Novelist, gun owner Stephen King sees middle ground in gun debate; so does nonfiction author

Stephen King is one of the most read novelists in the world, and is also a gun owner. King recently wrote an essay as a Kindle Single entitled Guns, in which he expressed his opinions about gun violence and gun control.

Stephen King

"What I asked for in that piece, what I almost begged for, was that we Americans find some middle ground on the subject of heavy-duty firearms," King writes in the Bangor Daily News. "Just a small median strip of rationality between the honking freeway lanes jammed with those on the political right and the political left. According to polls, the majority of Americans would really like a place like that, where a rational discussion could be held without raised voices."

King says he is against repealing the Second Amendment, but "I also pointed out that a deer hunter who feels it necessary to go into the woods armed with a 30-round AR-15 must either have poor aim or is afraid the deer are going to fight back."

In the essay, he writes, "I argued for three things: universal background checks, a ban on the retail sale of semi-auto assault rifles geared to fire large magazines of ammunition and a ban on mags holding more than 10 rounds. Everyone else keeps their deer rifles, shotguns, revolvers and automatic pistols. All I want is to make it a little more difficult for (people) to kill unarmed civilians and innocent children. Why in the name of God should that be controversial?" (Read more)

Craig R. Whitney

King is in much the same place as Craig R. Whitney, the former New York Times editor who recently published Living with Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment. He will discuss his ideas and his book in a free lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 28 at the University of Kentucky. Whitney believes those on the left must accept that a gun-free America is not possible and that they should not demonize those who want to exercise their constitutional right to carry guns; and those on the right must recognize that not every gun-control measure is an effort to repeal the Second Amendment and that gun ownership must be exercised with an eye to public safety, according to a press release.