Well now. Michael Moore on the Aurora shootings

[druidp]

Who'd have thunk... ETA: And I'm still mentally reeling that I felt prompted to post something written by Michael Moore. So bear with me.

michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/its-guns-we-all-know-its-not-really-guns

It's the Guns – But We All Know, It's Not Really the Guns
By Michael Moore

Since Cain went nuts and whacked Abel, there have always been those humans who, for one reason or another, go temporarily or permanently insane and commit unspeakable acts of violence. There was the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who during the first century A.D. enjoyed throwing victims off a cliff on the Mediterranean island of Capri. Gilles de Rais, a French knight and ally of Joan of Arc during the middle ages, went cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs one day and ended up murdering hundreds of children. Just a few decades later Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, was killing people in Transylvania in numberless horrifying ways.

In modern times, nearly every nation has had a psychopath or two commit a mass murder, regardless of how strict their gun laws are – the crazed white supremacist in Norway one year ago Sunday, the schoolyard butcher in Dunblane, Scotland, the École Polytechnique killer in Montreal, the mass murderer in Erfurt, Germany … the list seems endless.

And now the Aurora shooter last Friday. There have always been insane people, and there always will be.

But here's the difference between the rest of the world and us: We have TWO Auroras that take place every single day of every single year! At least 24 Americans every day (8-9,000 a year) are killed by people with guns – and that doesn't count the ones accidentally killed by guns or who commit suicide with a gun. Count them and you can triple that number to over 25,000.

That means the United States is responsible for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries combined. Considering that the people of those countries, as human beings, are no better or worse than any of us, well, then, why us?

Both conservatives and liberals in America operate with firmly held beliefs as to "the why" of this problem. And the reason neither can find their way out of the box toward a real solution is because, in fact, they're both half right.

The right believes that the Founding Fathers, through some sort of divine decree, have guaranteed them the absolute right to own as many guns as they desire. And they will ceaselessly remind you that a gun cannot fire itself – that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Of course, they know they're being intellectually dishonest (if I can use that word) when they say that about the Second Amendment because they know the men who wrote the constitution just wanted to make sure a militia could be quickly called up from amongst the farmers and merchants should the Brits decide to return and wreak some havoc.

But they 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.

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.

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 ten 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, #1 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 (here's a good example of what I mean).

Those are my thoughts about Aurora and the violent country I am a citizen of. Like I said, I spelled it all out here if you'd like to watch it or share it for free with others. All we're lacking here, my friends, is the courage and the resolve. I'm in if you are.

[mominatrix]

Makes sense to me.

Have you seen bowling for columbine? It's been a while, but I remember liking it a lot...

Of course, I am the target audience...

..via mobile.

[heyjude]

Good read. Thanks for posting.

I have lived through so many mass shootings, they are all beginning to feel the same. W/ the same media response and the same 5 minute outrage and then the same collective shrug. Wait a year. Repeat.

America needs to look deep w/in itself.

[teflep]

This is why I think the gun debate is so shallow. We are violent. If not guns,then something else.

[ESF]

That was an extremely thoughtful piece. Thanks for posting.

Also, I agree most with this sentence --

We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear.

National Security blanket, anyone?

img.slate.com/media/1/123125/122964/2156542/2172094/2172112/6_DHSblanket.jpg
[/img]

eta can't make the picture appear. :-(
Here's the link
img.slate.com/media/1/123125/122964/2156542/2172094/2172112/6_DHSblanket.jpg

[heyjude]

Jul 25, 2012 11:03:21 GMT -5 teflep said:

This is why I think the gun debate is so shallow. We are violent. If not guns,then something else.

The gun debate is not shallow and I don't think that MM's point is that we abandon gun control. It's not either/or. Either we examine our violent psyche or we examine our gun laws.

[teflep]

Jul 25, 2012 11:11:43 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:03:21 GMT -5 teflep said:

This is why I think the gun debate is so shallow. We are violent. If not guns,then something else.

The gun debate is not shallow and I don't think that MM's point is that we abandon gun control. It's not either/or. Either we examine our violent psyche or we examine our gun laws.

I disagree. You can have all the laws you want, but until you et to why this happens....it goes nowhere. The ultimate rinse, repeat.

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2012 11:07:58 GMT -5 ESF said:

That was an extremely thoughtful piece. Thanks for posting.

Also, I agree most with this sentence --

We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear.

National Security blanket, anyone?

img.slate.com/media/1/123125/122964/2156542/2172094/2172112/6_DHSblanket.jpg

[/img]

I think I commented in the article on Americans that the one distinctly American thing to me is the fear and paranoia, and I think that when you pair that with easy access to guns, you have a high rate of gun violence.

Also, there is a big difference between a hunting rifleb(his point about Canada) and an assault rifle.BIG.

eta can't make the picture appear.
Here's the link
img.slate.com/media/1/123125/122964/2156542/2172094/2172112/6_DHSblanket.jpg
[/quote]

[ThirdandLong]

I watched "Bowling for Columbine" and thought it was very thought provoking. I didn't agree with everything in it and certainly some of it was the typical Michael Moore slant. But I appreciate that he made me think about it.

[charminglife]

Thanks for sharing - really interesting. I thought his point about using killing as resolving whatever it is we're afraid of is spot on and something I've not seen framed that way previously.

[binichic]

I can't stand MM. He is so anti-America. It's just annoying, at this point.

[heyjude]

Jul 25, 2012 11:13:33 GMT -5 teflep said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:11:43 GMT -5 heyjude said:

The gun debate is not shallow and I don't think that MM's point is that we abandon gun control. It's not either/or. Either we examine our violent psyche or we examine our gun laws.

I disagree. You can have all the laws you want, but until you et to why this happens....it goes nowhere. The ultimate rinse, repeat.

This is just mathematically not true. You have less guns you have less gun violence. It doesn't address our violent nature but it addresses the gun aspect of our violent nature.

[heyjude]

Jul 25, 2012 11:26:15 GMT -5 binichic said:

I can't stand MM. He is so anti-America. It's just annoying, at this point.

Sounds like he loves America very much, actually.

[Deleted]

My quote was all messed up, but this is what I wanted to say in response to esf.

I think I commented in the article on Americans that the one distinctly American thing to me is the fear and paranoia, and I think that when you pair that with easy access to guns, you have a high rate of gun violence.

Also, there is a big difference between a hunting rifleb(his point about Canada) and an assault rifle.BIG.

[teflep]

Jul 25, 2012 11:27:11 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:13:33 GMT -5 teflep said:

I disagree. You can have all the laws you want, but until you et to why this happens....it goes nowhere. The ultimate rinse, repeat.

This is just mathematically not true. You have less guns you have less gun violence. It doesn't address our violent nature but it addresses the gun aspect of our violent nature.

What? It addresses gun violence. Okay, you have me there. But, back to my actual point...we can have all the gun laws we want, but until you get to why this (violence) happens, it goes nowhere (less violent society). We are violent and paranoid...I agree with MM.

[binichic]

Jul 25, 2012 11:27:04 GMT -5 toledo said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:26:15 GMT -5 binichic said:

I can't stand MM. He is so anti-America. It's just annoying, at this point.

AMERICA! DON'T QUESTION IT.

Yes, because that's exactly what I said.

There's a difference between questioning and sensationalism. I'm all for problem-solving and trying to improve upon things (health care, national defense, the economy, etc.). I just hate when anyone uses sensationalistic tactics - left or right.

[bqbride]

Jul 25, 2012 11:13:33 GMT -5 teflep said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:11:43 GMT -5 heyjude said:

The gun debate is not shallow and I don't think that MM's point is that we abandon gun control. It's not either/or. Either we examine our violent psyche or we examine our gun laws.

I disagree. You can have all the laws you want, but until you et to why this happens....it goes nowhere. The ultimate rinse, repeat.

I totally agree with this. IMO, the real conversation is about mental illness and the severe lack of resources for the mentally ill. If there were more and better resources for the mentally ill in this country, a lot of this "random" violence could be prevented.

[teflep]

Jul 25, 2012 11:38:15 GMT -5 binichic said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:27:04 GMT -5 toledo said:

AMERICA! DON'T QUESTION IT.

Yes, because that's exactly what I said.

There's a difference between questioning and sensationalism. I'm all for problem-solving and trying to improve upon things (health care, national defense, the economy, etc.). I just hate when anyone uses sensationalistic tactics - left or right.

He can be exhausting and annoying and, well, hypocritical, but this is his livelihood. That is how he hooks people in. He isn't always wrong, even if his methods can be off (I liken him to a bill maher)

[teflep]

Jul 25, 2012 11:40:42 GMT -5 @bqbride said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:13:33 GMT -5 teflep said:

I disagree. You can have all the laws you want, but until you et to why this happens....it goes nowhere. The ultimate rinse, repeat.

I totally agree with this. IMO, the real conversation is about mental illness and the severe lack of resources for the mentally ill. If there were more and better resources for the mentally ill in this country, a lot of this "random" violence could be prevented.

I agree. Also, and maybe more pressing, is our perception of mental illness. The stigmas can be crushing.

[heyjude]

Ignoring the need for gun laws is like ignoring the need for seatbelt laws. You can't just teach everyone to be a better driver and hope that solves vehicle related deaths.

[binichic]

Jul 25, 2012 11:41:33 GMT -5 teflep said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:38:15 GMT -5 binichic said:

Yes, because that's exactly what I said.

There's a difference between questioning and sensationalism. I'm all for problem-solving and trying to improve upon things (health care, national defense, the economy, etc.). I just hate when anyone uses sensationalistic tactics - left or right.

He can be exhausting and annoying and, well, hypocritical, but this is his livelihood. That is how he hooks people in. He isn't always wrong, even if his methods can be off (I liken him to a bill maher)

I'm just throwing this out there for everyone...I never said he was "wrong" (although most of what he says is his opinion, and I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with him on many points). I just don't like him. I agree...that's his hook. And that's why I don't like him.

[teflep]

Jul 25, 2012 11:51:22 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Ignoring the need for gun laws is like ignoring the need for seatbelt laws. You can't just teach everyone to be a better driver and hope that solves vehicle related deaths.

We have these laws though and STILL have violence (and i am fine with no assault or, really, any guns outside of hunting rifles) but I see this is a circular argument, complete with assumptions....if more laws will make you (general) feel better, go on with your bad self. I will just be with the group looking to get to the root of the issue.

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2012 11:51:22 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Ignoring the need for gun laws is like ignoring the need for seatbelt laws. You can't just teach everyone to be a better driver and hope that solves vehicle related deaths.

Yep.
I think mental illness is certainly a large component, but again, other countries have the same problem and they don't have the gun deaths.

[teflep]

Jul 25, 2012 11:57:17 GMT -5 toledo said:

So.....you CAN'T, or WON'T, explain how he is anti-America?

Maybe she just sees sensationalistic documentaries, or sensationalism in general, as a problem in this country,

[binichic]

Jul 25, 2012 11:43:55 GMT -5 toledo said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:38:15 GMT -5 binichic said:

Yes, because that's exactly what I said.

There's a difference between questioning and sensationalism. I'm all for problem-solving and trying to improve upon things (health care, national defense, the economy, etc.). I just hate when anyone uses sensationalistic tactics - left or right.

Then why don't you go ahead and explain how sensationalistic = anti-America? For the whole class?

He's just lopsided when he presents his arguments. It's fine to think certain areas need reform. But in Sicko, he only gives negative examples in regards to the US health care system and only gives positive examples in regards to the system in other places. In Europe, he never mentions the patients left in ambulances in order to meet government targets on waiting times. He never interviews someone who couldn't get treatment because *their country* couldn't afford it. And he never mentions the many Europeans who would love to pay for private health care even though UHC is available/provided. And of course the people he interviews in the US vs. other countries are from different social classes. The variables just don't line up. It's not a true experiment. It's just an opinion cloaked in sensationalism. Why not talk about the pro's and con's of the US systems he seeks to reform?

[heyjude]

Also mental illness is certainly a component to our violence but it certainly isn't the only component or even the bulk of the problem.

[heyjude]

Jul 25, 2012 11:57:04 GMT -5 teflep said:

Jul 25, 2012 11:51:22 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Ignoring the need for gun laws is like ignoring the need for seatbelt laws. You can't just teach everyone to be a better driver and hope that solves vehicle related deaths.

We have these laws though and STILL have violence (and i am fine with no assault or, really, any guns outside of hunting rifles) but I see this is a circular argument, complete with assumptions....if more laws will make you (general) feel better, go on with your bad self. I will just be with the group looking to get to the root of the issue.

We have laws. But they clearly aren't adequate.

And then we even roll back some of our gun laws (e.g. the assault weapons ban).

The answer isn't "well the laws we have don't work so no more laws." The answer is "the laws don't work so let's make them better."

[heyjude]

Jul 25, 2012 12:10:42 GMT -5 nuggetbrain said:

Jul 25, 2012 12:08:05 GMT -5 binichic said:

He's just lopsided when he presents his arguments. It's fine to think certain areas need reform. But in Sicko, he only gives negative examples in regards to the US health care system and only gives positive examples in regards to the system in other places. In Europe, he never mentions the patients left in ambulances in order to meet government targets on waiting times. He never interviews someone who couldn't get treatment because *their country* couldn't afford it. And he never mentions the many Europeans who would love to pay for private health care even though UHC is available/provided. And of course the people he interviews in the US vs. other countries are from different social classes. The variables just don't line up. It's not a true experiment. It's just an opinion cloaked in sensationalism. Why not talk about the pro's and con's of the US systems he seeks to reform?

Being a lopsided sensationalist who uses hyperbole to make his point hardly means he's anti-American. Hell, I'm fairly sure 3/4s of Washington and half of my Facebook feed is also anti-American then.

If that's her definition of anti American then Binichic might need to take a look in the mirror.

[binichic]

Jul 25, 2012 12:18:13 GMT -5 toledo said:

Jul 25, 2012 12:08:05 GMT -5 binichic said:

He's just lopsided when he presents his arguments. It's fine to think certain areas need reform. But in Sicko, he only gives negative examples in regards to the US health care system and only gives positive examples in regards to the system in other places. In Europe, he never mentions the patients left in ambulances in order to meet government targets on waiting times. He never interviews someone who couldn't get treatment because *their country* couldn't afford it. And he never mentions the many Europeans who would love to pay for private health care even though UHC is available/provided. And of course the people he interviews in the US vs. other countries are from different social classes. The variables just don't line up. It's not a true experiment. It's just an opinion cloaked in sensationalism. Why not talk about the pro's and con's of the US systems he seeks to reform?

By this measure, anyone who has a strong opinion on anything is anti-America. Now I'm starting to understand how some conservatives can call Obama that with a straight face. And yet, this justification makes Limbaugh and Beck and all the rest of them anti-America.

Say, wait....

They are sensationalistic as well. Beck and Hannity...aye. Listen, MM clearly doesn't like or appreciate much about America as it is right now. He's for some different version of America that a lot of people probably don't agree with. His points are always against how things currently are. He never balances out his points to show all sides and then try to argue why his point is the better choice. Anti = against. That's how a lot of people view him, myself included.

I consider myself socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Most of my friends are liberal. I don't think they are anti-American, because even though they would like to see reform in certain areas, they appreciate this country and the opportunities they are afforded by living here. MM is clearly not in the same category as they are.

[heyjude]

Romney doesn't seem to like much of America right now. Anti American?