Michael Moore: It's the guns -- but, we all know, it's not really the guns

[BrainGlutton]

Writing in HuffPo:

But they [RWs] are half right when they say “Guns don’t kill people.” I would just alter that slogan slightly to speak the real truth: “Guns don’t kill people, Americans kill people.”

Because we’re the only ones in the first world who do this en masse. And you’ll hear all stripes of Americans come up with a host of reasons so that they don’t have to deal with what’s really behind all this murder and mayhem.

<snip>

My liberal compatriots will tell you if we just had less guns, there would be less gun deaths. And, mathematically, that would be true. If you have less arsenic in the water supply, it will kill less people. Less of anything bad – calories, smoking, reality TV – will kill far fewer people. And if we had strong gun laws that prohibited automatic and semi-automatic weapons and banned the sale of large magazines that can hold a gazillion bullets, well, then shooters like the man in Aurora would not be able to shoot so many people in just a few minutes.

But this, too, has a problem. There are plenty of guns in Canada (mostly hunting rifles) – and yet the annual gun murder count in Canada is around 200 deaths. In fact, because of its proximity, Canada’s culture is very similar to ours – the kids play the same violent video games, watch the same movies and TV shows, and yet they don’t grow up wanting to kill each other. Switzerland has the third-highest number of guns per capita on earth, but still a low murder rate.

So – why us?

I posed this question a decade ago in my film Bowling for Columbine, and this week, I have had little to say because I feel I said what I had to say 10 years ago – and it doesn’t seem to have done a whole lot of good other than to now look like it was actually a crystal ball posing as a movie.

This is what I said then, and it is what I will say again today:

1. We Americans are incredibly good killers. We believe in killing as a way of accomplishing our goals. Three-quarters of our states execute criminals, even though the states with the lower murder rates are generally the states with no death penalty.

Our killing is not just historical (the slaughter of Indians and slaves and each other in a “civil” war). It is our current way of resolving whatever it is we’re afraid of. It’s invasion as foreign policy. Sure there’s Iraq and Afghanistan – but we’ve been invaders since we “conquered the wild west” and now we’re hooked so bad we don’t even know where to invade (bin Laden wasn’t hiding in Afghanistan, he was in Pakistan) or what to invade for (Saddam had zero weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with 9/11). We send our lower classes off to do the killing, and the rest of us who don’t have a loved one over there don’t spend a single minute of any given day thinking about the carnage. And now we send in remote pilotless planes to kill, planes that are being controlled by faceless men in a lush, air conditioned studio in suburban Las Vegas. It is madness.

2. We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes? Maybe we should fix our race problem and our poverty problem (again, number one in the industrialized world) and then maybe there would be fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer. Maybe we would take better care of each other. . . .

Makes sense to me. What other explanation – or solution – could there be?

[Ethilrist]

hmm… where’s the “Like” button…

[Ibn_Warraq]

@BrainGlutton

Writing in HuffPo:

Makes sense to me. What other explanation – or solution – could there be?

Like most of Moore’s stuff he very carefully massages the facts. Yes, Canada has lots of guns per capita, though still signifigantly less than the US, they have vastly fewer handguns and since IIRC the 1930s, it’s very difficult for people other than police or military to own handguns.

It’s worth noting that virtually all gun killings in the US are committed by handguns not by rifles or shotguns.

Similarly, he brings up Switzerland but neglects to talk about Switzerlands policies regarding allowing reservists to bring home ammunition(though they’re allowed to bring home their guns).

About the best thing that can be said about the essay is that it’s less misleading and dishonest than Bowling for Columbine.

[BrainGlutton]

@Ibn_Warraq

Like most of Moore’s stuff he very carefully massages the facts. Yes, Canada has lots of guns per capita, though still signifigantly less than the US, they have vastly fewer handguns and since IIRC the 1930s, it’s very difficult for people other than police or military to own handguns.

It’s worth noting that virtually all gun killings in the US are committed by handguns not by rifles or shotguns.

Similarly, he brings up Switzerland but neglects to talk about Switzerlands policies regarding allowing reservists to bring home ammunition(though they’re allowed to bring home their guns).

About the best thing that can be said about the essay is that it’s less misleading and dishonest than Bowling for Columbine.

So, you think gun supply is the problem and gun control is the solution after all, then?

[elucidator]

Moore is a propagandist, not a journalist. He is not confined to strict facts. I think he figures if he annoys you enough to make you got get the facts to refute him, you get those facts, and those facts support his arguments well enough.

I don’t entirely agree with his approach. But I have found little enough to fault in his goals.

[BrainGlutton]

@elucidator

Moore is a propagandist, not a journalist.

Or, in this case, a commentator/editorialist.

[Inbred_Mm_domesticus]

@BrainGlutton

Makes sense to me. What other explanation – or solution – could there be?

The comparison he makes is really very superficial. This is what he achieved: 1) Showed a nearby country has a lower homicide rate than the USA; 2) Came up with his baseless explanations for it. That’s not analysis. Of the two reasons he comes up with, #1 does not make sense at all. #2 has face validity to it. I’ve been surprised by the thought processes I’ve seen from some of the pro-gun side of things.

@Ibn_Warraq

Like most of Moore’s stuff he very carefully massages the facts. Yes, Canada has lots of guns per capita, though still signifigantly less than the US, they have vastly fewer handguns and since IIRC the 1930s, it’s very difficult for people other than police or military to own handguns.

It’s worth noting that virtually all gun killings in the US are committed by handguns not by rifles or shotguns.

Similarly, he brings up Switzerland but neglects to talk about Switzerlands policies regarding allowing reservists to bring home ammunition(though they’re allowed to bring home their guns).

About the best thing that can be said about the essay is that it’s less misleading and dishonest than Bowling for Columbine.

Thank-you for saving me the trouble of regurgitating what I looked up.

@BrainGlutton

So, you think gun supply is the problem and gun control is the solution after all, then?

Gun control is the most significant portion of the solution to our homicide by firearm rate.

[solosam]

Gun control is the most significant portion of the solution to our homicide by firearm rate.

Nope. It’s just the easiest thing to control. Other things… like raising our children to be decent human beings and treating people with compassion and decency… are beyond anyone’s ability to legislate and therefore go to the bottom of the list of options.

[Docta_G]

What’s so wrong about killing for Jesus of America?

[BrainGlutton]

@solosam

Nope. It’s just the easiest thing to control. Other things… like raising our children to be decent human beings and treating people with compassion and decency… are beyond anyone’s ability to legislate and therefore go to the bottom of the list of options.

Moore blames our gun problem on our poverty problem, which is not beyond anyone’s ability to legislate.

[Hottius_Maximus]

@Docta_G

What’s so wrong about killing for Jesus of America?

Did Adam Lanza kill for Jesus of America? Did John Holmes do that? How about Timothy McVeigh? What about the hijackers on 9/11? Maybe the shooters in the Oregon Mall? How about Major Hassan? Shall I keep going?

[Hottius_Maximus]

Okay maybe Adam Lanza didn’t notice the sign that warned that “This is a gun free school zone.” After all, had Lanza seen that sign, I have no doubt that he would have thought to himself, “Well Jeepers! It’s against the law to bring weapons here. Well golly gee whiz, I wouldn’t want to break the law so I guess I won’t shoot any first graders today.” Right?

[Ibn_Warraq]

@BrainGlutton

Moore blames our gun problem on our poverty problem, which is not beyond anyone’s ability to legislate.

No he doesn’t. In fact he explicitly denies that.

I don’t mean to sound rude but did you ever watch Bowling for Columbine or even read the article you linked to?

I ask because nowhere in either does he say anything like that.

I’m reminded of those who think that Bowling For Columbine was a pro gun control movie.

[BrainGlutton]

@Ibn_Warraq

No he doesn’t. In fact he explicitly denies that.

I don’t mean to sound rude but did you ever watch Bowling for Columbine or even read the article you linked to?

Yes and yes.

2. We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes? Maybe we should fix our race problem and our poverty problem (again, number one in the industrialized world) and then maybe there would be fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer. Maybe we would take better care of each other. . . .

What Moore explicitly denies is that America’s unique gun-violence problem has anything to do with violent movies or video games, or broken homes, or even America’s violent past:

They’ll say it’s the violent movies and video games that are responsible. Last time I checked, the movies and video games in Japan are more violent than ours – and yet usually fewer than 20 people a year are killed there with guns – and in 2006 the number was two!

Others will say it’s the number of broken homes that lead to all this killing. I hate to break this to you, but there are almost as many single-parent homes in the U.K. as there are here – and yet, in Great Britain, there are usually fewer than 40 gun murders a year.

People like me will say this is all the result of the U.S. having a history and a culture of men with guns, “cowboys and Indians,” “shoot first and ask questions later.” And while it is true that the mass genocide of the Native Americans set a pretty ugly model to found a country on, I think it’s safe to say we’re not the only ones with a violent past or a penchant for genocide. Hello, Germany! That’s right I’m talking about you and your history, from the Huns to the Nazis, just loving a good slaughter (as did the Japanese, and the British who ruled the world for hundreds of years – and they didn’t achieve that through planting daisies). And yet in Germany, a nation of 80 million people, there are only around 200 gun murders a year.

So those countries (and many others) are just like us – except for the fact that more people here believe in God and go to church than any other Western nation.

[BrainGlutton]

@Hottius_Maximus

Did Adam Lanza kill for Jesus of America? Did John Holmes do that?

No, John Holmes fucked for Jesus of America.

[septimus]

@BrainGlutton

[QUOTE=Michael Moore]
… We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear.

[/QUOTE]

Moore is not the only one who makes this claim (and that, moreover, our fears are deliberately manipulated for economic and political purposes), and it has a vague ring of truth. … Yet I don’t fully understand it. :dubious:

What do Dopers think of this? Is there a webpage which explains such alleged manipulation?

[BrainGlutton]

@septimus

Moore is not the only one who makes this claim (and that, moreover, our fears are deliberately manipulated for economic and political purposes), and it has a vague ring of truth. … Yet I don’t fully understand it. :dubious:

What do Dopers think of this? Is there a webpage which explains such alleged manipulation?

Having lived through 9/11 and the wars that were sold to us based on it, how can you not understand it?!

[Ethilrist]

@septimus

What do Dopers think of this? Is there a webpage which explains such alleged manipulation?

Whenever I see Westboro Baptist is picketing another funeral, I see all manner of people being manipulated by fear. Fear of what, I’m not really sure…

[BrainGlutton]

@Ethilrist

Whenever I see Westboro Baptist is picketing another funeral, I see all manner of people being manipulated by fear. Fear of what, I’m not really sure…

Phear of Phelps, mainly. If you’re in his church/family you’d damned well better do everything he says.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@BrainGlutton

Yes and yes.

Then you should have paid more attention, because he doesn’t blame poverty but cultural attitudes.

Admittedly he does by blatantly lying to his audience.

Moore is basically Chomsky for people who don’t like to read.