Has anybody seen Michael Moore's documentary film <i>Bowling for Columbine</i>?

It looks at why the gun murder rate in the US is so disproportionately high when compared to other countries. For example, Canada has something like 60 gun murders a year, even though gun ownership levels are similar to those in the United States. The US has 11,000 gun murders a year.

Australia has a population about 1/10 the size of the US. However, Australia's gun murder rate is less than 1/100th that of the US.

If you've seen the film, do you agree with Moore's conclusions?

If not, what do you think the explanation for such a high rate might be?

Yeah, I saw Bowling For Columbine. I thought it made some excellent points, and brought to light some very concerning facts. I think his point about the media preaching fear to the american public has a lot to do with it. The part of the movie that showed that reporter joking around right before reporting about the girl who was shot really made me angry. In fact, a lot of the movie made me angry. I think he was very smart to present it in a semi-humorous fashion, it still got the message across but made it tolerable to watch. Something you don't see often, well done and necessary comic relief.

i thought that bowling for columbine was a well done film, and it's point was very good...i really enjoyed it a lot, but my only problem is at the end when he interviews charleton heston....and then heston walks away, and michael moore leaves the picture of the 6 year old girl who was shot in michigan behind....man o man that got to me...powerful stuff...

go see it!!

Has anybody seen Michael Moore's documentary film Bowling for Columbine? Best American film in ages. I'm hard-pressed to think of a film that matches its subtle pathos.

Since people are spoiling--and it's been a fair period:

- Lockheed-Martin employee not seeing the connection between world's largest weapons manufacturer and local violence.
- Envy at being second-most-likely violent suspect.
- Walking into houses in Toronto.

It's a great film. One of the most American expressions of America in a long time. Relentless, sweeping, and ironic beyond measure.

I nominate for the amazing contrast point the anti-marijuana commercial currently making the circuit in the US where two kids are getting stoned and one accidentally shoots the other. Are we not supposed to notice that these loving parents who don't notice that someone's been huffing bong rips in the den also leave loaded guns around the house for children to find and play with?

Suffice to say that I'm all behind Moore on this one. I mean, come on ... people actually think like that in this country. Given the number of accidental and intentional shootings among children each year (http://www.childrensdefense.org/ss_gvfs_protchild.php), shouldn't we be focusing on the guns and not the dope?

:m:,
Tiassa :cool:

that's deffinitly the best movie i've seen in a while. the whole part about living in a culture of fear is so true. it had never really ocured to me. after i saw it i watched the local news and even the relativly small city i live in they are always trying to warn you about dangerous things. it almost seems like they have to make stuff up at times.

the part about the gun culture was not so jarring to me. I have met some people like that, who own dozens of guns. though very strange, i don't think they are a huge problem.

overall i have to say i agreed with the movie. and rate it as one of the best i've seen in the past 5 years.

His film Roger and Me is another of his which is very well done.

i saw it. agreed with the whole thing. i thought the cartoon was especially funny. marilyn manson was also good.

Well, he did a good job of skimming the surface, but America is way deeper than that. The best part was when the got Walmart to stop selling ammo. I almost cried... I am a guy by the way.

While watching the movie, I remembered an old cartoon where two characters pulled out elementary weapons at each other. They tried to out-do the other with a bigger weapon until one of them got a gun bigger than the world, and then he blew up the world. It was from the 60's or 70's. Guns go way too far back....

Also, remember the Simpsons Halloween where they all disarm, and the Aliens in the space ship say: "Soon they will have boards with nails, and then bigger boards with bigger nails. Until thier boards and nails get so big that they destroy the world." Think about that. Humans in general are too violent...*Bush hint hint

marilyn manson was also good.

I thought that this was a very odd angle to pursue. Of course kids go to his concerts because he advocates many immoral themes. He is not totally innocent at all. He is a very bright dude, but music has a huge subconcious influence on people. He did make a very very good point that he is just a product of America. Who can we blame but ourselves for making a counter-cultured musician?

I just watched this movie.
Finally.

I think the authors level awareness about welfare and the African Bees was very out of the ordinary so to speak.

Most people that don't live under the welfare system actually promote the whole retarded work program.
It basically says that in order for you to get foodstamps, you are required to attend this orientation meeting that gives you an introduction to the program.
After that, you are required to volunteer 26 hours at one of their registered work places and do a few other things.
It's supposed to train you to work so you no longer need to be on food stamps.
In fact I didn't get my foodstamps this month because I forgot to call them.
I better go do that.


WorkForce is the name of the government employment agency.
It's a great resource for people that do want to work.
They help people get full time jobs.
I go there once in awhile to use their fax machine and printers
which are freely availavable to the public.

They work with all kinds of employers and workers.
They provide employment training, access to more schooling, free clothes for people that don't have any business attire, computer, resumes, and various other services.

The Department of Children and Families is in charge of the food stamps.
They have an office at WorkForce for the food stamp program.
The food stamp program works with WorkForce to make people on food stamps get work.
Basically, Dept. of Children and Families sends food stamp applicants to the food stamp program at WorkForce.
As long as the person abides by the reqirements of the food stamp program using the resources at Workforce, their foodstamps will not be cancelled.

Anyway, the whole deal with that program is basically to force people to work.
The money the government spends on these rediculous programs could supply everybody in this country with food.

Another fun issue he brought up was the "African Bees".
Weather intentional or not, it's a psychological condition that implants an association of danger/threat to Africans/blacks.
These associations even exits in the people they actually work against.
I can go out in my all black neighborhood (litterally, there are No white people in my complex), and ask them where they think AIDS most likely came from.
"AFRICA".

Were you aware that when you give blood, the Red Cross not only asks you if you're HIV positive, but goes through this whole questionaire about
weather or not you've been to Africa, been married to an African, had sex with an African, had sex with somebody that has been to Africa, had sex with a person that had sex with a person that had sex with a person that had sex with a person that flew over Africa on an airplane, on, and on.

Needless to say the whole "AIDS came from Africans having sex with monkeys" is the biggest joke.
Some flight attendant supposedly brought it to the United States.
Not only is there no substantial eveidence of this, there is no remote indication of anything that would support this theory.

They might as well have said Europe, Asia, Austrailia, and God forbid, America for all it matters.

"AFRICA!"

Guess where the first "real" AIDS case actually occurred.
After the first case, they started to make some COMPLETELY INCONCLUSIVE reports that there were similar prior cases in Africa that couldn't be explained.


Anyway, good movie.
I was kind of upset about the flashing of murder rate numbers on the screen without ratios under them.
America is still the leader why?

I don't have time to explain right now.

Awesome film. I wanted to cry during the part where he visits canada (I'm Canadian :D). I'd love to see Heston assasinated. That would be the icing on the ironic (or possibly vanilla) cake.

Roger & Me was definitely good, but I think The Big One is even better. Micheal Moore is an unbelievable person.

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I saw the movie a couple of days ago. Now, I don't know squat about Heston nor cared for his movies. As a person though, he is one heartless son-of-a-bitch.

Moore showed a lot of restraint. I probably would have throttled the guy right then and there.

And I don't think anything really conclusive came from that film as to why murders with guns are so much higher in the US.

I suppose I'd have to ask JamesR what conclusions he refers?

Moore's thesis seems to be that there is a culture of fear in the United States - mostly a fear of strangers (people of other races, classes, nationalities etc.) This is largely fed by, and is perhaps a result of, reports in the mass media which greatly exagerate particular threats to people's safety.

People who live in fear of other people coming to attack them or their families are more likely to invest in a weapon to "protect" themselves. They're also more likely to take a pessimistic view of the motives of other people, to the extent where a "pre-emptive strike" can even seem like a good idea. Also, by exagerating a threat, they may feel that a more "final" solution is required - hence the gun.

There is a culture of fear in the US. Moore is its king, god, and head cheerleader.

I thought the movie made some really great points (over all I thought it was quite a bit better and more damning than F 9/11).

That said, I found moore takes it too far (as he always does). So far in fact that his exaggeration blunts many of his credible arguments. In Bowling for columbine for example I found his attack on charlton heston and dick clark unnecessary and just plain mean (the linking of clark and gun violence was so tenuous that it made moore look worse than clark in the end). Why does he insist on weakening an already good argument with that kind of blatant nonsense? It would have been a much stronger piece in my opinion if he'd just stuck to the facts since they speak very strongly for themselves.

I'm in moore's camp in a political sense but I put him in the rush limbaugh/bill o'reilly camp but of liberals instead of conservatives. He gets attention and makes good points but ends up diluting the good stuff with ridiculous over simplification and exaggeration.

Well I don't beleive it is Moore's intention to provide answers as to why whats happening is. But to raise the questions that everybody should be asking. The big question is always 'Why'. And I think that's awesome.

And yeah he's a total showman. But that's part of why what he does and says works. Its because he has peoples attention whether they want to or not.

Pangloss:

Have you watched the news lately?

last gun murder here was about 5 months ago, most of ours are arsen, biggest killing spree ever: 3 old guys shot in a veterans home for which the guy responsible is now serving a ridiculous 30 year sentence with paroll.
a few years ago i went to canada to visit relatives and stopped in america on the way over
in LA: i saw at least 50 gangsters and there was a hobo every 20m on the sidewalk
in toronto: walked right thru the city and saw 3 dodgy guys who might have been gangsters and 2 hobos

the living standard in america are so much lower that people feel they have nothing to lose by going on a killing spree hence the reason there are so many

And yeah he's a total showman. But that's part of why what he does and says works. Its because he has peoples attention whether they want to or not.

I agree totally but if you accept these antics from people like michael moore you have to accept them from people like bill o'reilly. I've always considered o'reilly the lowest form of journalism, he's basically a weak propagandist that spends far more time distorting facts than uncovering them. Unfortunately I can't say moore is any different, he just attacks the same issues from the other side.

So, as much as it pains me, I'm forced to admit moore is as bad as o'reilly for the most part. I think it's appropriate that the extreme left has a counter balance to the extreme right but it should be recognized for what it is.

The United States per capita, murder rate for gun control usuallly falls at about #10 in most states I have seen. Sometimes 9 and sometimes 11. I tried to find a few links to post in the time I had but only found one. It is on www.cartercenter.org. It's hard to get an "apples to apples" comparison because some countires are in civil war and are not listed or are in war (like many middle eastern countires S. American counties or Counteries on Africian contient) and I am surmising that many "war deaths" could be homicides that were just not discoverd as such or reported as such.

I saw the M. Moore movie too and concured with almost all of it except for his dismissal of the poverty crime rate link. He at one point contracted his notion that crime rate was not linked to poverty when he did the moving section on the 1st grader in the ghetto of Detroit (was it Detroit?) who shot another kid in school. Another time he contradicted the violence/economic link was in Roger and Me when he shared statics of the rising crime rate in Flint right after the layoffs.

What would be really interesting though, and i would love to know about is comparing the United States, not to Cananda but more to Mexico and South Afirca. Mexico because their culture has had a larger impact on us and it is a much more violent country and South Africa cause they are the kings of violence of the world.

Also, Ireland tends to have a high murder and crime rate and I surmise many middle eastern countires do also (though stats on them seem hard to come by), and I an wondering how much of a role religion has had on increasing the crime rates of those countires.

I would say my favorite part of the movie was when he interviewed the Michigan Militia. their attitudes are common in people down here in Texas and I saw a lot of militia mentality when I lived in northern Cali. As a matter of fact I saw quite a few rebel flags on trucks up there......somehow their local hicks though Cali was a part of the confederacy way back when.......

If you want to read some scary stuff you should see the brady website sometime.....they is a heavy dose of reality .....

In this play-by-play article, Hardy claims 'Bowling' is deceptive fiction:

Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive.

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

And another article making similar claims. I would tend to agree with Fritz in that Moores argument was difficult to pin down, hence my comments above. Of course, I would have to sit down and compare these articles to the movie and the facts to see if these claims are credible.

"Bowling for Columbine" is more of the same. Although, like Stupid White Men, it's full of hilarious moments, Moore can't seem to keep his facts or his arguments straight.

Beyond the satire and the fabrications, just what is Moore's argument? It's often hard to tell.

Moore contradicts his own thesis that foreign bombing leads to domestic gun violence when he approvingly notes that the United Kingdom, which played a leading role in bombing Yugoslavia with the U.S., had only 68 gun homicides the same year America had 11,127.

Repeatedly, though, he returns to the issue of fear in the movie, claiming that excessive coverage of gun violence by the media makes Americans scared of each other and therefore more violent. This circular argument doesn't make any sense either. On the one hand, Moore has made an entire film purporting to investigate why the U.S. has the highest rate of gun violence in the developed world. He then attempts to answer the question by theorizing that the media provides too much coverage of gun violence, causing citizens to fear each other. If gun violence is really so bad, though, shouldn't the media be covering it and don't citizens have something to be afraid of? And if the media is indeed over-covering the issue and America is safer than we think, why did Moore make this film?

Satire is not an excuse for dissembling. Great satirists like Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain used hyperbole as a form of social criticism. Michael Moore, however, uses lies, distortions, and nonsensical arguments to mask cheap attacks and promote his own political agenda. Take him seriously at your own risk.

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html

Again, I don't think the conclusion drawn were that clear so its difficult to comment on whether or not I agree with Moores argument, that is, if I can nail it.

Yes, I would agree the media sells negativety and fear, but they do that everywhere. Moore made reference to Canadas media as being almost opposite of the of the US in that they don't appear to promote the same fears - I say horsepucky. The same stories that appear on US television appear in Canadian homes, reported by their own networks and through widely distributed cable and satellite links to US programming.

Who needs American satellite when we now have all these great digital cable channels and our own satellite providers with all this vibrant programming? The answer is very simple: Canadian TV sucks, satellite, digital or analog. Canadians are tired of waiting three years to see TV shows from HBO when they finally show up on network television, tired of being stuck behind the aging iron curtain of Canadian broadcast regulations and bored with the lack of choice provided by Canadian networks, all of whom are owned by the same three corporations.

http://www.legal-rights.org/newspapers/may27gazette.html

The movie is absolutely terrible. Moore is a media whore and little else. He's not very intelligent, and he very often misleads the viewer. A perfect example is the opening scene of the movie. Moore makes it look like the band offers you a gun for opening an account without really any background check or serious precautions. In fact, the gun takes a long time to get, a complete FBI background check is done and the complete process for gun ownership must be taken. Moore also points out how terrible it is that a bank simply has guns sitting in the back. In fact, the guns were storred in a vault a four hour drive away. Moore had to drive after getting all the background check done to the holding place, get the gun, and then drive all the way back so that he could film himself triumphantly walking out of the bank with a gun. In short, he completely mislead the viewer.

He is an absolutely terrible filmaker and his style borders on mockumentary it's so appaling. It certainly isn't a documentary; there is far too much bias and outright lying to call it that.

Another example is his condemnation of the NRA holding a meeting close to Columbine so soon after the shootings. Shame on the NRA, right? Well, except because of state law it actually would have been illegal for the NRA to have changed it's date. Or how about the horrible speech by Heston that seemed so inconsiderate to the poor people of Columbine?? It was three speeches from three different days spliced together and edited. Like the part where he holds up a gun and says "they can pry it from my cold, dead hands"? Yeah, he's talking about a gift that was given to him.

Moore is basically what he preaches against; he is selling based on fear. A large section of North America's population is strongly (and blindly) anti-Bush, and Moore simply plays into their fears about the state of the US. He pushes falsities and exagerates (and fakes) occurences to make his opinion more valid. In my opinion, Bowling should have it's Oscar taken away, it's not a documentary.

http://www.hardylaw.net/replytomoore.html

Oh, and just so you know, I am about 100% anti-Bush and anti-Republican. This is just a reall yshitty movie.

I like Moore and I would love to see F 9/11 sometime, but for some reason, Bowling for Columbine ticks me off in a few ways. And I believe in gun control and replacing personal protection guns with non lethal devices. I'm not NRA card carrier.

There are two things about BoC that irk me. Firstly, Moore claims that Canada has more guns per capita than America. Last time I checked, Canada has about 10-11 million firearms, including policemen's. America has about 250 million. Clearly, per capita, America has more guns than Canada, unless someone cares to argue this. Secondly, Moore mistakes the Lockheed-Martin factory in Littleton as a WMD plant when it really just makes satellites. Why doesn't he attack that Ford dealership near Columbine for building Jeeps which are used by American military? Or how about that Spam factory for feeding soldiers?

Lastly, the most annoying thing about Moore, for me, is his infatuation with Canada. I live in Canada, and it's nice up here, but it gets irritating. One can see Canada has a region that is one-third the size, in popullation, of the Northeastern United States, which is about as liberal as Canada. Major Canadian cities like Vancouver and Toronto have their American mirror images in Seattle and Cleveland, respectively. Most of urban Canada is just an hour or so away from America anyway.

On top of that, nbachris, I don't know where the hell he gets off with the "Canadians don't lock their doors" bullshit. We do just as much as Americans. Like with many of his "facts" this was really just a sort-of-loosely-based-on-possible-real-things-that-seem-kind-of-likely Michael Moore style "fact" than, ya know, something that's of any value what so ever in a debate.

One last note (for now):
In the last twenty years homicides by gun have gone down almost each year in the U.S., while media coverage has done the exact opposite. If that doesn't completely contradict Moore's thesis (providing he actually will take this as his thesis; like Q pointed out, there really isn't any arguement in Bowling), I really don't know what would.