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??

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?