be able to defend yourself. And even awesome power is not to be feared in the hands of the good.

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"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men."

-- Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers


Now THERE was a real libertarian...


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JFrame said:

"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men."

-- Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers


Now THERE was a real libertarian...


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"The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism."

- Michael Crichton A State of Fear

HOOfan_1 said:

"The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism."

- Michael Crichton A State of Fear

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Dr. Crichton was another great conservative in the industry...R.I.P...


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Guys like King are just trying to appeal to the masses - they make money off of being popular.

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More like perceived masses - there are a lot of pissed off law abiding gun owners.

I've actually been reading alot of King recently. Some of it is OK-- entertaining though not really great fiction-- some is godawful. But here are a couple quotes I remembered from the 3rd gunslinger book.


It's unlikely that those left will have firearms—in fact, ours may be the first guns many of them have ever seen, except maybe for a picture or two in the old books. Make no threatening gestures. And the childhood rule is a good one: speak only when spoken to."

"What about bows and arrows?" Susannah asked.

"Yes, they may have those. Spears and clubs, as well."

"Don't forget rocks," Eddie said bleakly, looking down at the cluster of wooden buildings. The place looked like a ghost-town, but who knew for sure? "And if they're hard up for rocks, there's always the cobbles from the road."

"Yes, there's always something," Roland agreed

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"Ay. Let's finish with them." She surveyed Susannah and Eddie again, her eyes stem but somehow confused, as well. "Gods curse my eyes that they should ever have happened on you two in the first place.

And gods curse the guns ye carry, as well, for they were always the springhead of our troubles."

And with that attitude, Susannah thought, your troubles are going to last at least a thousand years, sugar.

He does give quite a few nods to the Aubrey-Maturin books in his dark tower series, though, so that buys him some slack from me. But, then again, much of that slack was used up by his writing himself into the Dark Tower books...

Ironically he's a gun owner.

They just don't want us to have guns.

My fiancé and I are big King fans.

Looks like I'm going to have to get back into Max Brooks.

Well look at it from his perspective. If he wrote guns into his books, they would have really short endings. "Creepy thing jumps out from behind here, Scared person shoots thing. The End."

Ehtereon11B said:

Well look at it from his perspective. If he wrote guns into his books, they would have really short endings. "Creepy thing jumps out from behind here, Scared person shoots thing. The End."

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Funniest thing I've read all day. Thanks.

King is sloppy. I liked him when I was in high school, but as I grew older I got tired of gritting my teeth through the inaccurate details and the way he likes to write his personal experiences into his books, not to mention his way of writing 33 pages about how the room smells and the graphic depictions of dead children. He's like many other people, inclined to make decisions about topics with only a fraction of the necessary information. "Rage" was an interesting story, and I think he originally wrote it when he was 18 or 19 with the working title "Getting It On". He really tapped into the mindset with that one, before he got into cocaine and alcohol hardcore in the 80's and lost his way. "The Stand" is still a great work of apocalyptic fiction, but I can't say I've enjoyed much that he wrote after that, even the Gunslinger series suffered from his obvious desire to have a movie made about it with Clint Eastwood and his desire to finish it up quickly after he was hit by the guy in the van and almost killed. I'm not surprised at all that he has a superficial understanding of firearms and the efficacy gun control laws.

hq said:

I ment intellectually. Being a talented storyteller doesn't automatically give one's legislative opinion any credibility, nor does it prove that the person has the slightest idea about how social and criminal problems can and can not be solved. An unfounded opinion is meaningless, totally devoid of any value, regardless of the social status of the person who expressed it.

All statements must be judged and evaluated by their factual content, not by who made them. That, unfortunately, doesn't always apply. Some people abuse their social and financial status as an excuse for lying through their teeth and expect people to believe them only because they're rich or famous. It really ticks me off that more often than not they're right, the majority of people don't question the lack of facts behind their statements at all.

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Actually, he portrays human behavior on both sides of the line very well and very accurately. Pulls no punches, glosses nothing over.

So he observes very well, very clearly....and then makes up his own mind on where he stands. If liberal, then with good reason (just like some of the rest of us, lol).

I hadnt read him in nearly 2 decades but The Stand is my favorite book. (Read Under the Dome last fall).

The Stand was good, but I'd rather read any of Larry Correia's books.Monster Hunter International kicks butt.

Never cared too much for Stephen King. I'll add his name to the growing list of people I will have nothing to do with from now on.

Geez, I've never read one of his books and now I'm boycotting. I just got a head start.

Stephen king has made doo-doo in his pants before. A few years back, he was explaining how you have to be stupid to be in the armed forces: “. . . the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright.”

When a conservative blogger picked that up, King went ooga-booga defensive: “... that a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt . . .. I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career.

His lack of logic is incandescent. He defends saying that you only go in the army if you’re dumb by saying that he lives in a National Guard town (well, that eliminates the possibility of any lack of patriotism right there), but he doesn’t support the war. But, as I am not the first to point out, that’s like saying you support the New York Yankees, but not when they play baseball.

And those educational policies that limit options – yes, I remember now, that was the George W. Bush No Child Can Learn to Read While I’m The President Cuz We got To Have Stupid Soldiers Act. Rammed that one through in 2006, I believe.

John Ross seems to write more on my level!

King hasn't written anything good since The stand, IMO. This glorified blog post continues the trend.

Cosmoline,

Good points on Tolkien. Kind of funny with me and his work. An old pot head (he, not me) bud of mine from high school tried his best to get me to read Tolkien's stuff and I wouldn't. Then, my daughter drags me to the first LOTR movie. Then and there I read the trilogy, the Hobbit and the Simmarillion. I probably enjoyed the latter one the best. I cannot fathom that much creativity. Great stuff I'd missed. Lesson learned...sometimes, pot heads offer diamonds.

Post 38 nearly sums up my thoughts about King, with the exception of ever having liked him. Only books I read were Thinner, The Green Mile and Insomnia which all share a common trait: a propensity to babble incessantly about minutiae the reader cares nothing about. Reminds me of my personal lack of skill or form but then I've not been paid millions for what I spout.

It's the same mental illness that afflicts other famous people that are good at making money or have success in music, writing, acting, etc. They think if they are successful at one thing it automatically gives them a natural talent to pontificate what is best for us commoners.

9MMare said:

Actually, he portrays human behavior on both sides of the line very well and very accurately. Pulls no punches, glosses nothing over.

So he observes very well, very clearly....and then makes up his own mind on where he stands. If liberal, then with good reason (just like some of the rest of us, lol).

I hadnt read him in nearly 2 decades but The Stand is my favorite book. (Read Under the Dome last fall).

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There's a massive amount of evidence of these kind of legislative actions failing all around the world, and instead of working for the objective of making societies safer they've one time after another worked against it. Widespread civil disobedience, losing the little control what government has over firearm ownership and especially violent criminals and promises of anything better turning out empty is not in the best interest of anyone.

There are many valid points on both sides of the gun debate, but when you look at all aspects, implications and consequences of legislative action, objective facts are solid and undeniable.

I have no respect for people who are more or less clueless and still want to voice their opinion on something, and this applies to pro-gun celebrities as well. If they're unable to see the big picture, state the facts that affect the resulting situation and have a somewhat in-depth understanding of how legislation can affect human behavior in society, their 'ME TOO' announcements are pointless from the intellectual point of view. And that's what the debate is lacking nowadays, more than ever.

Last November I resigned from the position of the vice president of NRA Finland. After six years I grew too tired to interacting with total idiots, both anti-gun and pro-gun, especially because more than half of my work consisted of legislative, behavioral and social science research, finding out facts that can be used on both sides of the debate. Never before I had realized how much I can hate politics.

And despise people like Stephen King.

Steven king is a bipolar. He should be under a weapons disability. Having dealt with people suffering from bipolar disorder and seeing the effects of a mania, they should definatley not have firearms.