Stephen King, Contemporary Horror Author, Joins Progressive Movement to Ban Firearms
First his biography and his accomplishments:
The SyFy TV series, Haven, is based on King's novella, The Colorado Kid.
Stephen King is a contemporary author of horror fiction that includes science fiction and fantasy genre, whose books have sold more than 350 million copies and he continues to write more. Many of those stories became adaptations of films, television movies, and comic books. To date, he has written fifty novels that include early works written under a pen name Richard Bachman (seven books) and five non-fiction titles. He has written 200 short stories that have been put together to make nine collections. Most of his stories occur in his home state of Maine. He will go down in the history of American literature in the ranks of Poe and Lovecraft; along with the Gothic horror style of Anne Rice. He is well-known in the academic world of literature and has taught university classes and given lectures. His renown is international. I have a complete collection of his works that I passed on to his family; and despite his skewered look at the liberties of the Second Amendment, I admire him as a writer and intellect.
King has won several awards: Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Society Awards. His novella The Way Station was nominated for a Nebula Award and a short story The Man in the Black Suit received the O. Henry Award. The National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003. In 2004 he received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, in 2007, the Canadian Booksellers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 2007. Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21st, 1949 (two months older than I am) whose father (Donald Edwin King) was a merchant seaman from Indiana and his mother, Nellie Ruth Pillsbury[King] was born in Maine where they married and Stephen was born. When Stephen was two years old, his father left to buy a pack of cigarettes and never came back, leaving his mother to raise him and an adopted older brother, David. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin, then Fort Wayne, Indiana, and to Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, the family returned to Maine in Durham, where Ruth King cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged, raising her sons as Methodists.
When Stephen was a child, he witnessed one of his friends get killed by a moving train, and he returned home in such a state of stuck he was speechless. In fact, it was only later that Stephen's mother learned about his friend's death. King made no mention of this traumatic experience in his memoir On Writing (2000). However, he did write a short story entitled The Body later that involved a death by getting hit by a train, which was the basis for the film Stand By Me.
In the non-fiction book, Danse Macabre (1981), he provided details of what inspired his desire to write horror fiction in a chapter entitled An Annoying Autobiographical Pause. His inspiration, he wrote, occurred while browsing through an attic with his elder brother, where King found a paperback version of H.P. Lovecraft collection of short stories that belonged to his father.
As a teenager, Stephen was an avid reader of EC's horror comics that included Tales from the Crypt, which he later paid tribute in his screenplay for Creepshow.
The first of his stories published was I Was a Teenage Grave Robber.
In 1966, King studied English at the University of Maine and graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. The same year his daughter Naomi Rachel King was born. He took part in a writing workshop and took odd jobs to pay for his education that included an industrial laundry. His first professional short story The Glass Floor, was published in 1967.
King earned a certificate to teach high school when he left the university, but could not find a teaching post that was open. He supplemented his labor wages by selling short stories to magazines like the Cavalier. Many of those short stories were put into an anthology entitled Night Shift. In 1971, Stephen married Tabitha Spruce, who had been a fellow student at the University of Maine, a year after Naomi was born. In the fall of 1971, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Massachusetts and he continued to contribute short stories to magazines while working on ideas for novels. During this time he began to drink heavily, which would continue for more than ten years.
In 1973, he wrote his first novel, Carrie, accepted by Doubleday. His first draft ended up in the trash, but his wife, Tabitha, retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to complete it. He received a $2,500 advance. Later King's paperback rights would earn $400,000. Because of King's mother being seriously ill, he and his family moved to southern Maine. It was during this time that he wrote Jerusalem's Lot, which was changed later to Salem's Lot, published in 1975. King's mother died of uterine cancer in 1974. King's drinking problem continued and he stated that he was drunk when he delivered the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
After his mother's funeral, King and family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (published 1977). The family returned to Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel entitled The Stand, published in 1978. In 1977, Owen Phillip was born, his third and last child, during which time the family visited England, returning to Maine in the fall, where Stephen began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine. He has lived there ever since, as a primary residence.
In 1985, King wrote a series of stories for the comic book medium, whose profits were donated to assist victims of the famine in Africa. In 1986 he wrote BatmanNo. 400, an anniversary issue.
In the 1970s, King began what would become a series of interconnected stories about a lone gunslinger, Roland, who is in constant pursuit of the Man in Black. It is a mixture of the American Wild West in the style of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone western films mixed in with the surreal atmosphere of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-Earthtales. The first of those stories, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, was first published in five installments in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 1988 to 1981. The Gunslinger continued as an eight-book series called The Dark Tower, which King wrote and published in forty years. In 1987, King released the second installment: The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three where Roland draws three people from the 20th century into his world through magical doors.
In 2005, King signed a deal with Marvel Comics to publish a seven-issue limited series called The Gunslinger Born. In 2007, Lost co-creator, J.J. Abrams, had intentions of doing a film adaptation of the Dark Tower series, but it never happened. The project was taken on by Avika Goldsman, Ron Howard to be the director with Brian Grazer, Goldsman and Stephen King as producers in 2012. Russell Crowewas to play gunman Roland Deschain. Warner Brothers backed out of the project in 2012, and Stephen King's site posted:
...While no single reason was given for the studios withdrawal, it appears that most insiders believe that series would require a strong R rating that would greatly cut into the profitability of creating such an expensive mega-franchise. … When asked about the status of the project, Stephen commented that there is still much interest in the project and that news regarding the series should be announced this fall.
In June of 1999, a man driving a minivan distracted by an unrestrained dog, struck King as he was walking early in the morning on Route 5, Lovell, Maine. After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King resumed work on his non-fiction book, On Writing, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for forty minutes before the pain became unbearable.
During this period, Tabitha redesigned Stephen's studio and imagined what his studio would look like if he died, which provided him an idea for his novel, Lisey's Story.
In 2002, King announced, because of the frustration and pain of his injuries, that he would stop writing. He later resumed writing, but stated on his website:
I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be.
In 2012, during his Chancellor's Speaker Series talk at the University of Massachusetts, King mentioned he was writing a crime novel about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer, the working title being Mr. Mercedes. It was inspired by a true event about a woman driving a car into a McDonald's restaurant, originally intended to be a short story.
In June of 2013, King announced he was working on his next novel, Revival.
King has written two novels in collaboration with Peter Straub, also a horror novelist: The Talismanand Black House. King has mentioned that he and Straub will write a third book in the series with no set time of completion. In 1996, King collaborated with Michael Jacksonto create Ghosts, a 40-minute musical video where the singer portrayed a recluse in a mansion.
King wrote a musical play with John Mellencampentitled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.
King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, several of the members being authors. In June of 2013, King and the other band members collaborated to release an e-book called Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All. King is a fan of the rock band AC/DCwho did the soundtrack for his 1986 film, Maximum Overdrive. He is also a fan of the Ramones, who wrote the title song for Pet Semataryand appeared in the music video.
In 2010, King collaborated with musician Shooter Jenningsand his band Hierophant, which provided narration for their album Black Ribbons.
Besides the initial influence of H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Bram Stoker, Joseph Payne Brennan, Shirley Jackson, John D. MacDonald, Don Robertson, Robert A. Heinlein, and Elmore Leonardhave been mentioned by King.
Stephen and Tabitha King own Zone Radio Corp., a radio station group consisting of WZON 103.1 FM and 620 AM. King has stated that his favorite book-to-film adaptations are Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Mist. I am surprised that The Green Milewas not included, which is one of my favorite King story films.
King has appeared in cameo in some of those films, like Alfred Hitchcockused to do. The first was in George Romero's Knightriders, and his first featured film where he is the prime actor was in Creepshow. He also appeared in Pet Sematary, Thinner, Rose Red, The Stand, Storm of the Century, Shining, The Langoliers, and Sleepwalkers.
King produced and acted in the television series, Kingdom Hospital; and also co-wrote an episode (Season 5) for The X-Files. In 1995, King appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy. Money made on the show was for the benefit of the Bangor Public Library.
King provided the voice of Abraham Lincolnin the audiobook version of Assassination Vacation.
The SyFy TV series, Haven, is based on King's novella, The Colorado Kid.
Stephen King has been active politically and is a hard-headed Democrat. In 2008, he spoke out against HB 1423 in the Massachusetts legislature that would restrict or ban the sale of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. He felt that politicians were scapegoating pop culture and was taking the place of parental responsibility. He stated that the games reflect violence already established in society, which would not be changed by a law; yet he stated that the availability of firearms contributed more to causes of violence. Stephen King lost some of his fan base because of his political views, especially when he began recently on his rampage against firearms and insisting that the federal government ban most of them. Yet, King also stated he enjoys playing light gun shooterarcade games.
On May 5th, 2008, a blogger posted a clip of King at a Library of Congress reading event, where he said:
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.
John Kerrymade a similar remark in 2006. King commented later about the blog:
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—military or otherwise.
He also defended his comment in an interview with Bangor Daily News, three days later, stating:
I'm not going to apologize for promoting that kids get better education in high school, so they have more options. Those that don't agree with what I'm saying, I'm not going to change their minds.
Many disagree that it has been a comment only to point out the importance of education, especially since the US Armed Forces put an emphasis upon education, that can be much more affordable if attending a college or university while serving in the US military. He had sidestepped and denied that he was putting down the military by saying if people are illiterate or not properly educated they will have to serve in the military (specifically the Army). Frankly, he at first stated it was not what he meant as far as an insult to people serving their country, and then later refused to apologize. He lost fans after that.
At King's website it has been emphasized that he is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, often condemning other political entities and opponents. King voiced his support in 2008 for Democratic candidate for president, Barack Hussein Obama.
On March 8th, 2011, King spoke against Governor Rick Scott(R-FL) and the Tea Party movement in a political rally in Sarasota. In November 2011, King donated $70,000 to help pay the heating bills for families in need in the town of Bangor, Maine during the winter.
On April 30th, 2012, King published an article in The Daily Beast, a progressive leftist media, that called for “rich” Americans, including himself, to pay more taxes, stating:
...it is a practical necessity and moral imperative that those who have received much should be obligated to pay … in the same proportion.
Fans have felt that he has become stranger as time passed since being hit by a mini-van. Or maybe he was a useful idiot for progressive socialists all along.
On January 25th, 2013, King published an essay entitled Gunson Amazon's Kindle. The essay discusses the gun debate after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. King called for gun owners to support a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, writing:
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.
This cost him fans who are members of the NRA and those who do not believe that by ignoring or repealing the Second Amendment that violent crimes will stop. Indeed, he had something to say against the NRA, statingthat they should be …
required to put on booties and rubber gloves and help clean up the blood, the brains, and the chunks of intestine still containing the poor wads of half-digested food that were some innocent bystander's last meal.
Sounds like a morbid scene from one of his books, and speaking as though HE was the one required to clean up or experienced doing so after a shooting. Especially lame because he never served in the US armed forces.
Once again, blaming guns instead of the true source – society's lack of morals and values, as well as allowing children and young teens to constantly play violent video games without parental direction or discipline. Also, the system is broken, because Adam Lanza, the shooter at that elementary school was designated mentally disturbed but was still allowed to have access to firearms. If anyone made a complete and thorough (and honest) survey, they would find the problem is within the society (too many dysfunctional family units), its morals and values mirroring much of what Stephen Kingand Anne Ricewrite about. It is also a problem with the federal government, whose solution to end violence is to take firearms away from everybody except the law enforcement and military. The most recent mass shooting horror was conducted by a man who had been arrested previously for violent acts, at least one of them committed with a firearm, but still was able to purchase firearms legally AND still had a security clearance to enter the Navy Yard and kill and injure workers there - and allowed to legally purchase weapons and clearance despite evidence of mental issues. The system is broke and the Second Amendment is not the reason for crime, it is a proven deterrence as had been shown statistic after statistic. In fact, one would think that crime would increase in areas that allow conceal carry and purchase of firearms have increased - but it is the opposite of what the corporate media and its political handlers would have you believe.
Guns are mechanisms of defense or acts of unjustified violence – but the real problem is people who are not responsible or sane; people who are inspired by stories and films of fiction that everybody else views as unreal and fairy tales for entertainment or letting off steam – at least those of sound mind and emotional stability. King stood up against government not allowing violent video games to be purchased under the age of 18, but wants to counter the Second Amendment and take the right to keep and bear armsby lawful citizens. King is a hypocrite because he writes about blood and gore, violence and about things on the dark side of the mind – and then backs up progressive socialists who want to control every facet of our lives under the pretense that it is for our own good. He also believes that people who have become wealthy or wealthier than the average person through hard-work and ingenuity, should pay the way of people with no incentives, wrong goals in life, and the dregs of society who play the welfare system. He may be a creative writer, but he is a naïve useful idiot for the progressive tyrants whose goals are control of the people; demanding what they themselves do not act upon. Too often intellects and talented actors and actresses fall under the spell of promised Utopia via socialists and communist. Remember the days of the Hippies (love, peace, equal everything)? How many communions survived? They did not survive, just as early settlements in the New World (North America) that used socialism as the form of community and civics. When people reap the rewards of productivity and not having to share it, the former is more successful. The reasons are common sense, something that Americans have lost along with their special individuality that made this nation once the greatest.
Guns are mechanisms of defense or acts of unjustified violence – but the real problem is people who are not responsible or sane; people who are inspired by stories and films of fiction that everybody else views as unreal and fairy tales for entertainment or letting off steam – at least those of sound mind and emotional stability. King stood up against government not allowing violent video games to be purchased under the age of 18, but wants to counter the Second Amendment and take the right to keep and bear armsby lawful citizens. King is a hypocrite because he writes about blood and gore, violence and about things on the dark side of the mind – and then backs up progressive socialists who want to control every facet of our lives under the pretense that it is for our own good. He also believes that people who have become wealthy or wealthier than the average person through hard-work and ingenuity, should pay the way of people with no incentives, wrong goals in life, and the dregs of society who play the welfare system. He may be a creative writer, but he is a naïve useful idiot for the progressive tyrants whose goals are control of the people; demanding what they themselves do not act upon. Too often intellects and talented actors and actresses fall under the spell of promised Utopia via socialists and communist. Remember the days of the Hippies (love, peace, equal everything)? How many communions survived? They did not survive, just as early settlements in the New World (North America) that used socialism as the form of community and civics. When people reap the rewards of productivity and not having to share it, the former is more successful. The reasons are common sense, something that Americans have lost along with their special individuality that made this nation once the greatest.
That anti-gun essay became the 5th-bestselling non-fiction title for Kindle. Many attribute it to King's popularity as a writer and not because they agree with what he wrote. He wrote it, and it was only 99 cents, so why not? The essay didn't receive the response that King was looking for, however. King donated any proceeds he made on the e-book to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. I would have donated it to the people who suffered or left loved ones in the September 11th, 2001 attack or towards the victims of those mass shooters; certainly not an organization that wants to change or repeal the Second Amendment.
All very strange coming from a writer who has made millions writing about horror and violence, real and imagined.
King was an abuser of alcohol and drugs during the 1980s, and admitted that he barely remembered writing Cujo. Finally, in order to show what King was doing to himself, his family and friends, led by his wife, Tabitha, dumped on the rug in front of him the evidence of his addictions taken from his office, including beer cans, cigarette butts, cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana. After that he was determined to quit, and sought help – and has remained sober since.
Tabitha King has also published nine novels of her own and both of King's sons are published authors. King's daughter, Naomi, is a Unitarian Universalist Church minister in Plantation, Florida and a lesbian, with same-sex partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.
King is a fan of baseball, especially the Boston Red Sox and attends games whenever possible, both home and away games.
A list of his awards can be found HERE.
As a personal note about his personal life and beliefs, you can get a good glimpse in the interview of CBS News, where he says books and video games don't make people violent, but guns do. His hypocrisy becomes more evident in the interview. He is like progressive Hillary Clinton and others of her mindset who blames everything and everyone except the true source, as she puts down Monica Lewinsky but not her husband.
This isn't the first time that I have been disappointed with a talented person, usually in the Hollyweird crowd – enjoying their talents, but when they speak openly and in public, they come across to be naïve nerds or useful puppets and mouthpieces for the progressive socialist movement. He also points out he knows little about history (or reality) when he compares JFK to Obama. Stick to fiction and fantasy, King.
I have many of King's books in my library – mostly in hardback because they last longer. But he has turned me off with his radical behavior and outbursts that I doubt if I will ever purchase anything written since 2008. Maybe that accident did mess up his head.
And finally, Mr. King, after visiting your Haven Foundation website, I present this to you -
- While, due to recent mass shootings, gangland slayings in Chicago, and the federal government allowing the Mexican drug cartel to cross our border and establish themselves in American cities – more people are killed by firearms (2013) than vehicles. But a recent article states that the death rates are converging mostly due to better safety regulations for cars. But since you have been a victim of an irresponsible person driving a vehicle, and since you have that train of thought concerning firearms – why have you not advocated a ban against private citizens owning and operating motor vehicles. Your ideology certainly applies.
- In the District of Columbia where the Second Amendment is not allowed – more people are killed by guns than motor vehicles. Of course, the use of firearms in self defense and justified use are also included in those deaths and injuries statistics – so the amount of deaths by motor vehicles are close to deaths by firearms or more often.
- The terrorist bomber on the east coast used a pressure cooker. Should we ban pressure cookers, punishing those that use it for what it was designed for?
- The Center for Disease Control did not include in their report of major causes of death in US the deaths (98,000) and injuries (15,000,000) that are caused by medical malpractice. Would you want to ban medical professionals?
- Obesity has become a problem with more than 400,000 deaths annually. More than 200,000 Americans die from conditions caused by obesity. Should we ban fat people?
Here is a statistic of governments that have successfully taken firearms away from citizens to be only used by the government and its military and law enforcement:
- Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin: Killed almost 50,000,000 people.
- Nazi Germany, Adolph Hitler: Killed 11,000,000 civilians, not including military actions.
- Communist China, Mao: Killed between 30,000,000 and 70,000,000 people, because of no full access to records, this is only a rough estimate.
- If you added all the deaths due to wars in the 20th century, more people died because of their government than any other reason – and they did not have the means to fight back. In addition, none of these examples reduced the crime rate.
So based upon Mr. King's and other progressive socialists ideology and so-called reasoning, if firearms are to be banned, so should cars, alcoholic beverages, medical professionals, Twinkies, pizza, etc, etc, etc. When does government intervention and control end? There was a reason for the framers of the US Constitution to limit the authority of the government. There was also a reason why they created the Second Amendment, following the First Amendment.
People have a right to their opinions, under the First Amendment; but it does not guarantee that they are being truthful or factual – and certainly are not free from open and honest criticism.
The feel good generation has welcomed socialism and the welfare state with open arms, not realizing that they are throwing away the rights and liberties that they say they hold dear.
Mr. King, stick to your fantasy fiction tales and non-fiction works concerning literature, otherwise you are nothing but a parrot for the propaganda of tyranny when it comes to constitutional-political issues.
FURTHER READING AND SOURCES
Twitter, Stephen King
Dread Central – Stephen King's Revival
Stephen King: “Beyond the reach of human range, a drop of hell, a touch of strange ...”
Stephen King Publishes Vulgar Attack on Conservatives
STEPHEN KING QUOTES REFLECTING HIS STRANGENESS
And this quote explains why King is a progressive socialist:
- I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.
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