Book 143: Guns by Stephen King (An Essay)

Stephen King has been my favorite author since I was a teenager, sneaking his books home with me from the library and terrifying myself into insomnia for nights on end.

Guns is not a book but an essay that Stephen King wrote and released as a Kindle single through Amazon. It is a commentary on the mass shootings that have plagued our country beginning with the Columbine shootings in 1999. King describes shooters as young men take the lives of others for reasons they themselves cannot even provide once the deed is done, if they survive.

In Guns, King expresses his views about the ownership and use of assault rifles in the U.S. As a handgun owner, he does not argue against citizens' right to bear arms. Instead, he argues that an assault rifle with a high capacity clip has but one purpose: to kill people, and a lot of them at once. The key is to reduce the numbers of assault rifles in our society.

This short essay was followed by an epilogue, the end of which states that 80 people are shot and killed every day in the United States.

Pick this up. It might make you mad.