Gun control data

[IJ]

Panther, I think your view of what a doctor should do for people is significantly different from the standard both in, and out of, the profession...

Our job is not just to discuss dangerous things when it's too late, as with the example of smoking you gave. By the time people have symptoms from their smoking they've already destroyed much of their lung tissue, are wicked addicted, and generally have something difficult to treat and progressive (emphysema, etc) to endstage illness and death, or something difficult to treat and generally fatal in a more short term time frame (lung cancer) and may already have peripheral vascular disease, other cancers, impotence, and heart disease (which kills more smokers than lung cancer).

I try my hardest to get people to stop smoking BEFORE they get sick, and I congratulate nonsmokers and advise them to stay that way. It's been shown that being told to quit by doctors is one of the best things we can do to help people quit, and it's widely understood that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I know you're referring to valued individual rights like helmet and seatbelt wearing, sexuality, diet, exercise; of course people should be able to choose these things. I don't see, however, how the fact that people can or may choose unhealthy behaviors (motorcycle use carries a 21 fold risk of death on the highway, for example) makes them off limits for people who are trying to keep them well. That's our job. And it seems to me we should concentrate precisely on those things that people choose because they can change them. If we concentrated on tests that showed you have a genetic predisposition to brain cancer, that's not really going to help anyone, but quitting smoking is the most important thing people can do for their health--generally--and since young people are generally healthy, their biggest risk of death is from accidents and seatbelt use and substance abuse are major issues to discuss.

[Panther]

Since how I wish to be treated and cared for is between me and my physician, I choose a physician that doesn't have a political agenda. When I've changed MDs over the years, I always interview a few different ones before I make a decision on who I go see. Others can choose to lay their life choices on the line for an MD with a political agenda to misuse, but I won't. So, I talk with an MD ahead of time and get a feel for him/her and decide whether I think they can be trusted or not. I used to have a set of questions that I would work into the conversation, but I haven't had to use them in a while. There are good, understanding, helpful medical professionals out there. My only point with what I've been saying is that the written policy of some medical organizations (AMA) is anti-gun, anti-freedom, and pro-political advocacy. As previously written, I know of someone who got nailed because an anti-gun MD asking some "innocent" questions during a routine visit. The answers showed up in the guy's records, even though they had nothing at all to do with his visit. He then had problems when his records got transferred to another doctor for specialized treatment... and it also caused havoc with his insurance!

So... that's where I stand and why I stand there. Good, freedom-loving MD... no problem. Political advocacy masquarading as "health care"... I will file boundary violation complaints every damn time. Simple...

Take care...

[Joe Graziano]

WHERE WE'RE HEADED
By Robert A. Waters -

You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your
bedroom door. Half awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way.

With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor.

One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside. As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble. In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered.

Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has
died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I
get?" you ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."

The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local
newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choir boys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article,
authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been
arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals
into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the
story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the
international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.

Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and
he'll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time.
The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't
been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.

The judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England,
killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the
once great British Empire?

It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly
reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.

The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not
only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.

Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest
after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.

The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of
"gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)

Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton
used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school. For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day af! ter day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearms stil owned by private citizens. During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were
threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer
considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.

Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was
quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times,
and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.

When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't
comply. Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens. How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been
registered and licensed. Kinda like cars.

Sound familiar?

WAKE UP AMERICA, THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.

"..It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an
irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."

--Samuel Adams

(edited by gem to read easier. Nothing in content was changed.)

[Austin]

This is not exhaustive, but for the original poster:

by Gary Kleck:

Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control, with Don B. Kates. N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2001.

"Can owning a gun really triple the owner's chances of being murdered?" Homicide Studies 5(1): 64-77.

"Crime as Social Interaction," with Marc Gertz and Leroy Gould, published in Stuart Henry and Mark Lanier's book, What is Crime? Controversy Over the Definition of Crime's Content, 2000.

"Firearms and Crime," to be published in Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior

"Gun Control in the United States," to be published in Gun Control: Current Issues and Future Challenges, edited by Kate Broadhurst, Adrian Beck, and John Benyon.

Unfortunately I didn't take any of his classes, but other Criminology faculty members at FSU said that Kleck was pro gun control, and began his research believing that gun ownership promoted crime and violence. The fact that his conclusions were contrary to his personal beliefs adds to the credibility of his studies, IMO.

[D.A. Downing]

http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/flash-01.php

[Joe Graziano]

Jeez, I guess we're just a bunch of gun nuts here in the USA. France, on the other hand, wow, that's the place to be! Lead the way Michael Moore and all you other so smart Hollywood types. We're right behind you, sure we are.

[D.A. Downing]

Oh jeez yeah Joe. I thought the issue was accurate data here. I guess I just sort of assumed that an award winning documentary that has been heavily scrutinized in the United States and all over the world (I saw the film last month in London, it's actually a cult classic in Europe. Have you seen it?) would be presenting accurate stats.

But I know what you mean about those obnoxious Hollywood types. We need to stand squarely behind real fellow Americans - like, like Charlton Heston....

[RACastanet]

Moore's 'documentary' is a good example of creating facts to support a position. There is no denying the US has a high death rate from firearms, but Mr. Moore's Oscar should have been for fiction. He is very creative in his use of the facts. Under heavy scrutiny, little of what Moore presents stands up. Unfortunately most will accept his statements as fact.

I will see how much of his 'data' I can refute and will report back later.

Panther: where are you at on this?

Rich

[RACastanet]

This was easy... Read on for the falacy behind Mr. Moore's 'documentary. Specifically note the Heston's 'speech' was edited by Moore:

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Documentary or Fiction?

-David T. Hardy-

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary, by the Academy's own definition.

The injustice here is not so much to the viewer, as to the independent producers of real documentaries. These struggle in a field which receives but a fraction of the recognition and financing of the "entertainment industry." They are protected by Academy rules limiting the documentary competition to nonfiction.

Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. Moore leads the reader to draw inferences which he must have known were wrong. Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which he never uttered. Bowling uses deliberate deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect.

A film which does this may be a commercial success. It may be entertaining. But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 12 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary is a non-fictional movie.

The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive.

1. Lockheed-Martin and Nuclear Missiles. Bowling contains a sequence filmed at a Lockheed-Martin manufacturing facility near Columbine. Moore intones that the missiles with their "Pentagon payloads" are trucked through the town "in the middle of the night while the children are asleep." Moore asks whether knowledge that weapons of "mass destruction" were being built nearby might have motivated the Columbine shooters.

After Bowling was released someone checked and found that the Lockheed-Martin plant does not build weapons-type missiles; it makes rockets for launching satellites.

Moore's website has his response:

"[T]he Lockheed rockets now take satellites into outer space. Some of them are weather satellites, some are telecommunications satellites, and some are top secret Pentagon projects (like the ones that are launched as spy satellites and others which are used to direct the launching of the nuclear missiles should the USA ever decide to use them). "

Nice try, Mike.

(1) that some are spy satellites which might be "used to direct the launching" (i.e., because they spot nukes being launched at the United States) is hardly what Moore was suggesting. Quote:

"So you don't think our kids say to themselves, 'Dad goes off to the factory every day, he builds missiles of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'"

(2) One of that plant's major projects was the ultimate in beating swords into plowshares: taking the Titan missiles which originally had carried nuclear warheads, and converting them to launch communications satellites and space exploration units.

2. NRA and the Reaction To Tragedy. A major theme in Bowling is that NRA is callous toward slayings. In order to make this theme fit the facts, however, Bowling repeatedly distorts the evidence.

A. Columbine Shooting/Denver NRA Meeting. Bowling portrays this with the following sequence:

Weeping children outside Columbine;

Cut to Charlton Heston holding a musket and proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'";

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore intones "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charlton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association;"

Cut to Heston (supposedly) continuing speech... "I have a message from the Mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver. He sent me this; it says 'don't come here. We don't want you here.' I say to the Mayor this is our country, as Americans we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!"

The portrayal is one of an arrogant protest in response to the deaths -- or, as one reviewer put it, "it seemed that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy." The portrayal is in fact false.


Fact: The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting (see links below), whose place and date had been fixed years in advance.


Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held. [No way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members.]


Fact: Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

Fact: When Bowling continues on to the speech which Heston did give in Denver, it carefully edits it to change its theme.

Moore's fabrication here cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things. Carrying it out required a LOT of editing to mislead the viewer, as I will show below. I transcribed Heston's speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency's transcript, color coding the passages. CLICK HERE for the comparison, with links to the original transcript.

Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds.

First, right after the weeping victims, Moore puts on Heston's "I have only five words for you . . . cold dead hands" statement, making it seem directed at them. As noted above, it's actually a thank-you speech given a year later in North Carolina.

Moore then has an interlude -- a visual of a billboard and his narration. This is vital. He can't go directly to Heston's real Denver speech. If he did that, you might ask why Heston in mid-speech changed from a purple tie and lavender shirt to a white shirt and red tie, and the background draperies went from maroon to blue. Moore has to separate the two segments.



Moore's second edit (covered by splicing in a pan shot of the crowd) deletes Heston's announcement that NRA has in fact cancelled most of its meeting:

"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that."

Moore then cuts to Heston noting that Denver's mayor asked NRA not to come, and shows Heston replying "I said to the Mayor: As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!" as if in defiance.

Actually, Moore put an edit right in the middle of the first sentence, and another at its end! Heston really said (with reference his own WWII vet status) "I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing."

Moore cuts it after "I said to the Mayor" and attaches a sentence from the end of the next paragraph: "As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." He hides the deletion by cutting to footage of protestors and a photo of the Mayor before going back and showing Heston.

Moore has Heston then triumphantly announce "Don't come here? We're already here!" Actually, that sentence is clipped from a segment five paragraphs farther on in the speech. Again, Moore uses an editing trick to cover the doctoring, switching to a pan shot of the audience as Heston's (edited) voice continues.

What Heston said there was:

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

Don't come here? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."



B. Mt. Morris shooting/ Flint rally. Bowling continues by juxtaposing another Heston speech with a school shooting of Kayla Rolland at Mt. Morris, MI, just north of Flint. Moore makes the claim that "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."


Fact: Heston's speech was given at a "get out the vote" rally in Flint, which was held when elections rolled by some eight months after the shooting ( Feb. 29 vs Oct. 17, 2000).

Fact: Bush and Gore were then both in the Flint area, trying to gather votes. Moore himself had been hosting rallies for Green Party candidate Nader in Flint a few weeks before.

Moore creates the impression that one event was right after the other so smoothly that I didn't spot his technique. It was picked up by Richard Rockley, who sent me an email.

Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas. It is brilliantly, if unethically, done,. Let's deconstruct his method.

The entire sequence takes barely 40 seconds. Images are flying by so rapidly that you cannot really think about them, you just form impressions.

Shot of Moore comforting Kayla's school principal after she discusses Kayla's murder. As they turn away, we hear Heston's voice: "From my cold, dead hands." [Moore is again attibuting it to a speech where it was not uttered.]

When Heston becomes visible, he's telling a group that freedom needs you now, more than ever, to come to its defense. Your impression: Heston is responding to something urgent, presumably the controversy caused by her death. And he's speaking about it like a fool.

Moore: "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."

Moore continues on to say that before he came to Flint, Heston had been interviewed by the Georgetown Hoya about Kayla's death... Why would this be important?

Image of Hoya (a student paper) appears on screen, with highlighting on words of reporter mentioning Kayla Rolland's name, and highlighting on Heston's name (only his name, not his reply) as he answers. Image is on screen only a few seconds.

Ah, you think you spot the relevance: he obviously was alerted to the case, and that's why be came.

And, Moore continues, the case was discussed on Heston's "own NRA" webpage... Again, your mind seeks relevance....

Image of a webpage for America's First Freedom (a website for NRA, not for Heston) with text "48 hours after Kayla Rolland was prounced dead" highlighted and zoomed in on.

Your impression: Heston did something 48 hours after she died. Why else would "his" webpage note this event, whatever it is? What would Heston's action have been? It must have been to go to Flint and hold the rally.

Scene cuts to protestors, including a woman with a Million Moms March t-shirt, who asks how Heston could come here, she's shocked and appalled, "it's like he's rubbing our face in it." (This speaker and the protest may be faked, but let's assume for the moment they're real.). This caps your impression. She's shocked by Heston coming there, 48 hours after the death. He'd hardly be rubbing faces in it if he came there much later, on a purpose unrelated to the death.

The viewer thinks he or she understands ....

One reviewer: Heston "held another NRA rally in Flint, Michigan, just 48 hours after a 6 year old shot and killed a classmate in that same town."

Another:"What was Heston thinking going to into Colorado and Michigan immediately after the massacres of innocent children?"

Let's look at the facts behind the presentation:

Heston's speech, with its sense of urgency, freedom needs you now more than ever before. As noted above, it's actually an election rally, held weeks before the closest election in American history.

Moore: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally." As noted above, it was an election rally actually held eight months later.

Georgetown Hoya interview, with highlighting on reporter mentioning Kayla and on Heston's name where he responds.

What is not highlighted, and impossible to read except by repeating the scene, is that the reporter asks about Kayla and about the Columbine shooters, and Heston replies only as to the Columbine shooters. There is no indication that he recognized Kayla Rolland's case. It flashes past in the movie: click here to see it frozen.

"His NRA webpage" with highlighted reference to "48 hours after Kayla Robinson is pronounced dead." Here's where it gets interesting. Moore zooms in on that phrase so quickly that it blots out the rest of the sentence, and then takes the image off screen before you can read anything else.



(It's clearer in the movie). The page is long gone, but I finally found an archived version and also a June 2000 usenet posting usenet posting. Guess what the page really said happened? Not a Heston trip to Flint, but: "48-hours after Kayla Rolland is pronounced dead, Bill Clinton is on The Today Show telling a sympathetic Katie Couric, "Maybe this tragic death will help."" Nothing to do with Heston.

Yep, Moore had a reason for zooming in on the 48 hours. The zooming starts instantly, and moves sideways to block out the rest of the sentence before even the quickest viewer could read it.

If this is artistic talent, it's not the type that merits an Oscar.

C. Heston Interview. Having created the desired impression, Moore follows with his Heston interview. Heston's memory of the Flint event is foggy (he says it was a morning event; in fact the rally was at 6 - 7:30 PM.). Heston's lack of recall is not surprising; it was one rally in a nine-stop tour of three States in three days.

Moore, who had plenty of time to prepare, continues the impression he has created, asking Heston questions such as: "After that happened you came to Flint to hold a big rally and, you know, I just, did you feel it was being at all insensitive to the fact that this community had just gone through this tragedy?" Moore continues, "you think you'd like to apologize to the people in Flint for coming and doing that at that time?"

Moore knows the real sequence, and knows that Heston does not. Moore takes full advantage.

As noted above, Moore's deception works on reviewers. In fact, when Heston says he did not know about Kayla's shooting when he went to Flint, viewers see Heston as an inept liar:

"Then, he [Heston] and his ilk held ANOTHER gun-rally shortly after another child/gun tragedy in Flint, MI where a 6-year old child shot and killed a 6-year old classmate (Heston claims in the final interview of the film that he didn't know this had just happened when he appeared)." [Click here for original]

Bowling persuaded these viewers by deceiving them. Moore's creative skills are used to convince the viewer that things happened which did not and that a truthful man is a liar when he denies them.

A further question: is the end of the Heston interview faked?

3. Animated sequence equating NRA with KKK. In an animated history send-up, with the narrator talking rapidly, Bowling equates the NRA with the Klan, suggesting NRA was founded in 1871, "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." Bowling goes on to depict Klansmen becoming the NRA and an NRA character helping to light a burning cross.



This sequence is intended to create the impression either that NRA and the Klan were parallel groups or that when the Klan was outlawed its members formed the NRA.

Both impressions are not merely false, but directly opposed to the real facts.


Fact: The NRA was founded in 1871 -- by act of the New York Legislature, at request of former Union officers. The Klan was founded in 1866, and quickly became a terrorist organization. One might claim that while it was an organization and a terrorist one, it technically became an "illegal" such with passage of the federal Ku Klux Klan Act and Enforcement Act in 1871. These criminalized interference with civil rights, and empowered the President to use troops to suppress the Klan.


Fact: The Klan Act and Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Ulysess S. Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus and deploying troops; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Klan was dealt a serious (if all too short-lived) blow.

Fact: Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan earned him unpopularity among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him, and an associate of Douglass wrote that African-Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

Fact: After Grant left the White House, the NRA elected him as its eighth president.

Fact: After Grant's term, the NRA elected General Philip Sheridan, who had removed the governors of Texas and Lousiana for failure to suppress the KKK.

Fact: The affinity of NRA for enemies of the Klan is hardly surprising. The NRA was founded by former Union officers, and eight of its first ten presidents were Union veterans.

Fact: During the 1950s and 1960s, groups of blacks organized as NRA chapters in order to obtain surplus military rifles to fight off Klansmen.

.4. Shooting at Buell Elementary School in Michigan. Bowling depicts the juvenile shooter who killed Kayla Rolland as a sympathetic youngster, from a struggling family, who just found a gun in his uncle's house and took it to school. "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl."


Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before. Since the incident, he has stabbed another child with a knife.


Fact: The uncle's house was the family business -- the neighborhood crack-house. The gun was stolen and was purchased by the uncle in exchange for drugs.The shooter's father was already serving a prison term for theft and drug offenses. A few weeks later police busted the shooter's grandmother and aunt for narcotics sales. After police hauled the family away, the neighbors applauded the officers. This was not a nice but misunderstood family.


Links:1., 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

5. The Taliban and American Aid. In discussing military assistance to various countries, Bowling asserts that the U.S. gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.


Fact: The aid in question was humanitarian assistance, given through UN and nongovernmental organizations, to relieve famine in Afghanistan. [Various numbers are given for the amount of the aid, and some say several million went for clearing landmines.]

6. International Comparisons. To pound home its point, Bowling flashes a dramatic count of gun homicides in various countries: Canada 165, Germany 381, Australia 65, Japan 39, US 11,127. Now that's raw numbers, not rates -- Here's why he doesn't talk rates.

Verifying the figures was difficult, since Moore does not give a year for them. A lot of Moore's numbers didn't check out for any period I could find. As a last effort at checking, I did a Google search for each number and the word "gun" or words "gun homicides" Many traced -- only back to webpages repeating Bowling's figures. Moore is the only one using these numbers.

Germany: Bowling says 381: 1995 figures put homicides at 1,476, about four times what Bowling claims, and gun homicides at 168, about half what it claims: it's either far too high or far too low.

Australia: Bowling says 65. This is very close, albeit picking the year to get the data desired. Between 1980-1995, firearm homicides varied from 64-123, although never exactly 65. In 2000, it was 64, which was proudly proclaimed as the lowest number in the country's history.

US: Bowling says 11,127. FBI figures put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23).

After an email tip, I finally found a way to compute 11,127. Ignore the FBI, use Nat'l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors' death certificates rather than police investigation, and give figures about 2,000 higher than FBI.

Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore's 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it.

Since Moore appears to use police figures for the other countries, it's hardly a valid comparison. More to the point, it's misleading since it includes self-defense and police: when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber.

Canada: Moore's number is correct for 1999, a low point, but he ignores some obvious differences.

Bias. I wanted to talk about fabrication, not about bias, but I've gotten emails asking why I didn't mention that Switzerland requires almost all adult males to have guns, but has a lower homicide rate than Great Britain, or that Japanese-Americans, with the same proximity to guns as other Americans, have homicide rates half that of Japan itself. Okay, they're mentioned, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

7. Miscellaneous. Even the Canadian government is jumping in. Bowling shows Moore casually buying ammunition at an Ontario Walmart. He asks us to "look at what I, a foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian Wal-Mart." He buys several boxes of ammunition without a question being raised. "That's right. I could buy as much ammunition as I wanted, in Canada."

Canadian officials have pointed out that the buy is faked or illegal: Canadian law has since, 1998, required ammunition buyers to present proper identification. Since Jan. 1, 2001, it has required non-Canadians to present a firearms borrowing or importation license, too. (Bowling appears to have been filmed in mid and late 2001).

While we're at it: Bowling shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, while Moore scornfully intones that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972."

The plaque actually reads that "Flying out of Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southeast Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas eve 1972." This is pretty mild compared to the rest of Bowling, but the viewer can't even trust Moore to honestly read a monument.

8. Race. Moore does not directly state that Heston is a racist--he is the master of creating the false impression --but reviewers come away saying "Heston looks like an idiot, and a racist one at that" Source. "BTW, one thing the Heston interview did clear up, that man is shockingly racist." Source.

The remarks stem from Heston's answer (after Moore keeps pressing for why the US has more violence than other countries) that it might be due to the US "having a more mixed ethnicity" than other nations, and "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning." A viewer who accepts Moore's theme that gun ownership is driven by racial fears might conclude that Heston is blaming blacks and the civil rights movement.

But if you look at some history missing from Bowling, you get exactly the opposite picture. Heston is talking, not about race, but about racism. In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement was fighting for acceptance. Civil rights workers were being murdered. The Kennedy Administration, trying to hold together a Democratic coalition that ranged from liberals to fire-eater segregationists such as George Wallace and Lester Maddox, found the issue too hot to touch, and offered little support.

Heston got involved. He picketed discriminating restaurants. He worked with Martin Luther King, and helped King break Hollywood's color barrier (yes, there was one.). He led the actors' component of King's 1963 march in Washington, which set the stage for the key civil rights legislation in 1964.

Here's Heston's comments at the 2001 Congress on Racial Equality Martin Luther King dinner (presided over by NRA director, and CORE President, Roy Innes). More on Heston.

Most of the viewers were born long after the events Heston is recalling. To them, the civil rights struggle consists of Martin Luther King speaking, people singing "We Shall Overcome," and everyone coming to their senses. Heston remembers what it was really like.

9. Fear. Bowling probably has a good point when it suggests that the media feeds off fear in a search for the fast buck. Bowling cites some examples: the razor blades in Halloween apples scare, the flesh-eating bacteria scare, etc. The examples are taken straight from Barry Glassner's excellent book on the subject, "The Culture of Fear," and Moore interviews Glassner on-camera for the point.

Then Moore does exactly what he condemns in the media.

Given the prominence of schoolyard killings as a theme in Bowling for Columbine, Moore must have asked Glassner about that subject. Whatever Glassner said is, however, left on the cutting-room floor. That's because Glassner lists schoolyard shootings as one of the mythical fears. He points out that "More than three times as many people are killed by lightning as by violence at schools."

10. Guns (supposedly the point of the film). A point worth making (although not strictly on theme here): Bowling's theme is, rather curiously, not opposed to firearms ownership.

After making out Canada to be a haven of nonviolence, Moore asks why. He proclaims that Canada has "a tremendous amount of gun ownership," somewhat under one gun per household. He visits Canadian shooting ranges, gun stores, and in the end proclaims "Canada is a gun loving, gun toting, gun crazy country!"

Or as he put it elsewhere, "then I learned that Canada has 7 million guns but they don't kill each other like we do. I thought, gosh, that's uncomfortably close to the NRA position: Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Bowling concludes that Canada isn't peaceful because it lacks guns and gun nuts -- it has lots of those -- but because the Canadian mass media isn't into constant hyping of fear and loathing, and the American media is. (One problem).

Which leaves us to wonder why the Brady Campaign/Million Moms issued a press release. congratulating Moore on his Oscar nomination.

Or does Bowling have a hidden punch line, and in the end the joke is on them?

One possible explanation: did Bowling begin as one movie, and end up as another?

Conclusion

The point is not that Bowling is unfair, or lacking in objectivity. The point is far more fundamental: Bowling for Columbine is dishonest. It is fraudulent. To trash Heston, it even uses the audio/video editor to assemble a Heston speech that Heston did not give, and sequences images and carefully highlighted text to spin the viewer's mind to a wrong conclusion. If there is art in this movie, it is this art -- a dishonest art. Moore does not inform his readers: he plays them like a violin.

David T. Hardy [an amateur who has for the last year been working on a serious bill of rights documentary], to include the Second Amendment.

dthardy@mindspring.com

P.S.: I don't have Moore's $4 million budget (and just got a $233 bill from my ISP for exceeding download limits -- this page has had 280,683 hits in six weeks), but if you could see the way to contribute ten or twenty dollars to this research, and to preparing a real documentary, please click below.


A few additions:


Equal time: emails critical of this page.

A brief reply to two responses I've received:

Objectivity: (sample email): "Your entire article is retarded. We're talking about making FILM. ALL film is subjective. Have you not even taken an entry level course in film before?"

Response: The point is not that Bowling is non-objective, or biased. The point is that it is intentionally deceptive.

Nothing is real: The camera changes everything, etc., so in video there can be no truth or falsity. Sample: "tv and movies, newspapers or even documentaries *are* constructions, not "the truth" ("truth" is subjective personal opinion/experience, which would be impossible to commit to videotape or celluloid)."


Response: This certainly has given me some insight into how some in the media view things! Can we agree upon one core premise: to deliberately deceive a viewer is wrong?


Regards, Rich

[RACastanet]

Most of the links noted above did not function. Here is the link to the entire transcript with the links to background info:

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

Back to you...

Rich

[D.A. Downing]

It seems like a decent attack on the movie. You say that Bowling is not a documentary by the Academy's definition, but I don't think you put what the definition is. You also don't state what genre you think it should be in. Small matter of semantics, anyway. The important thing, the question that Moore was asking in the movie, is why are we so much more violent? His answers (all of which play some role), from my interpretation are: 1) lack of gun control, 2) we wreak violence on the rest of the world without justification or repentance (setting a bad example for our citizens), 3) fear-mongering (often racist) by the gov't and the media, 4) we don't take care of our own. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on "defense" but we don't have universal health care, we cut back on welfare (even during recessions), we attack and break up unions, we allow corporations to destroy our cities by moving factories abroad without repercussions, and I think there were more points (the last few points were in more detail in another documentary of his).

[Panther]

Panther: where are you at on this?

1: Anyone still giving credibility to Michael Moore, in any way, simply hasn't done their homework.

2: Lenin’s term for credulous non-Communist denizens of the West who were easily suckered by the supposed democratic progressivism of the Communist Revolution was "Useful Idiots". While being credited with the prediction that "liberals and other weak-minded souls in the West could be relied upon" in such a fashion, he may have never actually uttered the phrase "Useful Idiots". Regardless, it was consistent with Lenin's cynical style and unfortunately, the modern American left has demonstrably lived down to this sour prediction.

[D.A. Downing]

The information provided in my post is well known and not just from Bowling.

Who cares what Lenin has to say? Are his statues around anymore?

[Panther]

It seems like a decent attack on the movie. You say that Bowling is not a documentary by the Academy's definition, but I don't think you put what the definition is. You also don't state what genre you think it should be in. Small matter of semantics, anyway.

No small matter at all.

"Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. ... But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 12 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary is a non-fictional movie.

The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive."

fic·tion 'fik-sh&n noun:
1: something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically : an invented story
2: a useful illusion or pretense
3: the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination

doc·u·men·ta·ry dä-ky&-'men-t&-rE, -'men-trE noun:
1: a presentation (as a film or novel) being or consisting of proof or evidence as contained in certified writing.
2 : of, relating to, or employing authenticated evidence in literature or art; broadly : FACTUAL

Upon even casual scrutiny and checking of the facts, this film isn't a documentary.

The important thing, the question that Moore was asking in the movie, is why are we so much more violent? His answers (all of which play some role), from my interpretation are: 1) lack of gun control,

No... you have your impression, but the statements in the movie actually point to lower violence in Canada with comparable gun ownership rates and gun control laws... at least according to the film. The "gun control" component was also addressed in the rebuttal above and shown to be a non-sequitor.

2) we wreak violence on the rest of the world without justification or repentance (setting a bad example for our citizens),

The "rest of the world" has done a fine job of wreaking unjustified violence on each other (and themselves) without our involvement. I direct your attention to the thread listing US involvement in conflicts and asking for personal justification assessment of each. Please do that exercise before continuing on this point. In that way, your position on each conflict will be known and we can see what you believe to be "justified" vs. "unjustified".

3) fear-mongering (often racist) by the gov't and the media,

Agreed to a large extent. However, Moore commits egregious violations in this area in all of his movies. Meets the very definition of hypocritical for him to condemn the very actions he takes.

4) we don't take care of our own. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on "defense" but we don't have universal health care, we cut back on welfare (even during recessions), we attack and break up unions, we allow corporations to destroy our cities by moving factories abroad without repercussions, and I think there were more points (the last few points were in more detail in another documentary of his).

More than any other nation of the world... including the Communist and Socialist ones, it is provable that we do take care of our own. We don't have "universal health care" because we don't want "universal health care"! It doesn't work. That is another debate and another topic. Please start it as a separate thread.

In a recession, even an economics 101 student can tell you that cutbacks are made. Those affect everyone... even those on welfare. This is also another debate and another topic. You can start that as another thread.

People can chose to form a union or not... Historically, it has been the union organizers who have done the "attacking and breaking". Again, you can start another thread about unions.

Freedom dictates that companies can place their corporation, corporate offices, and facilities in any nation they wish. If you'd like to start a debate about NAFTA or GATT or these types of issues, please start another thread.

Rich posted a rebuttal which (if you follow the links) addresses each point with actual facts.

[Panther]

The information provided in my post is well known and not just from Bowling.

Sources and cites.

Who cares what Lenin has to say? Are his statues around anymore?

His beliefs are demonstrably alive and well among the American left.