Stephen King Slams Jim Jordan Over Gun Control

Horror author Stephen King isn't shy when it comes to making his political opinions known and now he's focused his attention on Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan over gun control.

Jordan was one of the many Republicans to not support a package of gun law reforms that passed in the House of Representatives last year. The Protecting Our Kids Act passed by a vote of 223 to 204 in June 2022, just over three weeks after 19 children and two adults were killed during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. However, rising gun death rates and mass shootings have made gun rights a divisive topic in the country. Proponents of gun control often cite school shootings among emotive examples of the need for greater restrictions, while gun advocates have previously stressed the need for armed security in public institutions to counter the possibility of such attacks while maintaining the constitutional right to bear arms.

"The Second Amendment is as clear as it gets: 'shall not infringe on your right to bear arms.' I mean, it can't get any plainer than that, but that's what they're going after. I always tell folks it says arms, not muskets; it says shall not infringe—it doesn't say shall not infringe unless it's an assault weapon, or whatever the Democrats want to go after that particular week," Jordan told Fox News last year.

On Tuesday, King criticized Jordan for trying to link gun violence with the Democratic party. Newsweek reached out to a representative for King via email and Jordan via his website for comment Wednesday.

After police said that at least 19 people had been shot—three fatally—in gun violence across Chicago over the holiday weekend, Jordan shared an article about the news to his X (formerly Twitter) account. He captioned his post on December 26: "19 shot. 3 dead. One holiday weekend. Democrat-run Chicago."

King responded: "Guns, Jimmy. Guns."

Jordan also tweeted about homicides in Philadelphia. He shared an article to his X account that said the state had recorded its 400th homicide of the year last week after a 58-year-old man was murdered.

He wrote: "Philadelphia recorded its 400th homicide of the year last week. Police say a 58-year-old man was the 400th murder victim. That same evening, a man was gunned down in a triple shooting. Who's in charge there? Democrats."

King retweeted Jordan's post and once again added: "Guns, Jimmy. It's the guns."

The comments section of King's tweets is often flooded by conservatives, and these two posts were no different.

"Funny how the rest of the nation didn't have this, and we all have guns. Perhaps it's not the guns," one user said in disagreement.

"So the guns are magically walking around by themselves and shooting people?
You really aren't very bright Stephen," wrote another.

"Guns don't kill people Stephen King. Violent criminals do. Learn logic," a third person wrote.

However, others took to the comments to support gun reform.

"Funny how there's been no mass shootings in Britain, since gun laws were severely tightened," one user wrote.

"Abolish guns like we did in Australia. Much SAFER," said another.

King joined the Democratic party in 1970 and has been an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump since before the latter was elected president in 2016.

On May 24, 2016, King was one of 450 writers to sign an open letter opposing Trump's candidacy, with the author supporting Hilary Clinton's campaign.

He has also long spoken out on his desire for stricter gun control in the U.S. In 2013, he published Guns, a non-fiction essay on the issue of gun violence. He wrote it after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people. King called for a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, writing "when lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use."

In 2022, he called for "gun control now" following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 14 children and a teacher dead. Posting to X, he wrote: "GUN CONTROL NOW! STOP THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS!"

"Every mass shooting is a gut punch; with every one, unimaginative people say, 'I never thought it could happen here,' but such things can and will happen anywhere and everywhere in this locked-and-loaded country. The guns are available, and the targets are soft," King wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times on October 27, following a mass shooting in Maine that left 19 people, including shooter Robert Card, dead.