British Medical Journal 2002;325:1247 (
23 November )
Reviews
Film
Bowling for Columbine
A film by Michael Moore
UK release date: 15 November
In this darkly humorous feature-length documentary, campaigning journalist and
filmmaker Michael Moore sets out to ask why Americans kill each other at a far
higher rate than citizens of other Western democracies. The figures he gives are
staggering: in a year in which Germany had 381 fatal shootings, France 255,
Canada 165, and Britain 68, the United States recorded more than 11 000. This
total is far higher than could be accounted for by the difference in population.
So what is it about the States that makes its people so trigger happy?
Moore's premise is that it is all to do with the availability of firearms. He
chillingly details the ease of supply: there are so many guns slopping about in
the marketplace that even children as young as 6 have been able to pick up
weapons that have been discarded on their parents' floors. Where else but in the
United States could you find a bank that's a licensed firearms dealer? Want a
new rifle? Open an account and get one free.
Bowling for Columbine takes its title from the fact that only hours before they
massacred 13 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on 20 April 1999,
schoolboy killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had gone ten pin bowling. One
minute Harris and Klebold were striking skittles with a bowling ball, the next
minute they were striking their fellow students and teachers with rounds of
ammunition.
Moore shows how in America firing bullets is just another activity, much like
bowling. In his home state of Michigan, every season is hunting season. He
visits a militia group where one camouflage-clad member proudly proclaims: "It's
an American's responsibility to be armed. If you are not armed, you are in
dereliction of your duty."
Moore makes no concessions to the glib, public relations obsessed culture of
corporate America. Dressed in ill fitting jeans and a baseball bat, he openly
confronts anyone who could be regarded as an apologist for the gun
culture<Picture: --->from managers at the head office of K-Mart, the chain store
that sold the bullets used in the Columbine High School massacre, to actor
Charlton Heston, the president of the National Rifle Association. Shortly after
the Columbine killings, and in the face of fierce demonstrations by families of
the victims, an unabashed Heston led a NRA rally in Denver, Colorado, to assert
his belief in Americans' right to bear arms.
In the end, Moore, a self confessed member of the NRA, convincingly suggests
that the number of fatal shootings in the States is about more than just the
availability of firearms. Canada, for example, has 7 million guns in 10 million
households. What makes America different is gross inequality and fear: fear of
crime, fear of aliens, fear of killer bees, fear of each other. And, he says, a
nation that afraid should not have so many guns and bullets lying around.
Trevor Jackson, assistant editor.
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