Bowling for Columbine

HAs anyone seen the movie? I saw it and was alternately disgusted and amused by the movie.

Michael Moore abuses his pulpit by presenting half-facts and spins on the truth to make his argument seem all the more compelling.

I was scared by the fact that people were applauding during and after the movie.

Half-facts and spins on the truth? What are you referring to, exactly?

I saw Bowling for Columbine. It's one of my favorite Americans I've seen this year - I was alternately amazed and impressed. I have a few misgivings about Michael Moore himself; I don't like how he says things like 'rich white people', when he arrived to the DC premiere of the movie in a stretch limousine. But I digress. I think it's an important movie, and I appreciate how Moore actually raises questions that he doesn't know the answer to this time around. I'd love for TWT to watch it - it doesn't take a specific stance on the issue of gun control or media violence, so much as it forces the viewer to question his own stance. I was also pretty shocked to learn that Moore is an NRA member - I respect him all the more for it, because that means he's questioning his own beliefs in the process of questioning larger issues.

The packed house I watched it in applauded, too. I haven't heard applause in a movie since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

You gonna post back about this flick? I'd love to tear into it with you. What disgusted you? Why did it scare you that people were applauding?

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Do a web search or something on Roger & Me. The guy has no qualms about misrepresenting things to try to get his point across. I haven't seen Bowling for Columbine, but if his past work is any indicator, I'd be surprised to hear that this one is totally honest/legit. Anyone who takes this stuff seriously, or views it as any kind of documentary, or any real journalism, would do well to reconsider and place it under the "For Entertainment Purposes Only" header.

I know all about what he did with Roger & Me, and it has a bit to do with why I'm not a fan of him. But I want to know what he did with Bowling for Columbine. I saw nothing in the movie, apart from walking into people's houses, that could have been preplanned or altered. If anyone can send me a link, please do.

Well, I can't comment on the movie because I didn't see it. But on a rhetorical aspect, if anyone has to present gun rights, gun violence, the NRA, etc. in a light which is favorable to the left, then the facts have been distorted. This is simply because the facts, and especially the logic, are on the side of gun rights. If you can find a bookstore objective enough to present both sides of the issue, peruse the shelves for volumes regarding gun control. There are currently 4 or 5 bestselling books, and scores of others, all written by reputable researchers, which determine that gun control simply does not work, while presenting compelling reasons why the 2nd Amendment is so important to all of us-- and why guns reduce crime.

Only one major volume has been written recently in favor of gun control, and it has been widely panned-- by both right-wing and left-wing-- as a dishonest and distorted piece of "journalism." The book, Arming America , by Michael Bellesiles, won an award after left-wing media pundits vacuously praised it as some great "eye-opener." Never mind that he disregarded material which contradicted his position, or that he fabricated records and other historical information to bolster it. The award he won for this sham of a book was at one time in danger of being repealed.

The books which research the issue and tell it like it is, are:

Richard Poe, The Seven Myths of Gun Control

John Lott, More Guns, Less Crime (The definitive source for the truth about the gun issue.)

Wayne LaPierre & Jame Jay Baker, Shooting Straight: Telling the Truth About Guns in America

Aaron Zelman & Richard Stevens, Death By Gun Control

Daniel Polsby (Independent Institute), Firearms and Crime (Nothing less than a purely objective study of guns and crime backed by solid numbers and statistics.)


Also, just because one has a membership to the NRA, doesn't mean one is in favor of gun rights, or the 2nd Amendment. For all we know he just recently purchased such a membership in an attempt to make his filmmaking viewpoints more convincing. Or he could be flat out lying. Michael Moore has demonstrated before that he is perfectly willing to be less than honest in order to carry out his Socialist agenda. He has a political ax to grind.

okay, how about the fact that he equates gun deaths with earning a living or gun deaths with military action. C'mon at least he could get his cause and effects straight.

Why go after Dick Clark? Why not go after the owner of the gun who killed the little girl.

Why didnt he include Russia in his tally of national murders?

What does Lockheed-Martain have to do with Columbine.


What scares me about all this is that people that think what MM says is the gospel.

Yeah, everyone in this thread so far has taken his word as gospel...

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The Dick Clark thing, which gets pointed out in every single review of the film - professional or otherwise, I think is a pretty clearly the same retarted logic that blames say Marilyn Manson for Columbine, but just turning it the other direction to see if anybody notices. Few seem to. Of course Dick Clark himself has no direct link to the school shooting in Michigan, but neither does Marilyn Manson for Columbine's incident. Yet, the media and a seemingly large (or at least vocal) portion of this society seems to see some kind of simplistic a to b progression in the latter.

When somebody shoots up a joint and in their home later is found heavy metal music or pornography or video games or whatever is being popularly demonized this week, there's always that contingent that says 'See, those are clearly horrible influences.' Yet when someone shoots up a joint and all that's back in his crib is a bible and Cheerios, nobody starts calling for them to be banned. Somebody who reads say the bible or sees the animated Colonel Sanders on television or hears commanding voices coming from their dog and finds some kind of personal message that tells them to kill others is "insane". Somebody who listens to Ozzy Ozbourne records or plays Dungeouns & Dragons and finds personal messages telling them to kill is being "influenced" by evil. But they're both equally insane, and the materials are equally blameless. At least that's always seemed crystal clear to me.

Marilyn Manson/Dick Clark - neither is the root of this problem. Get it? All things considered, Moore was much more polite and gentle to Clark with his stupid and clearly unfair questions than the media and protesters are/were to Manson. But I guess if you're in the camp that actually thinks song lyrics can "make" people kill, then you'd probably never get the satire of the same ludicrous tactic being used on a Dick Clark.



Yeah, and I too, like Steve, would like to see a list of supposedly incorrect statements or stats presented in Bowling for Columbine. Give us those links, folks. Surely since Michael Moore is such a crass, one-sided infotainer, these horrible liberal lies must be numerous and easy to spot for those of you not blinded by his style and point-of-view? Has Rush Limbaugh or anybody on the other extreme side taken to say Chuck Heston's defense? I've heard a couple mumbled smatterings of "edited comments" here and there. OK, please put the proper context in which the "mixed ethnicity" line is not racist bullsh!t.

Man, I can't wait for this DVD. I hope Moore puts every single unedited second of Heston footage on there as a supplement. Not just to silence the "edited comments" folks, but I'm curious how that entire meeting went - every awkward moment of it.

*URP*

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Charlton Heston was on Saturday Night Live once, and he was hilarious. Does anyone remember the stockboy skit?

Dictatorships are usually preceded by a massive gun control effort, if not an outright gun "grab."

Do you ever stop to think what would have happened to the SA and the SS if the Jews of pre-war Germany had been armed and not easily intimidated?

You are so right. The historical litany behind this truth is simply staggering.

As a coincidence, shortly after this post was started, the author of that one gun control book, Michael Bellesiles, had resigned his post at Emory University. He was unable to substantiate the errors, fabricated data, and lies that were consistent throughout the book. The report which was charged against him was published by scholars at both Harvard and Princeton, so claiming it was a right-wing witch hunt will be difficult, to say the least.

When will the gun grabbers learn they have nothing invested in their position besides fear and loathing?

Isn't it interesting that Marilyn Manson is, far and away, the most eloquent, intelligent person Moore interviews?

I figured that there would be a discussion of this movie going on already.

Oprah did an entire show about this movie yesterday (11/1).

I saw Bowling for Columbine, which I thought was a very, very good film, because it depicted the fanaticism with guns that a lot of people here in the United States have, and the racism that often goes hand in hand with it. It's well worth seeing, imho, and a lesson for many people.

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"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)