Michael Moore speaks at the "Bernie's Back Rally" at Queensbridge Park, Long Island City on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019, in New York. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP)
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The anti-gun left, the civilian disarmament industry and their oh-so-willing friends in the media love to push the narrative that America is in the midst of an unprecedented gun violence epidemic. They tell us that the only way to DO SOMETHING about this disgraceful national affliction is for Americans to give up some or all of their Second Amendment rights.

Somehow, though, they manage to ignore details such as the FBI’s most recent crime report that shows yet another reduction in both violent and firearms-related crimes. The drop in these crimes comes as part of a generation-long trend that’s taken place at the same time that the number of civilian-owned firearms has more than doubled.

And look how the scariest, most assaulty-looking weapons have proliferated . . .

Modern sporting rifles vs crime rate
Courtesy NSSF

But data like that doesn’t help to further the message that America has a serious problem with guns. A message that says guns in the hands of everyday citizens…people who simply can’t be trusted with such a responsibility…is inherently dangerous and simply not who our betters think we should be as a society.

That’s how you get Salon trying to breathe new life into a quaint piece of anti-gun agitprop like Michael Moore’s hoplophobic screed seventeen years after it was released.

At the time, the focus of the film was the gun culture that spawned the Columbine shootings. As the film opens, it sets the scene for the Columbine shootings by describing it as a “typical day.” The message is clear: Columbine was not an anomaly; it was a predictable consequence in a society that glorifies guns more than human life.

In scene after scene, from a bank that hands out guns to a mom who thinks the only way to protect her kids is by being armed, the film digs into the disturbing ways that gun culture has been not just justified, but normalized in the United States. Moore conducts a series of interviews with a wide range of gun owners — militia members, suburban housewives, farmers and more — all of whom are happy [to] explain that they only feel safe if they have weapons. …

Great films hold up over time. They are worth watching for the art of their style, for their messages, and for the ways that they remind us of their context. Satirical films also help us think through moments when society was caught up in habits and behaviors that were profoundly irrational, destructive or delusional. Their messages continue to resonate because the flaws they diagnose persist. Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove, Or How I l Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” for example, continues to offer poignant commentary on toxic military masculinity.

“Bowling for Columbine” is worth screening today for all of those reasons.

– Sophia A. McClennen Why Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” matters now more than ever

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41 COMMENTS

  1. There are certain people who show up whenever there is a controversy. They hope to bring clout to one side of the issue on the assumption that their presence carries more weight, importance, correctness, or publicity to one side of the issue, and gain more power for themselves. Michael Moore is little more than a low life ankle biter IMHO. He would have helped by staying home.

    • Michael Moore brings about 100-lbs more weight to the gun debate today, than he did when he made that movie.

    • moore’s presence actually does bring weight, about 400 pounds worth. i typically refrain from insulting an individual by only focusing on the policies they support. however, this was such a slow pitch over the plate i could not help but swing.

      anyone with any sense whatsoever looks at moore as a egocentric buffoon who truly believes that he has some magic power to know what is right and demands that we all bow to his superior intellect.

      i cannot resist one more statement regarding moore. the photo at the top of the article shows moore in a “Jesus on the cross” pose, further illustrating his deranged self image that he is the country’s new savior. i have to stop now or moore (pun intended) insults will just burst out of me into this comment.

  2. Brought to you by Michael Moore. The ignorant nitwit that literally joined a Russian sponsored event to “attack our democracy”.

    The brief summary above seems to blame regular gun owners for what some teenage killers did. Basically the same thing they’re doing now.

  3. Michael,Rosie’s leftarded brother,both of them more,pun intended,irrelevant,so have to inject themselves into the culture somehow.

  4. What a disgusting waste of skin! So desperate to be relevant, like most “celebrities. Wonder how he’d feel about “tweaking” the first ammendment, it gets abused more than the second, by idiots like him!

  5. Michael Moore’s “schlockumentaries” are anything but honest and are based on half-truths and outright lies.

    In “Roger and Me” he claimed that GM CEO Roger Smith refused to meet with him and dodged every attempt to meet with him. In fact, Roger Smith offered Michael Moore an interview, but was promptly rebuffed. This meeting would have destroyed the whole premise of the movie.

    In “Bowling for Columbine”, Moore’s flawed premise was that the free, unrestricted commerce in lawful firearms was responsible for that deadly event. He brings up one bank’s successful marketing of its services by insisting that firearms were being given out to depositors in an indiscriminate fashion. Once again, Moore failed to note that every firearms transfer was done in a lawful manner, with federally-mandated “background checks” being performed in every case.

    In “Sicko”, his “schlockumentary” on the American health-care system, he used Cuba as a prime example of a good health care system. What he failed to mention was that the average Cuban citizen has no access to high-tech health care, but is relegated to a lower tier of service. Cuban patients even have to supply their own bed linens and other items. The high tech health care services are available only to foreigners and communist party officials–not the average Cuban citizen.

    All of Michael Moore’s “schlockumentaries” are “full of holes”, lies and fabrications.
    Michael Moore is not to be trusted.

    • When MM was going through a Brit hospital sarcastically asking where the billing department was I wondered why he wasn’t at a gas station, a store, even the post office.

      The crushing sales taxes are just one revenue stream for the NHS which always seems to be low on funds.

  6. Michael Moore is nothing but a obese , ugly individual with a personal hygiene problem. He needs to be run through a carwash several times to remove that grime. Disgusting slob.

  7. The author lives about an hour from me in a bluish college town. If you drive 15 minutes in any direction from her town and you are in a very rural part of PA that is as red as it gets. I don’t know how she can stand being trapped on a virtual island surrounded by people who support the second amendment. Funny thing too is that PA has fairly easy concealed carry requirements…no required training, very reasonable prices etc. You’d think this area would be a war zone (it’s not) with this many firearms and ease of access for citizens with less wealth so nobody is priced out of self-defense like some states. Maybe she should spend some of her research dollars explaining that…

    • I bet she will eventually build a wall to keep all of the undesirables out. Leftists hate walls at the border, but love giant ones around their houses.

  8. BTW, whenever someone shows the violent crime report downhill curve it should always be mentioned that the 2015-206 bump up is most likely due to Obama and the resultant “Furgeson effect”.

    • And his premise is that my hard earned money taken away as taxes will eventually pay for his free triple bypass surgery and coronary stents, not to mention the CPAP machine and all the blood pressure, blood thinner, penile vasodilator (ie., Viagra), statins, anti demencia and anti diabetic medications to treat the medical complications of his gross obesity, the consequence of his poor voluntary lifestyle choices.

  9. One would think the obese Moore(or less) would keel over from a heart attack by now what with Drumph pizzing off leftards daily. Or hope…is the rotund hutt still claiming NRA membership?!?😏

  10. Pointing out who the idiots are is easy. When will we organize and take people and government to courts of law to stop the infringing/ I have stopped donating to NRA GOA etc as they are doing nothing but accepting donations while states NOT the federal government add more gun control laws everyday. States Rights are being overlooked and if federal government had any power Obama would have outlawed private possession long ago or even Clinton. My state of residence, Colorado is now one of the hardest places to purchase or sell and carry without having permission slips from the new governor who is a socialist in disguise as was his predecessor and use executive orders excessively. Your state will soon be the same as mine and that is a fact. Talk is cheap, we have to have real action, enough is enough, they are chipping away and are getting there quickly now.

  11. Yes, there sure is an epidemic. I absolutely agree with that 100%. Only fools like Mr. Moore seem oblivious to it.

    Among others, the epidemics are opioids and illegal narcotics.

  12. It won’t be long before people are blamed for climate change and the final solution will be to eliminate the people. Some call it the “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement”, but for most of us it won’t be voluntary.

    • “It won’t be long before people are blamed for climate change and the final solution will be to eliminate the people.”

      That’s already in process, which makes no sense, as you would think they would want to accelerate ‘climate change’ and all the mass death that comes with it…

  13. This toxic masculinity, we don’t have that in my country. In Saudi Arabia, woman like her be beaten like donkey. Not true. In my county, donkey have right. A man cannot rape his donkey, very many consequences. In Saudi Arabia, woman, she know her place.

  14. What’s a MSR? It Sounds Like a Motorcycle or Medical Drug Acronym – I Prefer To Just Call My AR-15 What It Is, an AR-15!!! It Makes Those Gun-Grabbers Pissed Off Even More…

  15. “…toxic military masculinity”

    That “toxic military masculinity” are the men that continue to protect her life and rights. The only thing “toxic” about us is the lethality we offer to our enemies, foreign and domestic.

  16. Did anyone else notice Sophia McClennen begging for money at the end of her article?
    … And even stating an amount. Since I am sure part of her job like any good academic is writing grant and research contract proposals she apparently isn’t very good at her job.

  17. Don’t you hate it when a non American,” Canadian citizen”,gives speeches as a if he was born and raised in the good old USA.Can I go to Canada and give speeches on how the Canadian man child leader,pokes anything he can get his ,moose horn,in?Mike you have not earned the right to make any comments on America!

  18. The way that graph is trending, by the time we hit 40 million AR-pattern rifles, violent crime should be down to about zero.

    Spread the word everywhere you can! Buy more guns!

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