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Bowling for Columbine

re zygon

As far as I known in a state where you buy a hand gun (now a days) you have a "cooling off period" which means you can't just go in a gun shop and buy a 38 special and leave. you have to show ID fil out a FBI check form etc..then if your clean , you pick up your 38 a week later. If you want a permit to carry you hand gun on your "person" you go to the police dept. pay a "big" fee -and take the course and get your permit. Then you can have a gun hidden in your coat pocket or where -ever..its good if you have a cash business or when making large deposits, or just out and about and somebody starts shooting at you..then you pull out your new .357 mag with rino loads and blast 'em!!
 
Bowling For Columbine Won the Oscar For Best Documentary! Hu

Bowling For Columbine Won the Oscar For Best Documentary. Michael Moore hauled all his fellow nominees on to stage with him and embarrassed everybody by suggesting that they all loved non-fiction and that they were living in a fictitious World, with fictitious Elections and a fictitious President fighting War based on Fictions!

BBC NEWS STORY

HURRAH!!
 
Originally Posted By Alb, on Iraq War Thread (But, I've got the picture):

Michael Moore's Oscar Speech

Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to - they're here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction.

We like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.

Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.
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And just to show it's an ill wind that blows everybody no go

Today I had to travel up to Glasgow by train, and en route I saw no less than 5 people reading what looked like brand-spanking-new copies of Moore's Stupid White Men. That's compared with a usual figure of zero people reading anything at all more complicated than a tabloid scandal sheet. And the WH Smith's in Glasgow Central has stocked up with large quantities of that self-same tome.

Meanwhile the Glasgow Evening Times has boards up outside every newsagent asserting that Moore's speech 'marred' the Oscars ceremony. And like the war didn't?
 
My local bookshop has John Pilger's "The New Rulers of The World" in the window.
 
Locally here in the Midlands,Stupid White Men has been selling well,it's been in the top 5 for ages,although when it first came out only Waterstones seemed to stock it,with Smith's following on a little bit later(possibly not sure about stocking a controversial title,well at least until they saw how many copies it was shifting.).
 
I haven't seen the film, I was under the impression the point was that it is far too easy for people to obtain guns in the US, isn't there a bank giving a rifle as a free gift if you open an account with them ... ?

Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, but isn't that supposed to be so that they can overthrow a corrupt government rather than blow each other away?
 
It's Not Just About Guns, Or Gun Control

I saw it, tonight, at last. First impressions?

Its a lot about fear and grinding poverty. Not so much that grinding poverty causes fear and crime, more that the people in the suburbs of the US are fearful of the people living in poverty in the neglected and decaying inner cities.

People fearful of becoming losers and afraid of each other. What a strange society the US has become, according to Michael Moore. The real tragedy is the everyday misery of the people at the bottom of the social heap, forced into dumb, 'Welfare to Work' schemes, run, bizarrely enough, by Lockheed Martin, the aerospace and weapons manufacturer.

You have to see the documentary to believe some of the connections, Moore very successfully makes. He brings everything back to a small, but terrible tragedy in his home town of Flint, where he made his first major documentary, 'Roger and Me,' before he finally heads off to confront the old and stupid Charlton Heston.

Moore's disingenuous style, seemingly obvious, direct questions and outward guilessness, mask a really boshy, angry guy, with a knack of putting the guys at the top on the spot. The Oscar was deserved, especially considering how timely the film's become.

Is there anything else out there bringing the 'real' lives of ordinary US Citizens into focus at the moment? At least, without fictionalising them into sensationalised drama?

Seemed sad, but true. :(
 
Finally saw it last night thanx to the local Blockbusters (and no thanx to the shellsuited eejit behind the counter who queried bemusedly, "You do know it's a 2-hour documentary, right?" like he couldn't believe anyone would rent a documentary...), and I am massively impressed.

Moore's case that US murder rate has less to do with the ready availability of firearms than some unnameable terror lurking at the heart of American culture, and in the hearts of every American, was very convincingly laid out IMO. I think he's managed to change my mind about America's "gun problem".

Worryingly, I see the UK beginning to embrace the "fear culture" Moore illustrates in the flick (example: Nov. 2001 I went to NYC -attending Cavestomp 2001- got drunk, got lost on my own in Brooklyn at 3 AM, then got the wrong subway train and had to walk right across Harlem at 5 AM to get to my hotel, still drunk and still on my own, and nonetheless felt far less at risk than I do sober in my hometown on a Saturday afternoon: why am I beginning to fear my fellow Brits? They ain't all cretinous yobs.), and at the same time I see a marked increase in gun crime. (About 5 shootings in this town alone in the past 4 years, compared with almost certainly none at all in the 30+ years previous.)

However, while I found myself outraged by Charlton Heston's utter insensitivity, I did end up feeling some sympathy for him, as I came away with the impression that he suspected that (when Moore was really just asking him to think about what it was that he was so afraid of that he needed his guns) he was being lured into some sort of trap where his comments might end up portrayed as racist. It must be terrible to live with so many kinds of fear...
 
LobeliaOverhill said:
Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, but isn't that supposed to be so that they can overthrow a corrupt government rather than blow each other away?
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Don't they have to be in a state-organised militia first?
 
If you read Glassner's 'Culture of Fear', which Moore refers to, it is worrying because the fear trends mentioned do seem to be creeping into British media. For example, ignoring statistics and terrifying everyone in the process, having chat shows where victims are brought on to tell their terrible tale and having it made out that this could easily happen again (even though it's extremely rare), empathy and emotion ruling broadcast instead of facts, internet fear, fear of the black man, fear of middle class people on heroin... etc. etc...


which all boils down to being afraid of the wrong things.

There's an interesting parallel at the end drawn between contemporary media panics and the reaction to the broadcast of Orson Welle's 'War of the Worlds'. Unfortunately, Glassner, not being a psychic, says that Americans have nothing to fear from terrorists...

...And when refering the 9/11, Moore says 'should people this scared have guns?' Good point. Moore points out that the sales of guns and ammunition rapidly increased following 9/11, which makes me wonder - what exactly did they think they were going to do with the guns if the terrorists have stanley knives?

The Welfare to Work thing really got to me. How can it make any sense to expect someone to pay off their unemployment benefit by working in a low-paid job? And showing the cctv footage of Columbine was harrowing. I worked in a school once and had to keep an eye on the cctv screens. The South Park cartoon was fantastic, and the SP chap who grew up near Columbine made a good point - he wishes someone had shown the boys a creative outlet for their anger, like he himself had found doing South Park.
 
Dansette said:
...And when refering the 9/11, Moore says 'should people this scared have guns?' Good point. Moore points out that the sales of guns and ammunition rapidly increased following 9/11, which makes me wonder - what exactly did they think they were going to do with the guns if the terrorists have stanley knives?
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Hoping to shoot down the next hijacked 'plane like a clay pigeon, are they?
 
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A film on the Sept. 11 attacks by Oscar-winning documentarian Michael Moore that criticizes President Bush has won short-term backing from Miramax Film Corp., a source familiar with the deal said on Monday.

Miramax, a unit of Walt Disney Co., stepped in after actor Mel Gibson's Icon Productions withdrew backing for the production, the source said.

Miramax will provide a few million dollars in temporary "bridge" funding, which offers the studio less risk and a lower return than longer-term financing.

The film, "Fahrenheit 911," will look at the United States in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001 and alleged links between the families of Bush and Osama bin Laden, the Muslim militant accused of coordinating the hijackings on that date. The title also refers to "Fahrenheit 451," a dystopian tale of book burning by Ray Bradbury.

Moore used the "Fahrenheit 911" title for a February 2002 e-mail to fans in which he said publisher HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corp. Ltd., hesitated in the aftermath of the hijackings to publish his book, "Stupid White Men," because of its criticism of Bush.

In March, Moore used his acceptance speech for an Academy Award for his previous film, "Bowling for Columbine," as an opportunity to criticize Bush, whom he called a "fictitious president."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...600&e=6&u=/nm/20030512/film_nm/media_moore_dc
 
I think Canadians are more relaxed because they don't have the criminals per square mile that America does. America has a huge crime problem, and guns are definitely not to blame. it's easy to say that "if we just got rid of guns, everything would be alright" but we can't de-invent something that has become so ingrained into the world. Regulation works for those who are honest, if guns are outlawed only the outlaws would own them. A sad truth.
 
Moore details from AICN on Moore's 9/11 film:

Its about the Bush family, their extensive connection with the Bin Laden family and the environment within the USA post Sept 11. He has footage of the Bush family dining with the Bin Laden family. It elaborates on the business relationship between the families that has existed for many years. It explores how a Saudi charter plane travelled the US immediately after Sept 11 and how the FBI were pissed that they couldn't interrogate its Bin Laden passengers as they were ferried to Paris. It looks at the way in which the government used the events of Sept 11 to push their own agendas.

Moore expalined that since COLUMBINE and its appearance at the Oscars he receives 6,000 pieces of fan mail a day and gets given pieces of footage that he can't talk about now but will make this perhaps the most incendiary documentary of all time. In his words 'If I don't make this, I may as well stick my head in the sand like everybody else."

During question time one audience member questioned his ability to finish the film, to which his answer was "Any attempt to stop it will just create more interest." He also said he would explore the reasons as to why Blair put his arse on the line to support Bush and make a film that is funnier and more shocking than COLUMBINE.

Thus began the distributor buying frenzy. FARENHEIT 9-11: THE TEMPERATURE AT WHICH TRUTH BURNS will be ready for Cannes next year and release Sept in North America (prior to the elections I'm told). Prior to the briefing all were screened and told not to release to media.

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=15243
 
Ruffready said:
about and somebody starts shooting at you..then you pull out your new .357 mag with rino loads and blast 'em!!
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LOL; only if their first shots missed. Can't criminals shoot straight?Too much TV:D
 
AMPHIARAUS said:
LOL; only if their first shots missed. Can't criminals shoot straight?Too much TV:D
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Leaving aside the observation that many American cops report the person who drops after they've got one or two bullets in them as something they really only see on TV (COPS: their lives in their own words by Martin Baker, Simon & Schuster 1985, Cardinal Books 1987, ISBN 0-7474-1165-4, for example), are modern handguns really that much more accurate than their western frontier ancestors? Remember that the wild west handgun shoot-out was largely a dime-novel myth, and most gunfights in the west involved people shooting each other in the back from a distance with rifles.
 
Pistols are only accurate to about sixty feet, and even then you have to actually know what you're doing; none of this firing it sideways crap that you see in 'ganster' films. Oh, and always fire twice.
 
I think if he's using Rhino Loads an accurate double tap may prove pretty tricky.
Besides what's all this range stuff. No one mentioned accurate range just having someone shoot at em.
As for knock down power, run a search on Taylor scale. One shot knockdowns are possible, it was all tested on the fuzzy wuzzies by our empire building forebears. (tongue in cheek by the way!)

This is the last bloody edit for spelling.
 
The whole gangster gun pose irks me too. have you noticed they also tend to tilt their heads with the barrel? Like that'd compensate. Very amusing.
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Its special GANSTA triangulation innit. You have to stick to just the one range tho bro.;)
 
AMPHIARAUS said:
I think if he's using Rhino Loads an accurate double tap may prove pretty tricky.
Besides what's all this range stuff. No one mentioned accurate range just having someone shoot at em.
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You mentioned criminals' inability to hit anything. There are reasons for that: a tendency to pick inaccurate weapons and a lack of skill.
 
Inverurie Jones posted:
You mentioned criminals' inability to hit anything. There are reasons for that: a tendency to pick inaccurate weapons and a lack of skill.
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I think in the UK thats mostly true, but in the US I'm not so sure. What about all the people who went hunting with dad, or what about anyone who went through the military? It stands to reason there there must be some who have had practice, they surely can't all be crackheads with nicked 38s. Then again maybe they are:rolleyes:
 
AMPHIARAUS said:
I think in the UK thats mostly true, but in the US I'm not so sure. What about all the people who went hunting with dad, or what about anyone who went through the military? It stands to reason there there must be some who have had practice, they surely can't all be crackheads with nicked 38s.
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Given that most violent crimes (on both sides of the Atlantic) are perpetrated by males aged between -IIRC- 13 and 19, only a tiny minority of American kids of that age-group will have had any significant military training with firearms, and those that have gone through any military background would seem more likely to have been trained with rifles -if my impressions are correct- than with handguns or automatic weapons. Furthermore, a significant portion of that violent crime occurs within urban areas: and while the idea of some inner-city dad taking his kid out hunting isn't beyond credibility, such activities are likely to be in the minority in that environment. And that's even assuming that inner-city dad is a nut-job and teaches junior to hunt using a .22, a .38 or a machine pistol. :rolleyes:
 
Zygon posted:
Given that most violent crimes (on both sides of the Atlantic) are perpetrated by males aged between -IIRC- 13 and 19, only a tiny minority of American kids of that age-group will have had any significant military training with firearms, and those that have gone through any military background would seem more likely to have been trained with rifles -if my impressions are correct- than with handguns or automatic weapons. Furthermore, a significant portion of that violent crime occurs within urban areas: and while the idea of some inner-city dad taking his kid out hunting isn't beyond credibility, such activities are likely to be in the minority in that environment. And that's even assuming that inner-city dad is a nut-job and teaches junior to hunt using a .22, a .38 or a machine pistol.
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Just to be pedantic, I believe there is a branch of hunting in the US that uses long barelled scoped pistols:p

Not sure if I totally agree with all of that, but I will admit that maybe I have projected my own experiences, and given the average crackhead too much credit. My father introduced me to most forms of shooting at a very early age so maybe I dont see any mystery or great skill in it, especially if the range is just the width of a shop counter.. :rolleyes:

I think the hijacking of this thread has gone on enough now!
 
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