Free Guns (Kindle Single) by Stephen King Page B

his English class, declared that
“urban terrorism is fun,” and held his fellow students hostage with a
Korean-made .223 assault rifle. He had a few modest demands: sodas, cigarettes,
sandwiches, and a million dollars in cash. He fired several shots, but into the
walls and ceilings rather than at the kids. “I don’t think I can kill anyone,”
he said. “I don’t think I can do it.” One of the students jumped him while he
was gabbing on the phone, and disarmed him. When police asked where he’d gotten
the idea, he told them from an airliner hijacking story on TV. Oh, and from a
paperback novel called Rage .
    Seventeen months later, a shy 17-year-old named Dustin
Pierce burst into a World History class at Jackson, Kentucky, High School with
a .44 Magnum and a shotgun. He shot into the ceiling and told teacher Brenda
Clark and about a dozen of the students to leave. He held 11 others hostage
while police surrounded the building and a SWAT team was flown in by
helicopter. Pierce, meanwhile, flipped through Clark’s grade book and remarked,
“Look how smart I am. Why am I doing this?” One by one, Pierce let his hostages
go, and by 4 p.m., it was just Dustin and his Dirty Harry revolver. “I became
increasingly afraid he would kill himself,” said hostage negotiator Bob
Stephens. “He seemed to be carrying out the scenario of a book he had been
reading.” The book was Rage . Dustin Pierce didn’t kill himself or anyone
else. He threw out his guns and emerged with his hands up. What he really
wanted, it turned out, was to see his father. And for his father — maybe for
the first time — to really see him .
    In February of 1996, a boy named Barry Loukaitis walked into
his algebra class in Moses Lake, Washington, with a .22 caliber revolver and a
high-powered hunting rifle. He used the rifle to kill instructor Leona Caires
and two students. Then, waving the pistol in the air, he declared, “This sure
beats algebra, doesn’t it?” The quote is from Rage . A phys ed teacher,
in a commendable act of heroism, charged Loukaitis and overpowered him.
    In 1997, Michael Carneal, age 14, arrived at Heath High
School, in Paducah, Kentucky, with a Ruger MK II semi-automatic pistol in his
backpack. He approached a before-school prayer group, paused to load his gun
and stuff shooter’s plugs in his ears, then opened fire. He killed three and
wounded five. Then he dropped the gun on the floor and cried, “Kill me! Please!
I can’t believe I did that!” A copy of Rage was found in his locker.
    That was enough for me, even though at the time, the
Loukaitis and Carneal shootings were the only Rage -related ones of which
I was aware. I asked my publishers to pull the novel from publication, which
they did, although it wasn’t easy. By then it was a part of an omnibus
containing all four Bachman books. (In addition to Rage , there was The
Long Walk , The Running Man , and Roadwork — another novel
about a shooter with psychological problems.) The Bachman collection is still
available, but you won’t find Rage in it.
    According to The Copycat Effect , written by Loren
Coleman (Simon and Schuster, 2004), I also apologized for writing Rage .
No, sir, no ma’am, I never did and never would. It took more than one slim
novel to cause Cox, Pierce, Loukaitis, and Carneal to do what they did. These
were unhappy boys with deep psychological problems, boys who were bullied at
school and bruised at home by parental neglect or outright abuse. They seem to
have been operating in a dream, two of them verbally asking themselves
afterward why they did what they did. As for what was going on with them before
they acted:
    • Cox spent several weeks in an LA
County psych ward, where he spoke of putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the
trigger.
    • Pierce was collateral damage in an
ugly divorce; his father left and his mother often talked to the boy about
killing herself.
    • Carneal was bullied. In addition, he
suffered from paranoia