Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine is a documentary by Michael Moore that came out in November of 2002 highlighting the United States obsession with guns. Moore travels across the country interviewing people to try to determine why this is such a problem for our country, but not any other country in the world. In particular he took a look at Canada as they have so much less gun violence per capita than the US.

The film begins in Moore’s hometown in Michigan as he begins to talk about how the small town loves it guns. Everyone you know has one and everyone knows where to get one. Moore highlights how simply easy it is to get a gun. To prove this, he goes to a nearby bank that advertises that if you open up an account with them, in return you will get a free firearm of your choice! Moore asks the question, is it right, or maybe is it just a little bit dumb to be handing out guns in a bank of all place? They turn out to be a certified arms dealer. I found that very strange and it just proves how obsessed with guns we really are.

We move on from the gun bank to another group of people in Michigan. This group took up their own arms and didn’t seem like they messed around. They called themselves the Michigan Militia and were a heavily armed group of individuals. They claimed that they did that in order to protect their family and loved ones, that if they didn’t who would, The police? They did not seem to have much faith with the justice system and honestly kind of seemed like doomsday preppers, like they were ready to go to war any chance they got. They show this group because one of their members became radical and they needed to highlight that not all of them were like that at all, that many of them were actually just normal citizens and members of society. Moore then showed a commercial of kids running around with toy guns that made noises and everything. In this commercial the police ran over to the kids and started playing with the guns. This was dumbfounding to me because imagine how the police react when children have guns in recent times, often times It seems like the child ends up dead.

Next we finally get down to the real purpose of the documentary. Moore brings us to the small town of Littleton, Colorado where on April 20th, 1999 nearby Columbine High School was attacked by two young men named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold heavily armed with guns and explosives. 15 were killed and 24 were injured including the eventual suicide of the attackers. This was the biggest school shooting of its time and rocked the country to its core. Littleton was a small town where most people knew each other. Columbine shooting really drove fear into the people living around, everything was not as safe as they had thought, especially with their guns. One of the people Moore interviewed talked about the culture of fear that the shooting created but couldn’t finish because he got choked up. It just terrified him that two people could commit such an evil act. Just down the road from Littleton a company that makes missiles for the US government, Lockheed Martin, was greatly moved by the shooting. In an interview a worker there told us about how many of the workers there had children that go to Columbine. The company eventually donated $100,000 to a fund that would help with anger management in schools. I think that this was a strange way to help out because do they really believe that if they gave Eric and Dylan anger management classes that they wouldn’t have committed such a heinous act. I think people with that much hate in their heart cannot be helped by anger management classes.

Following Columbine, it seems like people were angry about parenting, television, drugs, video games, EVERYTHING. They just needed something to blame for such a tragedy. Marilyn Manson a punk rock singer was very popular during this time and was listened to by the shooters. Manson became the poster boy for fear. Many blamed him for spreading hate. He says that he is not to blame, he’s just playing some rock music and he shouldn’t be looked down on for being himself.

Moore then goes back through the history of the US and shows how we have evolved and grew on hate and conflict. The issue of race relations has always been a big problem in our society. It seems like white people are very afraid of the black man, they simply drive fear into