Summary of Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore's documentary, Bowling for Columbine, is a deep look into the violence and paranoia that exists in America. Moore uses the tragic story of the shooting rampage carried out by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold where twelve students and a teacher were killed and twenty-four others were wounded. Moore begins the movie by showing how easy it is for Americans to gain access to guns by going to a bank in Colorado and starting an account for which he is rewarded with a "free gun." Moore then portrays the ridiculous reasoning for owning weapons "for our protection." He goes to visit the Michigan Militia where one main claims that he has an M16 as a defense weapon at home that he kept loaded at all times. When he visits Lockheed Martin, a large weapons production facility near to Columbine High School, the director of facilities claims that the weapons were meant as weapons to be used against agressors. But, Moore references many cases, like the war in Iraq and the overthrow of numerous Latin American governments showing that our weapons surely were not used in self-defense. This brings up the question, What are they used for then? Moore claims that they are used for murdering other Americans. Moore claims that while the number of fire-arm related deaths in other countries is very small, the number in the United States is over 11,000. Moore claims that these deaths are caused by the society of fear that we live in. Moore believes that because of the paranoia that our country lives in and our media feeds to us every day, we cant help but want to use guns as a protection against a world that is seemingly "out to get us." Moore points out that Canada was a much more accepting country when he travels across the border and he notes that every person he talked to in Canada didnt lock their door and saw no reason why to do so. Moore shows that because of the prominence that violence has in our media, we are bombarded with bad news stories. To Michael Moore, America is a "society based on fear and consumption" and this leads us to be more prone to violence and mistrust of others and this fear and consumption essentially led to the shootings at Columbine.

Michael Moore's movie really showed me how prominent the bad things that happen in life are in our society. The media always tends to cover tragedy in our society more often than the good things that happen. This movie really helps me to realize the fear and paranoia that I experience and the biases that I have on how and where that violence occurs. While I dont feel I have a need to protect myself with an fully-loaded semi-automatic M16 in my house, some people do. However, it doesn't seem right for someone to have the right to that kind of weapon because when put into the wrong hands it can be devestating. In the movie, Moore references a horrible shooting by a six year old boy at a grade school in northern Michigan. The boy was able to get his hands on a hand gun and when no one noticed that he brought it to school, he shot a little six year old girl because he didnt know what he was doing. The availability of these kinds of weapons scares me. The recent shootings at VIrginia Tech are a good example of this case. Why was a man deemed mentally unstable able to get a gun so easily? I for one believe that it isnt right to have things that are so visibly deadly so easy to access. It seemingly contradicts the right to life of every human being because they will have to live their life knowing that they may be one of those 11 or so thousand people in the U.S. who are murdered every year by guns. To me it seems totally morally apprehensible for the United States to allow such liberal firearms laws to exist that make these weapons so easily accessible and make the tragedies so possible.

Return to Matt's Jr. Theology/Morality Homrpage