Bash Him All You Want, But Do You Have A Better Answer To Moore's 'Columbine' Query?

Just saw Bowling For Columbine again and, as usual with Michael Moore, I am left feeling that I shouldn't entirely agree with him; he often seems to find two or three points and keeps hammering them...but find myself incapable of offering a satisfactory refutation of his claim.

To remind those who have seen the film, or inform those who haven't, the central question Moore asks in Bowling For Columbine is " Why does the USA have so many more murders per year then any other comparable nation?"

He examines standard responses, and refutes them.

* Guns: According to statistics, Canada has as many guns/person as the USA, but only averages around 150 murders/year whereas the US averages almost 12, 000.

* Violent History: Moore cites examples of nations such as Germany Britain, etc. which have at least as violent a past, yet also average something like 100 murders/year.

* Violence in Media: Moore cites various cultures exposed to ours and their own violent medias, like Canada, oe Japan, but again they have nothing comparable; Japan averages something like 50 murders/year.

* Population Density: Again, Japan, Britain and others are even more densely populated, but don't have anything like the same number of murders.


Moore's conclusion is that we are conditioned to live under fear, and to respond with aggression, in a way completely unlike any other nation. Our cultural, economic, and even sports related priorities place winning above all others, and tend to engender a Me-First attitude which, when coupled with the heightened sense of fear in the country, leads to people " Looking out for No. 1" to such an extreme that violence is a much more acceptable means of resolution to our problems than it is for other countries, and he sees this as from the top down; ie we use military reactions quicker than other industrialized nations, and so on down the line, until you get the fact that the average Joe is much more likely to reach for a gun to resolve an argument south of the US Canada border than he is north of it, where the government tends to preach moderation and diplomacy.

In terms of the atmosphere of fear, Moore goes across the border into Canada, and asks several resident questions, and finds that many people, in Toronto, the 4th largest city in North America, don't even lock their doors, and when he walks unannounced into several homes he is met with questions and curiosity, maybe even initial apprehension, but no violence or confrontation. Even more telling is that he interviews several Americans who come over to Canada simply because it's more relaxed, tolerant, and peacefull. It should be noted that most of these were African-Americans, and part of the implication was race-related.

I can attest, having lived in both countries, that his position on the atmospheres is, in my experience, bang on. I have lived in NYC and Florida, and worked in L.A., and Toronto is nothing like those cities for omnipresent tension and fear. Nothing even close. Most people I have ever talked to about differences between the two countries speak of similar experiences.

So I ask you...even those who disagree with Moore's politics, speaches, etc....how do you answer his question? How do you account for the fact that countires like Britain, Japan, Germany, etc...with somewhat comparable population bases, annually have murder rates ranging from 35-150, while the USA has 11, 000 plus?

Do you concede his point? If so, what can/should we do about it? If not, what is your explanation?

 

I heard about the back-lash to Moore about the Heston interview before I saw the film, and while I did feel some sympathy for Heston, who really came off as a nice old man ( emphasis on old) man person to person, I didn't see that it was that big of a deal...until he did the bit with the picture of the little girl, which was melodramatic to the extreme. But the questions he asked, and even the way he asked them up to that point were, I thought, pretty reasonable.

That Heston was given a 'low blow' is only an understandable reaction if you assume that he can safely assume that a member of the NRA wouldn't ask him tough questions, which if true, says as much about the kind of person in the NRA as it does about Moore or Heston.


But, SJC, this wasn't so much about the film in and of itself as the primary contention. Do you agree with Moore's conclusion?

 

I'd agree. The guns/person ratio may be as Moore depicts it, but in Canada the vast majority are hunting rifles, and are owned by rural residents. You just don't see anything like the number of privately owned handguns, which aren't used to shoot anything but human beings.

 

Some worthy thoughts, and I'd think that disparate wealth is a problem here, and a growing ine ( as stats show that more and more you are likely to live and die within the same economic level you were born into...the American Dream is going the way of the dodo..) but Moore dealt with this in the film, and the mayor and police chief he interviewed said that while the popular opinion is that most shootings occur in the inner city, the real problem is with suburb teens from middle income level families. They said that there is an inner city problem, but not as bad as advertised, whereas there is a real suburb teen problem that no one is addressing.

And Moore examined ghettos as a part of his culture of fear premise, and went to Compton, which was a pretty laid back area unlike the depiction of it in popular media.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy or range of these two points from the film, but they were addressed. I take it you have not seen it; if you are interested you should.

 

You would if you've ever been to D.C. Incredible...blocks of brownstones with Jags and BMWs in the driveway literally right next to blocks of some of the scuzziest slum buildings you'll ever see. Unbelievable.