So I finally got around to watching Bowling for Columbine since it had its DVD release a couple days ago. I definitely enjoyed it on the whole, but I have to admit that I think Moore got it wrong on the gun issue. It's no secret (although I'm sure it will surprise some of you) that I'm a dues paying NRA member and strong supporter of relatively no-questions-asked gun rights.
I'll ignore the fact that the movie made a number of fundamental misrepresentations (for example showing footage of rockets used to launch satellites and implying that they were “weapons of mass destruction”) and repeat the paradox that was discussed in the movie — why does America have less guns per capita than countries like Canada, but then have a staggeringly high murder and crime rate? Moore got it right — it's because that's superimposed on a culture of fear (which serves to distract from the nation's imperialism both on an international and a domestic “class war” level), but he got the solution wrong, and he appears to have fallen prey to some corporate misdirection in the process.
He kept coming back at guns as a problem rather than a symptom, even ended with a truly insulting interview with Charlton Heston — while he clearly exposed that the real problem is wealth disparity, corporate power, and media fear-mongering (he almost got it right by going after Dick Clark), at least in the movie he was afraid to point the finger squarely at the true enemy… and even made fun of those (like the opening interviews with the militia members) who actually spoke out against the real problems in America — namely conglomeration and consolidation of wealth/power, and the use of that wealth and its resulting political strength to oppress and control the population.
Moore makes the mistake of demonizing guns, when instead he should realize that guns are a balancing factor (not to mention that they are also proof of a population recognizing the imbalance and responding to it) — which is exactly why the government and the wealthy fight very hard to keep them out of the hands of the citizenry. To make a metaphor, let's say that we could prove that pornography leads to rape and oppression of women (which I do not believe). Would the solution then be to penectomize all men, or to go after porn? Under Moore's line of thinking, penectomy would solve the problem… which clearly would only attack the symptom, as well as stopping people from having healthy sex.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, but I think it was misguided. I hope (and I hear rumor) that his next movie will go after the real enemy: corporate America and the xenoaristocracy of the rich. While I would recommend reading between the lines as you watch Bowling for Columbine, I would though still recommend it in general.
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