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Bowling For Columbine

Bowling For Columbine

About: Filmmaker Michael Moore explores the roots of America's predilection for gun violence. This is not about the film, this is about the topic discussed, 'Guns in the USA'. Based on the evidence given why does the USA have such a high gun related crime rate when other countries do not? Certain possibilities were eliminated:

It is not because...

1. People are allowed to have guns. (Canada has many gun toting people with very little crime)

2. It is not because of the past history of the USA's wars (Other countries have had more of a waring pass)

So what is it?

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I think it is, but not because it has too much wars, but too few. I may be mistaken, but I think the United States is one of the most peaceful countries. It was not involved in many small wars - only in the few big ones, and only when it was necessary to intervene.

The United States was the first country that was founded on base of the French revolution and the enlightenment. From its very beginning, the United States was a peaceful country.

Now, these children that are raised up to these ideals; that are taught to share and care and have to behave according to manners, they may feel, by their human nature, bored. They may want action instead of this almost ideal country, for it is considered so by many outsiders. So I think all of these incidents are to create more tension in the United States, because it lacks some.

Bowling For Columbine History & Civil Business Politics

Are you seing that they killed each other (not only the kinds in the movie but also all the domestic murders )just because they are bored...what about the citizens of Luxemburg for example....they should slather they neighbors like crazy!

The reason must be look elsewhere!

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I am not saying they themselves are bored, maybe they're not. But the country itself, not life, may look boring to them. They probably did not go and say "Hey, this country is so boring, lets have some action", but I think it developed inside some of them while they were raised. It wasn't the reason for which they did it, but rather the explanation of how they developed to be as twisted as they are.

Columbine Bowling

Are you seing americans are twisted? And you should know them living among them and all....even the film itself does'n not offer answer to the question , but raise more . This is more complex then we can offer solution for. The thing is most of my friends want to emigrate but not in US . That is not a country one should raise their kids in. At leas if you are not american yet and have no choice then denial.

Bowling For Columbine

I haven't seen 'Bowling for Columbine,' but I'm not sure it's something I could handle seeing.

I think there are a lot of contributing factors as to why gun use is so rampant in our country, but there are always going to individual reasons.

One reason I believe we have such a large problem is the fact that society doesn't view it as something "all that bad." Look at our movies, music, tv shows, and video games. Every where you look, violence is being glorified. Most of the heroes a lot of these children look up to nowadays are constantly using weapons of some sort or just using violence in some way, whether it's in a movie or real life. Take the incident with basketball game a month ago. Children look up to these basketball players, and they got into a physical fight with fans at the game. Some people grow up thinking in their mind that violence is okay because it's everywhere.

Another reason I think people are so quick to draw a gun is because of the lack of consequences. I'm under the impression that a lot of countries have harsher penalties for crimes. Isn't it in Saudi Arabia or somewhere that if you get caught stealing, you get your hand cut off? Penalties in America are not that strict. Granted, I don't think we should create a policy that says "If you get caught shooting somebody, you're going to have your eyes plucked out," but we do need harsher penalties. Somebody can pull a gun out and shoot another person, and within ten years, they're back on the road. During those ten years, they're shacked up in an air conditioned prison with cable television. That's crazy!

I was watching the news the other day and they were showing the possible prison cell for Scott Peterson. My jaw dropped because his prison cell was nicer than my dorm room. They aren't suffering of any sort when they go to prison.

I think America needs to be taking a stronger stand and making a point to institute it in people's minds that using guns and violence is wrong. How can we expect our crime rate to go down when society makes such a light topic of it all?

Bowling Columbine

Part of what I see as being the "cause" of "gun violence" in the US is the fact that the US was founded on completely different principles than ANY other country in the world. I am sure that there are more than a few people here who will scoff at this idea, but it is true, nonetheless.

Throughout history, Europe has consisted of fuedal based societies. In these types of societies, the rulers own things, the common people don't. Certain elements of society were armed - sherrifs, knights, armsmen, etc. This was true in Britain, Gaul, among the German princes, in the Lowlands, in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Under these types of societies, people were required to depend on other people to defend them.

When people fled those types of societies into the New World, they had no choice but to defend themselves. They became rugged individualists. Required to defend themselves, in verbal as well as physical ways. As they pushed into the wilderness, many of them became excellent shots, able to put a meal on the table with only a single shot. They had to defend themselves from the natives, from other settlers, from criminals. Everyone had a gun, very few ever had to use it for anything other than putting that food on the table. It wasn't like the 'wild west' movies, where everyone was shooting each other. It was the opposite. Society was generally very polite and civilized.

In other places, such as Central and South America, where the lands were colonized by the feudal Spanish and Portugese, this didn't happen. The peons or peasants were forbidden to have weapons, just as they were in the Old World.

However, the vast expanses of the New World allowed the development of different societal norms, even in these countries. The people became restive, defying rule by a distant monarch. Some of those societies became quite violent, as did some elements of the US.

Now in North America, things separated a bit more. During the Revolutionary War, Tories, those who remained completely committed to the British monarchy, ended up (most of them) moving northward into what is now Canada. So, the foundation of Canada was based on the fuedal/aristocratic system of Britain, as well as the fuedal/aristocratic system of France. (I have neve read anything about how the French Revolution affected Quebec, so can't address it at all.)

The French Revolution, while it mimicked the American Revolution, was still founded in the aristocratic ideas of France - so that Napolean was easily (relatively) able to impose a military dictatorship there. So, once again, we see that even with the Revolutionary fervor of a new Republic occuring, the dynamics were very different. The Americans were still out there fighting, using guns, swords, bowie knives, clubs, tomahawks, whatever necessary to defend themselves and build up a nation. The Europeans, on the other hand, including Britain, Ireland, and the Norse countries, were building democratic republics (or republican democracies) and eventually socialist "utopias", in which the citizens were more and more forbidden to take upon themselves the responsibility of defending themselves. It has always been, and still is, illegal in Germany for common citizens to hunt wild game. Hunting is available, but only in strictly controlled, expensive organized hunts.

In the US, hunting wild game is almost a national religion. As rural people moved into the urban settings, they took with them the desires to be out in the open country, tracking down the elusive prey, and afirming that they were still "people of the land." Thus, they return to their distant roots, and affirm the foundation of "rugged individualism".

But how does all this relate to the "gun violence" spoken of in the first post? And, there are others who have posted that Australia and Britain and Canada don't experience the same levels of violence that the US does.

However, recent statistics indicate that Australia, Britain, and Canada ARE beginning to experience the same levels of violence. As they have disarmed their citizens, and forbidden them to even defend their homes with clubs or knives, criminals have become more daring. Last I heard, London is approaching Washington, DC in the rate of violent crime. Violent crime, using a gun, has more than tripled in both Australia and Canada since they disarmed their populace.

One of the worst crime-ridden countries in the world is Mexico. For many years Mexico has been "disarmed". Yet they far surpassed the US for murders, per capita. The weapon of choice was NOT a gun. It was a machete.

I don't know about the movie. There is abundant evidence that Michael Moore twisted facts, misused sources, and made up stories in all of his movies and books. There are lots of places on the Web where you can find extensive discussion about his "facts", methods, and sources. I am not interested in watching his movies, especially when he is, once again, attacking the basic historical culture of the US.

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No, I'm just seeing those who do it as twisted, and their twisting can increase because of the ideals they are raised with.