Bowling for Columbine is an interesting and entertaining documentary about the state of
gun laws and violence in the United States as compared to similar countries. In the film
Micheal Moore asks questions such as, “Why do Americans kill each other with guns 10
times as often as other countries?” and, “What could have caused the massacre at
Columbine in Colorado?” While these questions may not be answered specifically during
the film, many interesting and sometimes horrifying facts are brought to light.
Clearly Micheal Moore does not support the current gun laws in America and makes
that very clear, nor does he seem to care for the practices and ethics of the NRA despite
being a lifetime member. Through out the movie various scenes are shown of Charlet on
Heston, the NRA president, making completely inappropriate speeches at the worst
possible times.
Shortly after the Columbine shootings he is shown yelling, “From my
cold dead hands!” while lifting a rifle into the air before a cheering crowd of NRA
members. While this may seem bad enough as it is, this “pro-gun rally” as Micheal
Moore calls it is actually being held in Littleton, which was where the shootings took
place. Moore goes as far as to personally interview Heston and ask him to apologize for
going to towns to hold rallies just after tragedies have occurred. Of course Heston
declines and proceeds to turn his back on a picture of a little girl who was shot and killed
in another school shooting.
Another major issue presented by Moore is the idea that the media presents minorities
in a bad light, particularly the evening news and the television show COPS. On the
evening news every night in America viewers are shown murders and various crimes
committed by the anonymous “urban” male.
Even while crime rates are steadily
dropping year after year the rate of murders shown on the news has gone up 600%, which
brings the viewers to believe that the crime rates are actually on the rise. The constant
push of crime on the news is instilling fear and hate in the American citizen. Hate for
races, hate for your neighbours and hate for youths. Moore believes that if American
news programs showed more general interest news, like the ones in Canada, and less
glorified violence, that it would be less likely to be responsible for spreading fear and
racism.
The big mystery in Bowling for Columbine is the amount of gun related deaths in
America when compared to counties such as Canada. According to the movie there are
165 gun related deaths a year in Canada whereas there are 11, 127 in America a year.
So
the big question is why are Americans killing each other so much compared to
Canadians? Moore gets input from random Americans in the street about why they think
this phenomenon is occurring and some of the answers border on comical. Suggestions
are made that Canadians don’t watch as many violent movies which is of course a
ridiculous idea. Others think that Canadians don’t own as many guns as Americans but
it’s revealed that in the 10 million homes in Canada there are 8 million guns. Any
realistic theories to what may cause such a large amount of gun deaths are not brought to
light and the only answer that anyone can give is a simple, “I don’t know.”
Some scenes and some of Moore’s practices while making the movie have been taken
into question.
Some say that Moore’s film was not a documentary at all, but simply a
cleverly edited together movie to try and push his particular beliefs upon society.
Whether the film is a documentary or just an entertaining movie, Moore definitely gets
some valid points across, and important questions asked. So why do so many Americans
kill each other with guns? I don’t know either.