In Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine he addresses the United State’s gun policy
and the repercussions of this legislation throughout the country’s history.
Personally I’m not a huge fan of Moore, but his approach is to agitate viewers
to drive his point. Viewers should not hesitate to see this film if they aren’t
a Moore fan because this documentary focuses on uprooting common perception of
crimes in the U.S. with real statistics. He offers a view outside of the
mainstream media that disrupts American viewers’ perspective of gun violence.
In my opinion the most shocking fact that Moore presented
were the amount of deaths in each country caused by guns. The U.S. had a
whopping 11,127. And yeah I just said whopping because every other democratic
nation had numbers in the hundreds. The difference is astronomical, and
throughout the film Moore discovers why.
The main reason people owned a gun was for their own
protection. A member of the Michigan Militia told Moore that it’s “American
tradition to be armed,” and if you didn’t possess a gun then you’re an
irresponsible citizen with no means of protection. People fear crime because of
the constant stream of images they receive in the media, yet crime rates are
going down. Moore calls out the media for hyping up stories about killer bees,
Y2K, and poisoned Halloween candy, and he also pays a visit to the creator of
the hit show Cops.
Moore confronts the creator about his popular recurring
story line of showing black and Latino men being arrested more than any other
race. The creator claimed that he didn’t know how to tell any other story. This
is the story constantly being told to American viewers: crime is rampant and
guns are the answer.
But how do viewers internalize this message? Power lies in
the gun not the person. A young man Moore interviews says that he was placed at
number 2 most likely to call a bomb threat, and he thought that at least he was
number 2 at something in his town. Guns get attention and people listen to your
gun if they ignore your voice. When Moore asked Marilyn Manson what he would
say to the Columbine shooters, Manson said he wouldn’t tell them anything just
listen because nobody else did. Moore does a great job at telling all sides of
the story (clearly pushing his opinion), but with skilled montage editing
techniques he paints a convincing picture of the United State’s disturbing gun
policies compared to other nations.
I was shocked too that the number of deaths by guns in the US was in the 11 thousands, espescially when you compare that number to the mere hundreds in other countries. I think you make a great point when you say that power lies in the gun not the person. I personally think that we have become desensitized to guns because they are constantly being displayed on tv, and in video games, etc. I feel that people tend to forget just how dangerous guns really are, and that they, like violence in general have become glamorized. It is really sad to think that these shootings like the one at Columbine could have been prevented, had people been more informed about gun safety, had the ease of access to guns had been restricted, or had someone, like Manson said, would have just listened to these kids. But the only messages that many of the youth receive come from the tv. And if these messages are strictly of violence and the use of guns to solve problems, its not surprising that such tragic events occur.
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