Self obsession is one of the issues that were discussed in the interview of Oprah Winfrey and Michael Moore. It appears to me that people have forgotten how to talk things out peacefully anymore, it is also frightening to realise that that almost all of the citizens in America owned a personal gun. Is violence the best way of defence? The culture of possessing a gun just goes to prove how insecure they are in their country. The reason for the possession of a gun most people had was due to self-defence. However, in the case of the killings that had occurred within Columbine high school, as far as I know, the students owned the guns and had planned the mass killings ahead of times, they told their friends about the idea of mass murder, but nobody took them seriously. The impression of “getting a free rifle with a new bank account” I have is that people treated guns like they were toys, and it felt as if people owned guns for the sake of having one. If more guns made people safer then America would be one of the safest countries in the world, but it isn’t, it’s the opposite.
In addition, the interview of Oprah Winfrey with Michael Moore shows what a huge impact the documentary had on its viewers. It opened up all sorts of controversy and sets people thinking about why we have so much anger and violence. It allows us to look at ourselves from within, how people behave and how the society structured the world to become what it is today. It seemingly appears to me that people are blinded by fear and sunk into the culture of killing. The shocking issues is that the public has irrational fear of things that did not matter as much, for instance , instead of being worried about issues such as poverty and how to overcome it, people are more self-centred and paranoid. A quote by Arthur Busch demonstrates what I have said: “The American people are conditioned by network TV, by local news, to believe that their communities are much more dangerous than they actually are. For example, here in this community crime has decreased every year for the past eight years. Yet gun ownership, particularly handgun ownership, is on the increase.”
The media also played a huge role in fear-provoking the citizens of the United States, the quote provided by Professor Barry Glassner “… I did discovered that the murder rate had gone down by 20%, the coverage, that is how many murders are on the evening news, had went up by 600%”. This issue bothered me as it gives me the impression that people are becoming frightened of the wrong issues and the ignorance of the world out there just made it seem more terrifying.
Violence is also one of the major concerns in American, the quote supporting this statement “I just think the States view of everything is fighting. That’s how they resolve everything. If there is something going on in another country, they send people over to fight it. Canada is more – let’s negotiate, let’s work something out, where as the States is like, we’ll just kill you and that will be the end of that.” It looks as if that people in America are brought up like that, thus creating so many issues on violence.
Furthermore, the controversial issues of the blacks and the whites are discussed in the film and in the interview of Oprah Winfrey and Michael Moore. The African Americans are often portrayed as the criminal or the bad guy by the media. The quote being “No, they’re not making it up, but they’re choosing what they’re covering. If you turn on the TV, look at the news, what are you going to hear about? Dangerous black guys, right? Unnamed black guy who is accused of some crime.” Another quote given by Professor Barry Glassner is “You’re going to see black guys doing bad things, or hear stories about black guys doing bad things. And we’ve heard this our whole lives.” These two quotes just go to prove how the Americans are being brought up. They relate everything bad and frightening to the black, which is, to me, an unfair and unjust treatment to the blacks. It in a way made the whites appear superficial and shallow as they judged the minorities by their skin colours.
“You know, the thing I love about this country of mine is that, whether you’re a psychotic killer, or running for president of the United States, the one thing you can always count on is white America’s fear of the black man.” proves how the blacks are being treated with prejudice in the country. They are often accused of things they did not do, and are often judge by the whites in an unreasonable manner. It does not occur to me that it is a better place now than it was before even though people spoke a common tongue. In fact, it just seemed worse as people start to discriminate the minorities. With the barbaric behaviours of the killers mass killing and the educated people discriminating the minorities. It makes people wonder what our world has turned into. A breeding ground for more violence and discrimination? Probably.
On the other hand, there are also those who believe that the issues of violence and ownerships of guns are appropriate. They are the NRA. Although they claim that guns are only used for self defence, there are also those who have stolen guns for other purposes other than self defence. The misuse of gun could be avoided if they were made less available to the people. Innocent lives are sacrificed due to a misuse of guns, for example the killings of student in Columbine. In my opinion, “The biggest problem has been the gun possession by these adolescents in suburbia.” The six year old boy killing his classmate as the gun was of easy accessibility. All of these could have been avoided if fewer guns are involved. And with fewer guns, there would be less violence, more peace and security for the citizens of America.
Thus in conclusion, I believe that more effort could be put in to stop all the issues of fear, killings and discrimination. Most of the issues could be avoided if people stopped being so paranoid and self-centred. I believe that the issues on killings and violence can be resolved peacefully without the involvement of guns. If people were to trust each other more, the world would be a much better place to live in.
