Bowling for Columbine

Another Michael Moore movie – that makes two in as many days – masochism? No, just an unexpected DVD rental.

The figure that made me gasp, even though I already knew the factoid, was the comparison of the number of gun murders in different countries. It went something like Germany 350, France 250, UK 60, USA 11500. I guess the UK is lower than France as the police do not regularly carry guns. But the US figure was the one that made me gasp. Even though I remembered from Jonathan Raban's chapter about Boston in his book Soft City that the violent death rate in metropolitan Boston in one year was more than in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Perspective, perspective, perspective.

Perspective is a major aspect of the film. Life in the USA seems to be so out of perspective. The main thrust of the film was that gun crime is so prevalent in the US because of fear of the other.

A telling contrast was shown by the interviews with the Canadian people of Sarnia, Toronto and Windsor. Many of them said that they had been burgled, but still did not lock their door (presumably during the day, such as when Moore wandered around one of the Canadian cities opening people's front doors. I guess at night the doors would be locked...) nor would they use weapons on strangers entering their property. In the interview with Charlton Heston we find that he had never been burgled, yet he keeps a loaded gun in the house.

Another contrast was between the cities of Detroit, USA and Windsor, Canada. Although the two citied face each other across the Detroit River (the Detroit and Windsor Tunnel is claimed to be “one of the great engineering wonders of the world” - at one mile long!!) the rate of gun murder is infinitely different (zero in the year of filming in Windsor.)

I enjoyed very much the brief history of American violence by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the makers of South Park.

At the end I was left confused. Where are all the gun related murders taking place? If the poor black-dominated inner cities are not where the guns are, is it just the lower middle-class whites in the suburbs who do all the shooting? What were the families like of the two students who did the shooting at Columbine High? If people are full of unjustified fear about robbers, is it just that they have loaded weapons in their households that are never used? Where is all the killing taking place?

Should Kerry win the next election or not. Will it really make any difference? Despite Clinton's strengths and ability to connect and engage in people outside of the USA, many of the criticisms of the Bush administration would still apply to any Democrat administration. If the US is on the way out as a world power, then it barely matters who is at the helm. If the rest of the world decides to divest its dollar reserves, the US economy will implode. And whoever is in the driving seat, it will be a violent implosion. By that I mean the world economy will be trashed, probably without justification, and the USA will not go down without a lot of fighting.