Bowling for Columbine

[lapietra]

Just saw it today - great flick. Made me angry, sad, disgusted - I laughed, I cried. Not too proud of being an American right now.
I agree with the IMDB review - Michael Moore's style of interviewing is a bit on the offensive and I think it worked against him somewhat - but on the whole the film communicated some great ideas to chew on.
Anyone else seen it? I'd love to know what others think-

[AllegroNg]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh have you read his book? Arrrr.. just makes me want to pack up and live in the woods to get away from the political madness!!

[saskuoch]

You know, in other countries people who saw it didn't think "Wow, that exposed a lot of things that America should work on. People who oppose gun control should think long and hard about what their advocating. And that Michael Moore...what a crazy guy!" No, no. They said "Ha! Proof that all Americans are loony! Just look at them over there, all shooting at each other, young and old alike. And then they go and make movies about it for entertainment! Damn Yankees."

[lapietra]

Well - not that they needed any more proof that we're loony. :) Not that other countries aren't - the thing is, our forms of looniness seem to be harmful to each other, whereas other countries' forms of looniness are just, well, funny.

[Miss Malevolent]

I'll pose this question, like I did in my forum.

HOW do you get rid of all the guns in this country?

I'm not interested in a bunch of stats rattled off at me. I'm more interested in how you're going to take away guns from every person in this country.

[NekoPunk]

*claps for miss m.*

it'll never happen.

it's funny, cause i live in the south, and have for most of my life, and i also am attending college down here. my college is a ... ahh... best described as a very high class redneck college. ^_^;; my roomate is from NYC. she was genuinely shocked at how many people down here have guns. i've never given it a second thought that eveyone i know owns a gun... but now i realize that it's a huge part of our society down here. you'll never take these people's guns away from them.

[saskuoch]

Maybe you can take away everything that's not good for hunting. The people I know in the south would let that slide. But no way in hell are you gonna take away their right to shoot at animals in the forest every fall.

[lapietra]

You know - Moore made a really good point in the movie - Canada (for example) has just as many guns as we do - but they don't use them on each other.
It's not the guns. It's how we relate to each other. Tho' the "History of White Folk in the US" cartoon by Parker & Stone was funny and simplified things quite a bit, the fact is, our culture is largely about domination, control, consumption, and a good healthy dose of fear & paranoia. Instead of trying to take away the guns, it would be better to join with those who are trying to teach people not to fear each other, and how to communicate better. (I kinda feel a similar way about drugs... but that's for another thread.)
Just my opinion.

[Miss Malevolent]

America has 287,675,526 people within her borders

Canada has 31,902,268 people within her borders (Or a tiny bit smaller population than California)

We have more people, and have more diversity among those people than Canada.

Just because Canada is our nearest predominately English speaking neighbor, doesn't mean that our problems or solutions are anywhere near the same.

All of us holding hands and singing Kumbaya together is not going to stop all this violence and insanity. Sorry.

[NekoPunk]

canadians have guns?? :confused:

who'da guessed? *L*

[lapietra]

Miss M -
It appears you've misinterpreted or, perhaps, insufficiently digested my comment. I was not suggesting any sort of quick fix for our problems. I loathe the ideology that there's some sort of spiritual airy-fairy solution to the reasons we choose violence and controlling behavior over intelligent communication. However, the only long-term solution that will work (as opposed to trying to disarm everyone - which would probably be about as effective as the "drug war" has been to stop illicit drug sales & consumption) is to consistently choose to support groups and individuals that use positive and empowering communication as their tool for change, instead of those that prefer to keep certain groups ignorant and fearful.

[Miss Malevolent]

I read your statement and understood it clearly.

I merely pointed out to you that Canadians aren't the stick you or Michael Moore should be judging Americans by.

As to your, "more education and understanding", (paraphrasing of course) comments above, you have heard of the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.", right?

This country has had more education about EVERY conceivable thing, and yet it just gets worse as the years go on. Look at sex education. Sure the AIDS cases amonst GAY men have gone down through education and counseling, but among heterosexual women it's gone up. Not to mention the numerous other 18-25 year old diseases out there like HPV.

I only bring up the sex ed thing to show as an example, that this country's youth/general populace is not necessarily going to pay attention to some treatise to, "just all get along". I think that's just too simple and easy a solution.

[Miss Malevolent]

Originally posted by masterofNone
See, I think it's a semantic problem. Even if you take the most extravagant view of the "the right to keep and bear arms"... even if you exclude the part that stipulates it's "to maintain a well regulated militia" then you still have to realize the meaning of the word "arms" just doesn't mean the same thing as it did in the latter half of the 18th century. This was a time when rifling, revolvers, integrated shell casings, none of these existed yet. If you wanted to shoot somebody you had to bundle a lead shot with powder and wadding and ram it into your barrel. Misfires were common. Reloading took minutes. You had to be a pretty good and confident shot before you thought about firing at a human target because if you failed to kill, you had better be prepared to run.
The framers of the constitution meant THAT when they were talking about "the right to keep and bear arms". Not assault rifles. Not saturday night specials. I'm for everyone being able to keep and bear flintlocks. Beyond that... I don't believe anyone has a right to bear any arm they choose.

Else, why would we be going after Saddam? He's only exercising his right to keep and bear nuclear arms.

I have to say that, that was a good read.

But just to be devil's advocate, you could say that about many of our rights in the various documents of our democracy. Take for instance The Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson. When he wrote the line, "That all men are created equal", he wasn't talking about blacks (cause he owned slaves) or women (even though men is in the word). So we shouldn't have read more into those words to be all inclusive, because during his time only WHITE men were created equal.

But all of that gets off the track. The question I would pose to Michael Moore, and those that think that there shouldn't be any guns in this country is, HOW do you get rid of them? I seriously would like to know how it would/could/should be done.

[lapietra]

Ms. Mal -
I was responding to your comment re "joining hands & singing Kumbaya". Statements like that are reductive, and that particular phrase didn't reflect what I actually said. Hence my response.

I'm still not convinced that you actually considered, absorbed and responded to the actual content of my response. But hey. It's not that important. Certainly nothing to get into a brawl about.
What's sad is that it illustrates exactly what you've just said - you can lay everything out for people - but if they're viewing it with the lenses of well-formed opinion, they'll see what that makes them see, and react accordingly.

[Miss Malevolent]

Originally posted by lapietra
Ms. Mal -
I was responding to your comment re "joining hands & singing Kumbaya". Statements like that are reductive, and that particular phrase didn't reflect what I actually said. Hence my response.

I'm still not convinced that you actually considered, absorbed and responded to the actual content of my response. But hey. It's not that important. Certainly nothing to get into a brawl about.
What's sad is that it illustrates exactly what you've just said - you can lay everything out for people - but if they're viewing it with the lenses of well-formed opinion, they'll see what that makes them see, and react accordingly.

I guess, but none of what you said addressed my question, which is, HOW do you get rid of guns in this country.

You have said, "Let's educate and try to understand each other better." How does THAT get rid of guns in this country?

[lapietra]

AAAAAAAAA! :)

I *said*, YOU CAN'T! That's *my* answer to your question. You never will, any more than, as I alluded to in one of those posts, you'll get rid of drugs. People will always want to get high (I know I do), and people will always be able to make or find weapons.
I don't believe we should get rid of guns, or anything else for that matter. I think we should strike at the root of the problem - which is that our culture gives people so many reasons to be disgruntled, and unhappy, and dissatisfied and so few ways to alleviate those feelings - so many quick-fix promises; a golden carrot dream that for some is just a boring old turnip. Or worse, a big spikey stick.
When I talk about empowerment, what I mean is, to empower people to make themselves happy and satisfied, and not need to make others scapegoats for their anger and dissatisfaction. And it's not just guns we have to worry about.
I'm so sorry - I really want to say more about this - but it's 1 a.m. and my brain wants to go to sleep... I know we're on the same team here... violence bad, right?

[Miss Malevolent]

Well, I think I've been verbose enough in this thread, so I'm going to make this my last comment as well.

Personally, I don't think you'll get rid of the guns in this country, ever and I don't see anything wrong with that.

I don't live in the best of neighborhoods, and yes we have a shotgun for those that would come in our house. Three women in the house, myself, my mother and my niece. The shot gun is locked away in a case so that there isn't an accident. And quite frankly, the familiar *click click* should send any potential robber or rapist fleeing.

I'm no card caring member of the NRA. I don't care about their politics. I'm not being fed some paranoid claptrap. I know what I see. I see a drug dealer that I grew up with dealing from his house on the corner. I see the neighborhood thief and crackhead that my mom grew up with who lives right across the street. And I see various other undesirables that know to stay away from our house.

I'm not interested in having an AK-47 in my home. Nor anything fancier than a shotgun or handgun for self defense.

And let me stop the person with the easy answer of, "Well, you should move to a better neighborhood". Some people do not have the means to move to a better neighborhood. And my neighborhood wasn't always this shady. And let's be honest, even the best neighborhoods have the worst scenarios of crime from time to time.

How do we make everyone happy and satisfied in this country? We can't. More money/stuff, more problems. And as was stated earlier, we're a country of consumers. The more we have the more we want. So we will always be unsatisfied.

I simply believe like all great empires (Rome, England, hell even France), this one will self implode before we become some mecca of spiritual enlightenment and understanding.

[lapietra]

I agree that more money & stuff won't make people more happy... I think we should try to work a culture where money & stuff *doesn't* masquerade as the solution to happiness. That is what I meant by empowering people to create their own happiness and satisfaction.
I also agree with masterofnone - we *should* continue to dream of a day when people will give up their guns - but it would be more realistic to give them reasons not to choose to use them.