In France 255
In Canada 165
In Britain 68
In Australia 65
In Japan 39
In America 11,127 PEOPLE ARE KILLED A YEAR!!!
This is a huge number just for gun deaths.
But who is to blame for all these gun crimes and deaths? The Media? The President of the USA? Marilyn Manson? Bowling? (This is a joke that Moore makes during the film because that is what the two boys did before they killed all those children at Columbine school). He leaves you to decide but hints that it could be all 3! Marilyn Manson comes into the picture because he got sued for encouraging violence with his aggressive music and videos. On the other hand, the media are encouraging fear into the eyes of the Americans. All they care about are reviews and money. Every show there is an article either about killer bees, razors in apples, raiding foxes, mental disorders, and of course GUN CRIMES!
This is bewildering because Canada fool around on violent video games and are one of the first countries to view violent films. So, how come their gun related death rate is down? This is because the media doesn’t frighten them with every type of scary article they can find! They have the same laws as pretty much as America! Canada are not perfect though; you sometimes hear horrifying stories about gun related deaths, for example, a 6 year old girl was shot by a 6 year old boy who had got hold of a gun from his parents house. No-one has worked out why he killed her yet.
For instance, a little 6 year old girl was killed by a 6 year old boy with a gun. When the media arrived, one station only cared about their hair, rather than the sad story of the little girl.
This leads me to the massacre of Columbine school. Who influenced those two little boys to kill 12 children and 1 teacher and also wound may others? That is everyone’s question, but Moore tells us the answer if you listen very carefully, the answer is, The Americans as a country! If the civilians do not have the right to own or purchase a gun without a special licence then none of this would happen.
Some of the techniques Moore uses are really different: such as when he shows the 911 call from the teacher of the little 6 year old shot by the boy. He only shows the words with a black background, this really brings out the distress in the call and got everyone’s attention. It also shows you how the police deal with this incident. Michael also does lots of random interviews to normal civilians to show that it is not planned and read from a script which makes you feel weird a the Americans do not even care about what is happening Around them in their own country.
Heavy guitar chords are used to create tension in the film which have a great effect because they make you feel as though something is about to happen. In other clips in the documentary he shows real footage of the panic that guns cause. He showed the actual CCTV footage of the massacre of Columbine which was really sad as you could see the sadness in the children’s faces as the two children murdered so many people in a matter of minutes.
Who influenced these two boys to do it?
My personal response to this film is shocked, and motivated to help the fight to get rid of guns, because he proves to us that guns are life-taking weapons. Maybe if we all got rid of our guns in the world we would have a safer world and gun related deaths would almost vanish straight away!
However, the question I am left telling myself is…
Who influenced those two boys to commit this massacre?
