# Bowling for Columbine: Anger or agreement? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 3, 2003, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398 "2003-01-03T10:44:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/121 "2003-01-06T18:57:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Demise \* > \*\*I just have to add that **Susanann** does not speak for the vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners. She does us a great disservice by spouting her bizarre, racially tinged views. \*\* ““I”” gave no racially tinged views. It was The United States government U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics which reported that over the past 25 years, 59.2% of all felony murders were committed by blacks. [http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm) If you think the United States government is bizarre and racially tinged that is your opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Ulterior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/85f322/32.png) [@Ulterior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulterior)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/122 "2003-01-06T21:48:30Z")
No, **Susanann** , we’re (or at least I’m) referring to the point that you make by bringing up these statistics, and not to the statistics themselves: that it’s because Canada has fewer blacks that we have a lower crime rate. The fact that blacks are convicted of a disproportionate number of homicides in the US does not, by itself, mean that more blacks = more crime. To me, that’s pretty blatantly racially tinged. -Ulterior ---
**Author:** ![Ulterior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/85f322/32.png) [@Ulterior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulterior)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/123 "2003-01-06T21:50:02Z")
That last sentence should read, “To come to that conclusion from the basis of the evidence is pretty racially tinged.” ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/124 "2003-01-07T01:29:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Susanann \* > The United States government U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics reports: > > that over the past 25 years, 59.2% of all felony murders were committed by blacks. > [http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm) > > over the past 25 years, 60.7% of all felony murders were committed by blacks and other minorities. > [http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm) > > over the past 25 years, only 39.2% of all felony murders were commtted by whites. > [http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm) > > By analyzing and breaking down the murder statistics, such as the FBI does, “most” of America, and the overwelming land area of the United States, does not have a very high murder rate at all when compared to other similar countries. > > Thus, the “gross aggregate homoide rate” reported for all of the United States, when muliplied by .392, puts the murder rates among European americans in the range of most other European countries in the world and far from being called a dangerous place. Noone said fighting ignorance was going to be easy but I had no idea that it would be this hard! Okay, first get your freakin’ facts right. Why have you limited the discussion to “felony murders”? If we are going to compare homicide rates between countries, let’s count all homicides! Then the numbers are 46.4% committed by whites, 51.5% by blacks, and 2.0% by other. Next, when you figure out a murder rate you have to divide by the sample of those you are considering…In other words, if you take blacks out of the numerator (number of murders) you also have to take them out of the denominator in order to get the murder rate among whites. According to the 2000 census, the population breakdown is something like 77% white, 13% black, and 10% other. Accounting for this, the homicide rate when considering only whites is a factor of 0.60 times that of the total population; the homocide rate when considering all non-blacks is a factor of 0.57 times that of the total population. So, in other words, your factor of “0.392” should really be in the range of 0.56 to 0.60, depending on whether you want to look at all non-blacks or just whites, which will tend to leave it higher relative to these other nations than what you came up with. [Now, if you really want to have a low murder rate, get rid of the blacks and whites and just leave the others…who seem to make up 10% of the population but only commit 2% of the murders! There may be a bit of a glitz in how the “other” term is used in the census vs. how it is used in the Bureau of Justice statistics.] The second problem, as others have noted, is that one can’t start just eliminating sectors of the population because they have a high murder rate and then compare to other countries. At the very least, one would have to do some sort of control in the other countries. For example, other countries murder rates would also probably change somewhat if you discounted 13% of the population who are disproportionately poor and live in urban areas! How much the rate for the remaining folks would change in these other countries is anybody’s guess. My guess is that it would change somewhat less dramatically than the change of discounting the blacks in the U.S. because of the extremes of wealth and poverty here in comparison to other countries and also that you are dealing with a group that is not only disproportionately poor but also has a mess of historical issues having to do with how they were/are treated in this country. (It is probably not a coincidence that the two minority groups that I can think of as having amongst the most poverty and other social problems, native Americans and blacks, are also those that had the most dramatic historical oppression.) And, by the way, this “land area” argument is silly. You would again likely find a similar truth to exist in other countries. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/125 "2003-01-07T02:31:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TwistofFate \* > \*\*What would be so bad about changing the focus of the NRA from Gun Rights to Gun Safety? You can still hav ethe gun rights agenda, but promoting safer ownership and use of guns. > > I fail to see why that would be so bad. \*\* That’s already how it is. The NRA is primarily a gun safety/sportsman association that also does lobbying work. What’s “so bad” about it, if they were taken out of the gun rights defense arena entirely, is that lots of nonsensical legislation would go unfought. I personally dislike the NRA and their “bubba gun” stance, but I recognize that without them, we’d lose a lot of political clout. Of couse, that might result in a real guns rights organization coming to power, but most likely would just further alienate most of the gun rights community from each other. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/126 "2003-01-07T03:21:13Z")
**SB:** _I personally dislike the NRA and their “bubba gun” stance, but I recognize that without them, we’d lose a lot of political clout._ I don’t blame anybody for wanting to defend reasonable, responsible, and regulated gun ownership, and I can understand to some extent holding your nose about the NRA’s unpleasant aspects because you consider them a barricade against ill-considered or ineffective gun control legislation. But you may want to take a closer look at who you’re getting in bed with there. The NRA is positioning itself now (e.g. on its homepage) primarily as a lobbying association for gun rights and other conservative causes, and its positions are fairly extreme. It tries to present itself as on the side of law and order, but it has been recently diverging farther and farther (and more and more acrimoniously) from positions advocated by the very police officers whose side it claims to be on. I personally know a few proud gun owners who have quit the NRA in disgust at what they see as the rising tide of freeper-militia-gun-nut attitudes. Do you want the most vocal and visible gun-rights organization in the country to be representative of people like you and **ExTank** , or of people like **Susanann**? ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/127 "2003-01-07T03:23:07Z")
**Susanann:** I’m not suggesting anything. I have ideas, which I’ve shared here before, and might do so again, but not right now. I will say that they lie less in the area of race, and more in the area of education, civil rights, economic opportunity (income disparity), and their various apportionments and affects along racial lines. As you claim to be doing, I’m just regurgitating a factoid, _somewhat_ ('less some of y’all wanna include me in the pile-on :D) in support of your data, but not your conclusions (whether you intended them to be conclusions or not; I think you should pay attention to the tone of your various respondants, and choose your words carefully and unequivocally). ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/128 "2003-01-07T08:07:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\ ***SB:** _I personally dislike the NRA and their “bubba gun” stance, but I recognize that without them, we’d lose a lot of political clout._ > > I don’t blame anybody for wanting to defend reasonable, responsible, and regulated gun ownership, and I can understand to some extent holding your nose about the NRA’s unpleasant aspects because you consider them a barricade against ill-considered or ineffective gun control legislation. > > But you may want to take a closer look at who you’re getting in bed with there. The NRA is positioning itself now (e.g. on its homepage) primarily as a lobbying association for gun rights and other conservative causes, and its positions are fairly extreme. It tries to present itself as on the side of law and order, but it has been recently diverging farther and farther (and more and more acrimoniously) from positions advocated by the very police officers whose side it claims to be on. I personally know a few proud gun owners who have quit the NRA in disgust at what they see as the rising tide of freeper-militia-gun-nut attitudes. Do you want the most vocal and visible gun-rights organization in the country to be representative of people like you and **ExTank** , or of people like **Susanann**? \*\* A good question, but I think you misrepresent the stance of the NRA. Either that, or you consider them “extreme” when I consider them at the centrist end of moderate. The NRA doesn’t defend the second amendment or the ideas behind it - they defend hunting and handgun ownership. And you sort of do extremists injustice by equating them to **Susanann**. Most of the positions I advocate would be considered extremist when it comes to gun advocacy - but that doesn’t mean I’m intellectually dishonest and ignore rationality on some sort of Holy Quest. Although it’s not totally unreasonable for you to do so, I guess, with all of the whackos out there who happen to share some of these beliefs. In any case, back to your question, it may be more politically expedient to take a moderate position, but if they’re basically the end-all in gun advocates, and considered “extremist”, then any position too “extreme” for them to support gets no defense - and the movement advocating such measures gets some automatic legitimacy - “even the NRA doesn’t oppose this bill!”. So it’s taking a position of compromise and automatically ceding some issues to the other side because it’s a hot potato issue, or whatever. That may win you a broader base of support, but it’s at the cost of simply conceding issues - and I take that very seriously when these issues are our rights. I would like you to further elaborate on what new positions the NRA is taking and such that you mentioned above - I’m curious. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/129 "2003-01-07T23:33:34Z")
**SB:** _The NRA doesn’t defend the second amendment or the ideas behind it - they defend hunting and handgun ownership._ Huh? According to the NRA’s own statements, defending (their view of) the Second Amendment is their most fundamental mission. The banner on their [website](http://www.nra.org/) says right up front “THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED”, so that seems to indicate at least some identification with Second-Amendment activism. The lead screen of their “Politics and Legislation” page proclaims: > [@](#): > > Exactly how much power does the government have to regulate individual conduct? Our Founders’ answer to the question was plain: The Constitution comes down squarely on the side of limited government and individual liberty. Our entire Constitution resonates with the idea that “that government is best which governs least”–and the Second Amendment is no exception. In their most recent “Grassroots Alert” on that page, they refer to themselves as the “pro-Second Amendment community”. The linked speeches by NRA officials also hammer home paranoia about “gun banners” vs. “freedom fighters”, [e.g.](http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed010203b.cfm): > [@](#): > > Andrew McKelvey and Americans for Gun Safety represent a whole new kind of enemy. They’re just the visible side of a shadowy network of extremist social guerrillas fueled by anonymous wealth, sophisticated research, free media access and high-dollar consultants. You know, terrorism against freedom isn’t just practiced with bombs and box cutters. Anti-freedom elitists in academia, the media, rich foundations and government can do permanent damage to individual freedoms just as real as an insurrection or coup. Together they form a sort of Taliban, an intolerant coalition of fanatics that shelter the anti-freedom alliance so it can thrive and grow. […] > > If you consider the Constitution less relevant, if you ignore or distort the Second Amendment, if you conspire to make lawful firearms less accessible to lawful citizens, if you infiltrate school boards and churches and legislatures and foundations to advance an anti-freedom agenda of any kind - the fact that you were born on American soil won’t mask the fact that you’re an enemy of freedom and a political terrorist. > > In fact, the way Andrew McKelvey’s network operates sounds a lot like Osama bin Laden and the Al-Queda. A billionaire with an extremist political agenda, subverting honest diplomacy, using personal wealth to train and deploy activists, looking for vulnerabilities to attack, fomenting fear for political gain, funding an ongoing campaign, to hijack your freedom and take a box cutter to the Constitution. That’s political terrorism, a far greater threat to your freedom than any foreign force. Sorry, but this is not the way that “moderates” and “centrists” talk about people who disagree with their political views. Anybody who is willing to call me an “enemy of freedom” and a “terrorist” and a “fanatic” because my interpretation of the Second Amendment differs from theirs is IMHO not participating in rational debate. If the NRA doesn’t want the whole gun ownership community tagged with equally vicious labels like “paranoid gun nuts”, it should stop setting such a bad example. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398/130 "2003-01-08T02:35:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\ ***SB:** _The NRA doesn’t defend the second amendment or the ideas behind it - they defend hunting and handgun ownership._ > > Huh? According to the NRA’s own statements, defending (their view of) the Second Amendment is their most fundamental mission. The banner on their [website](http://www.nra.org/) says right up front “THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED”, so that seems to indicate at least some identification with Second-Amendment activism. The lead screen of their “Politics and Legislation” page proclaims: \*\* The second amendment is about the distribution of force throughout a society so that the government would not have a monopoly on it. The focus is on keeping military arms in the hands of the people so they can act as a military force, if need be. The NRA defends the right to own hunting rifles and handguns. When it comes to the issue of military weapons, they sell us out. They claim to be the ultimate defenders of the second amendment - but when the bullshit assault weapons ban passed in '94, what did they do? Included an article in “The American Rifleman” about how to saw the pistol grip off your AR-15 to make it legal. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > In their most recent “Grassroots Alert” on that page, they refer to themselves as the “pro-Second Amendment community”. The linked speeches by NRA officials also hammer home paranoia about “gun banners” vs. “freedom fighters”, [e.g.](http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed010203b.cfm): \*\* There are more ‘extreme’ elements within the NRA, but even so, referring to your ‘enemies’ in a negative light doesn’t mean your positions are extreme. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Sorry, but this is not the way that “moderates” and “centrists” talk about people who disagree with their political views. Anybody who is willing to call me an “enemy of freedom” and a “terrorist” and a “fanatic” because my interpretation of the Second Amendment differs from theirs is IMHO not participating in rational debate. \*\* First, he’s talking about those who go out and actively try to destroy protection for the right to bear arms, not anyone who isn’t an NRA member. And you may be right, but you may also be applying a double standard. If there were several organizations dedicated to eradicating protections for the right to free speech and were extremely vocal about it, you might not exactly be polite about them. Your (I assume) antipathy towards his views may be causing you to lose perspective of his side. In any case, I don’t know who this guy is - and I doubt he’s in a leadership position in the NRA. There are more extreme elements of the NRA, and they’ve been kept out of power for a while now. While this guy may be making harsh speeches, he’s probably not setting NRA policy. > [@](#): > > \*\* > If the NRA doesn’t want the whole gun ownership community tagged with equally vicious labels like “paranoid gun nuts”, it should stop setting such a bad example. \*\* Of course, if they increase their ‘moderate’ stance and compromise further and further, pretty soon, they’ll just be called ‘paranoid’, as being ‘gun nuts’ won’t be legal. If you start with total freedom and “compromise” with a group that wishes to totally eliminate that freedom, you lose freedom every time. It’s not really compromising at all, it’s conceding rights. The NRA (and gun owners in general) have never gotten anything back from these compromises, it’s all been totally one sided. So if you compromise right down the middle, you lose half that freedom. And if you compromise again, you lose half of what you have left. And again, another half. Eventual you’ve “compromised” the whole thing away. Of course, you may now think of me as an extremist crazy gun nut - but from my perspective, I’m advocating and defending human rights. I would be equally as tenacious in my defense of the right to free speech, were there large, well funded groups whose entire purpose was to destroy it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bowling-for-columbine-anger-or-agreement/146398.md?page=6)