Bowling for Columbine

[Mercutio]

Bowling for Columbine just came out on DVD, at least in the US.

1. I thought it was a fantastic documentary.
2. It's about guns, and it's admittedly by a "shrill voice" of the left, Michael Moore.
3. ... who happens to be a member of the NRA, an organization not known for its leftist politics.

I thought it was thought provoking and at times profound.

I'd be interested, if anyone else sees the movie, I'd be interested in hearing what you think as well.

 

[flagreen]

Yeah I saw it at Hollywood Video but he just pisses me off too much. Is he a gun owner or did he just join the NRA for hoots?

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently, he was a state marksmanship champion while he was in high school.

To me it didn't sound like he was saying "take away guns" at any point, but the central theme to the movie is "Why are Americans so violent?". The question doesn't get answered.

Yes, he pushes his political agenda somewhat - namely the removal of W. from office and universal health care - but to me, someone who admittedly agrees with most of Moore's opinions, it seemed like there were a lot of valid points in the narrative even outside that political aspect, like demonizing the black man and the role the media has in maintaining a climate of fear (e.g. "Escalators: Stairway to Disaster" reports on the evening news).

 

[flagreen]

Champion shooter? That's suprising. I might give it a try if there's nothing better to rent one day.

 

[Howell]

I don't think much of him and I do not intend to waste money. It appears you have been mislead about this "documentary". It fact, upon being confronted about the numerous inaccuracies in Bowling MM retorts, "It's entertainment."

MM overview.



Apperantly not only is his "documentary" full of holes, what comes out of his mouth on a regular basis is the stuff of urban legend.

 

[cquinn]

I don't think much of him and I do not intend to waste money.

Your choice, but it would seem you limit your own position to argue
against his work by that stance.

It appears you have been mislead about this "documentary".

It appears you are reading more into Mercutio's opinion on the movie
than he has stated. He doesn't seem to be coming across as a MM
cheerleader here. You don't have to agree with something to find
it thought provoking. In fact, most of the time that causes the opposite
reaction.

It fact, upon being confronted about the numerous inaccuracies in Bowling MM retorts, "It's entertainment."

That would put him a leg up on Ann Coulter then.

We seem to live in an age where leaning to a more extreme position gets
you better airplay than trying to be a voice of moderate reason (Oh, wait... I think that has always been the case more or less).

As someone who lives an hours drive from Columbine, I'm glad that
someone can create a documentary coming from a different viewpoint of
looking at that tragedy and the possible causes for it.

 

[Mercutio]

I prefer the more cerebral left-wing talking head humorist-type (e.g. Al Franken). Moore makes a lot of emotional appeals and doesn't get too wrapped up in details.

As I said above, I agree with a lot of what Moore says. He *is* shrill. Purposefully so. He jokes about it in the movie (When he comes through the front door of a corporate office, PR-types start heading for the windows).

I think there's a good point to that as well. A major element of Moore's work to date has been the idea that corporations should be held to a far higher standard of accountability than they are.

 

[Pradeep]

I won't bother wasting a Netflix rental slot on such pure fabrications.

I've seen the part where he makes it look like you get handed a gun when you open a bank account, too bad he missed out the fact that is was a multi thousand dollar CD and you were getting advanced interest. Oh yeah and the little thing about the background check.....

 

[Mercutio]

Actually, that's in the movie, too. The bit about need a substantial deposit and a background check.

Again, this isn't someone who takes an anti-gun stance.

 

[Jake the Dog]

'twas very sad to see Mr Heston suffer from foot-in-mouth.

I'm glad you brought it up Merc. slo crostic and I saw it about 2 months ago and we thought it was to quote you verbatim "... thought provoking and at times profound." we talked about creatiung a discussion on it on SF in fact however my main concern was that I feared it would viewed as an attack on American pro-gun sentiment, rather than a opinion, despite it being just the latter. the ideas was to ask Pradeep and Howell (and Flagreen too) what they thought of it but they haven't seen it and it appears they are already too biased against it to be able to form even the slightest of objective opinions.

the doco does raise serious questions to which no-one was able to give any sort of half-decent answer, certainly not any of the pro-gunners. I mean, why on earth is it even at all necessary to offer a deadly weapon as part of a new account package???

 

[Howell]

I don't think much of him and I do not intend to waste money.

Your choice, but it would seem you limit your own position to argue
against his work by that stance.

Your wording is vague but I'm going to assume you mean I shouldn't dismiss him out-of-hand due to his politics. The fact of the matter is I don't. I pay attention especially to those who have an issue and the the guts to stand on a soap box. What I don't appreciate is MM's willfull misleading of his audience. There has been plenty written about it for me to not have to do the research myself. If MM would pay me himself to see the movie, I'd see it; otherwise I have no intention of supporting him.

It appears you have been mislead about this "documentary".

It appears you are reading more into Mercutio's opinion on the movie
than he has stated. He doesn't seem to be coming across as a MM
cheerleader here. You don't have to agree with something to find
it thought provoking. In fact, most of the time that causes the opposite
reaction.

Far be it from me to assume Merc meant any thing other than he wrote. He didn't say it was a fantastic movie or opinion piece. He said it was a fantastic documentary. By it's very definition, you would expect documentaries to be accurate. There are enough facts lacking in accuracy in this film that they should rescind his Oscar after re-catagorizing it as fiction. This is as bad as Eric Blair and the NYT.

It fact, upon being confronted about the numerous inaccuracies in Bowling MM retorts, "It's entertainment."

That would put him a leg up on Ann Coulter then.

We seem to live in an age where leaning to a more extreme position gets
you better airplay than trying to be a voice of moderate reason (Oh, wait... I think that has always been the case more or less).

As someone who lives an hours drive from Columbine, I'm glad that
someone can create a documentary coming from a different viewpoint of
looking at that tragedy and the possible causes for it.

Leg up on Anne Coulter, huh. Do tell.

It is not enough to have a "shrill voice" and produce entertainment. But no one claims Gilbert Gottfried as a documentarian. You must also produce a work of factual accuracy. Does living relatively close to Columbine give you some kind of authority on whether or not MM's work is factual?

I'm glad there is someone willing to take a stand for what they believe in. There are far too many people who stay mum in the effort to remain "a voice of mederate reason". However, his credibility is reduced by constantly repeating factual error. Seriously, read the MM Overview link above and the Snopes link.

 

[Pradeep]

the doco does raise serious questions to which no-one was able to give any sort of half-decent answer, certainly not any of the pro-gunners. I mean, why on earth is it even at all necessary to offer a deadly weapon as part of a new account package???

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't cumpulsary to take the gun, you could choose to get normal interest on the CD instead.

I guess I just don't see a problem in a law-abiding person (one who has passed the background check) from possesing a device made of metal and wood, which some people demonise as a tool of satan and "evil" all by itself. Of course all the druggies etc running around with illegal weapons do concern me, but adding new gun laws/banning certain categories of handguns in Australia, etc ad nauseum only affect the law abiding people. It makes them less able to defend themselves from the criminals who by definition do not obey laws. Guns are already out in the community. If there was a magic pill we could all take and suddenly all the guns on Earth dissapeared, then perhaps it makes sense. But it can't happen. Of course in Australia if you do happen to defend yourself the civil libertarians will be baying for you to be put in the big house, and chances are the police will be locking you up, and letting the criminal free with a slap on the wrist.

There was a time in Australia when young boys would take the tram to go out plinking with their .22s Try that nowadays, SWAT will be all over you in a second. There was no intent of mass murder in their minds.

There has been a change in culture where it is now OK to stab/beat/shoot someone to death because they stole your car park spot. Gun laws won't change that. It's a much more complex issue, and I don't have any easy answers.

 

[Howell]

'twas very sad to see Mr Heston suffer from foot-in-mouth.

I'm glad you brought it up Merc. slo crostic and I saw it about 2 months ago and we thought it was to quote you verbatim "... thought provoking and at times profound." we talked about creatiung a discussion on it on SF in fact however my main concern was that I feared it would viewed as an attack on American pro-gun sentiment, rather than a opinion, despite it being just the latter. the ideas was to ask Pradeep and Howell (and Flagreen too) what they thought of it but they haven't seen it and it appears they are already too biased against it to be able to form even the slightest of objective opinions.

the doco does raise serious questions to which no-one was able to give any sort of half-decent answer, certainly not any of the pro-gunners. I mean, why on earth is it even at all necessary to offer a deadly weapon as part of a new account package???

There is nothing keeping you from introducing a discussion on the topics contained in the film. If you wish to discuss the film itself you will have a smaller discussion. Do you not realize that you can't have a discussion of opinion. If the discussion is to go anywhere beyond a fleshing out of the reasons behind the opinion it will have to turn to a discussion of the in/accuracy or alternative viewpoint of those reasons.

Regarding offering a firearm to new accounts: I can't imagine what the bank was thinking. It doesn't seem like a very attractive marketing campaign considering how small the likely pool of candidates would be.
I'm also not sure how a bank can give you a gun without an Federal Firearms License.

 

[Jake the Dog]

Of course in Australia if you do happen to defend yourself the civil libertarians will be baying for you to be put in the big house, and chances are the police will be locking you up, and letting the criminal free with a slap on the wrist.

the thing is though, there is no need to defend myself with a gun because the likelyhood of an attacker having a gun is very, very small. now if I were to arm myself despite this very, very small chance I would need to defend myself with a gun, then what's to stop my neighbour arming himself in case he nees to defend himself against me? what about his neigbour? all of a sudden we'll have guns and then what? are we safer?

the situation is of course much different in the US.

There has been a change in culture where it is now OK to stab/beat/shoot someone to death because they stole your car park spot.

oh puh-lease. we're talking about Australia here, not South Africa and I'm pretty sure it's not OK there either.

 

[Pradeep]

The problem is that since the "buy back" of '96, the rate of home invasions has increased. Now wasn't the point of the "buy-back" to make Australia a "safer place"? Surely it wasn't because Little Johnnie doesn't like them and apparently his wife is calling the shots regarding his gun policy.

Now there is certainly no requirement that you be armed. You certainly have the option of dialling 000 and hoping the cops get there in time. And I don't know about you but I'm be just as scared is someone broke into my house with a knife, a baseball bat, a golf club or even his bare hands. In any case we would probably both have been killed, you because the police didn't turn up for half an hour, and me because I couldn't find the keys to the bloody gun safe Anyway I use my guns for target shooting paper and steel targets, and hope I never have to point one at a human being. The thing is that there is more to guns than pumping bullets into living flesh. To me they are tools.

WRT the culture change, what I was trying to say was that it seems that in current times, violence is often the first option taken. Not OK in terms of general polite behaviour but OK in terms of the social group in which these people exist. Now 30 years ago, there were still guns. But were there mass shootings in schools like we see today? Teachers getting stabbed? Old grannies getting raped? The mere presence of a gun doesn't cause all that to happen, they have been with us for many years. People have changed.

 

[flagreen]

I don't own a gun now. Nor have I ever owned a firearm. In 51 years here living in America I've traveled wide and far yet never have had anyone so much as confront me with a gun, let alone fire one at me.

I don't like the idea of the government telling me that I can't own one someday if I choose to. To me that is the same as them telling me that I cannot defend myself and my family. So I'm glad we have the Second Amendment giving me the right to own one.

 

[Howell]

the thing is though, there is no need to defend myself with a gun because the likelyhood of an attacker having a gun is very, very small.

The point is not to get a gun because your attacker may have a gun. The point is to have the capability to defend yourself when faced with a life-ending circumstance.

You are a big guy and since guns are not prevalent in OZ you might do well enough with a cricket bat. But many ladies (and I dare say myself) do not have that same capability when faced with a threat. It's possible that I might be able to hold my own against an attacker with identical weapons; but I don't want to take the chance.