No longer in print

Rage is the title and the topic of this book. Stephen King wrote it in 1977 en published it under the pen name: Richard Bachman. It was the first novel he published under this name and more were to follow.

Charles Decker is a high school student and he is full of rage. This results in a school shooting. The how and why of it you can read in this novel; that is if you can still obtain a copy.

This book is linked to several shootings in the US during the '80's and '90's. With all of those shootings a link from the shooter to this book was established, either a fysical copy or before the incident the shooter (often) mentioned it to others. Finally somewhere in 1997 Stephen King was so alarmed that he took the book out of print. It has been unavailable as a new print ever since. So if you want a copy you need to get your hands on a second handed one.

The first question to ask is, why are these shooters so full of rage? The second is, why do the Americans have such stupid weapon laws?

Although I cannot say for sure, the answer to the first question is probably: because of the environment they live in. The answer to the second: I really don't know (but maybe it can be the same as the answer to the first). I do know that the lethality of the issues might be a lot less, if it was way harder for the Americans to get firearms and other weapons.

Luckily I am not full of rage (and I have a lot of problems getting a firearm in the first place) and I liked reading the story, eventhough it has a dark edge because of the above.