Each year in the United States, approximately eleven thousand people die due to shootings every year. This rate is higher than any other industrialized nation in the world. People ask many questions as to why this is and look for answers explaining why death from firearms in the U.S.A. amounts to such a high toll. Whether it is the people living in the country, the cultural influences, the easy access to ammunition and guns or a combination of all of these, the question of if the country is “a nation of gun nuts or [if the people are] just nuts?” is still left to be answered. In Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine, the culture and violence of guns in the United States is examined, in attempt to observe why the country has such
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One man interviewed, James Nichols has extremist views of the indiscriminate right to carry arms and explosives, though he does not agree to the right of private ownership of nuclear materials, his reasoning for this being that “there are a lot of nuts out there.” Nichols’ statement is quite ironic, after discovering he keeps a loaded .44 Magnum underneath his pillow and easily puts it to his own forehead, as a joke. In the documentary, a few young people from Flint, Michigan are questioned about their opinions of the use of guns and different explosives. Their views are very casual, none of them extremists, but not against the weapons whatsoever. Though interviewing random people, Moore is searching for extremists, not to show an unbalanced representation of the general population, but to try and discover how people of the like can emanate so regularly out of what seems to be a normal …show more content…
Though there are many countries and nations with violent and gruesome paths, only the U.S.A. has a lethal combination of a violent history and widespread gun possession. A likely reason for this appears to be that most of these other nations have much stricter gun control laws, so that lower gun violence is simply a consequence of having fewer guns. Gaining access to guns and ammunition in the United States is easy, even being sold in Wal-Marts and K-Marts in some Midwestern states. To go more into depth with these theories, Moore goes to Canada to observe the differences. In Canada, he learns that though millions of households own guns, homicides are extremely rare, almost non-existent in most parts of the country. Looking for cultural differences that possibly account for the small gun violence rates, Moore discovers that Canada is much more ethnically and racially accepting than their country next door. In speaking to some non-European races, he finds that they feel they are more accepted in Canada than in the United States. Canadians are just as exposed to violence and gore in movies and videogames, but still act and speak easily, with no clear pro violence
One man interviewed, James Nichols has extremist views of the indiscriminate right to carry arms and explosives, though he does not agree to the right of private ownership of nuclear materials, his reasoning for this being that “there are a lot of nuts out there.” Nichols’ statement is quite ironic, after discovering he keeps a loaded .44 Magnum underneath his pillow and easily puts it to his own forehead, as a joke. In the documentary, a few young people from Flint, Michigan are questioned about their opinions of the use of guns and different explosives. Their views are very casual, none of them extremists, but not against the weapons whatsoever. Though interviewing random people, Moore is searching for extremists, not to show an unbalanced representation of the general population, but to try and discover how people of the like can emanate so regularly out of what seems to be a normal …show more content…
Though there are many countries and nations with violent and gruesome paths, only the U.S.A. has a lethal combination of a violent history and widespread gun possession. A likely reason for this appears to be that most of these other nations have much stricter gun control laws, so that lower gun violence is simply a consequence of having fewer guns. Gaining access to guns and ammunition in the United States is easy, even being sold in Wal-Marts and K-Marts in some Midwestern states. To go more into depth with these theories, Moore goes to Canada to observe the differences. In Canada, he learns that though millions of households own guns, homicides are extremely rare, almost non-existent in most parts of the country. Looking for cultural differences that possibly account for the small gun violence rates, Moore discovers that Canada is much more ethnically and racially accepting than their country next door. In speaking to some non-European races, he finds that they feel they are more accepted in Canada than in the United States. Canadians are just as exposed to violence and gore in movies and videogames, but still act and speak easily, with no clear pro violence