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God, Guns, and Michael Moore

By Page W. H. Brousseau IV
TIMES STAFF WRITER

I met Michael Moore in 2000 while working at the gun department of a local outdoors store. Moore told us he was filming a movie about guns in America. I was skeptical and told him as much. He said he was not making an anti-gun movie, but an anti-violence movie. He filmed a little, signed my National Rifle Association (NRA) card and left. Months of editing later and after cutting me out of the movie he has finally released it.

Bowling for Columbine is at times disjointed and contradictory; not to say it is not shocking and thought provoking. As an NRA Life Time member, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. Bowling for Columbine is the story of Moore seeking the reason to why America has such a high firearm homicide rate.

His adventures take him from Littleton, CO the site of the 1999 Columbine shooting, to Canada, Flint, and finally NRA President Charlton Heston's home for a climatic interview. Moore seemed able to control his leftist view on life at various points during the movie but his overwhelming pathos in life permeates the entire film.

Moore, like many Liberals who live in the big cities have three truths in life (1) the rich screw everyone, (2) the government only cares for the rich and the military, and last but not least (3) America would be a better place if white Americans were not so racist. There may be certain amount of truth in all three of these, but none are an absolute fact.

Moore talks about the mother of the six-year-old boy who shot Kayla Roland at Buell Elementary in Mt. Morris Township. Moore sensibly raises the question as to why a single mother is bussed 40 miles (from Flint to Great Lakes Crossing) to work for a near minimum wage.

Moore makes a connection that only he could - Dick Clark is responsible. Clark, the cultural music icon, owned the restaurant in the mall where Ms. Owens worked. Using Moore's logic, Clark in California should know why this poor woman was bussed 80 miles a day. Then forced to put her son in a crack house owned by her brother, where the boy found the gun.

Moore never mentions that the house where the young boy was living was described as a "flop house" by Genesee County Prosecutor Art Busch, who is interviewed in the movie. Drug transactions were conducted at all hours of the night, and the handgun was stolen. But Dick Clark is the one to blame, and when confronted by Moore, Clark has a "What the Hell are you talking about?" look on his face before he sensibly orders his aid to slam the van door in Moore's face and drive off.

Moore also insinuates that K-Mart, The Persian Gulf War, and the largest employer in Littleton, the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, are responsible for the shooting at Columbine. Moore makes no reference to the Trench Coat Mafia and most importantly, never mentions the fascination with Adolph Hitler the two shared.

The date of the shootings, Apr. 20, 1999, which would have been Hitler's 110th birthday. Throughout the movie, there is a flow of racism that Moore believes accounts for America's high murder rate, which makes the omission of Klebold's and Harris' Nazi fascination truly puzzling.

There is a somewhat amusing animation piece in the movie that tracks America's fear of non-whites up to the present. The cartoon goes astray by linking the NRA to the KKK, and giving the best rebuttal to gun control in saying some of the first gun control laws in America prohibited blacks from owning arms.

The movie ends when Moore walks up to Charlton Heston's home and just rings the buzzer. Heston answers and invites Moore back for an interview the next day. At the interview, the then 77-year-old Heston holds his own, but Moore's relentless attack makes the legendary screen actor and civil rights activist seem befuddled and confused.

Moore continues to pester Heston as to why Canada has a lower crime rate in proportion to their large gun ownership rate; Heston then comments on our mixed ethnicity. Moore asks him if he thought race was the cause of crime in America, and Heston flatly says no. However, many reviewers have picked that one sentence out to accuse Heston of being a racist. Heston may be many things but a racist is not one of them.

Heston was one of the first of the few in Hollywood to march with Martin Luther King, Jr., and Heston, as president of the Screen Actor's Guild, fought for the inclusion of black directors and actors in Hollywood. For over 40 years Heston traveled the world on behalf of civil rights.

Once again, Moore omits this and leaves it to the audience to make up their own minds. Moore then demands to know why the NRA is so insensitive as to hold a pro-gun rally in Denver only ten days after Columbine and one in Flint eight months after the Buell shooting.

The Denver rally was not a public relations plus for the NRA, but the Flint rally was months after and during a campaign season; for these reasons Heston looks confused as Moore accuses the NRA for kicking the locals when they are down. At that point Heston stands up, graciously thanks Moore for the interview, and leaves. Moore races after Heston with a picture of Kayla, but Heston continues down the path into his house. There is a problem with this scene, as it flashes from Heston walking away and Moore holding the picture. Two cameras were involved, but for one angle the cameraman would have had to race ahead of Heston to film Moore holding the picture.

Is Bowling for Columbine manipulative and biased in the director's point of view? Yes. Is it contradictory? Yes. Besides the Nazi omission, Moore never covers gang violence and the violent gun culture within the gang and drug filled places of our country. More importantly, Moore never actually answers any of his questions; that may be the reason why this movie works.

One distracting point is where Moore idiotically implies that the Central Intelligence Agency gave millions to the billionaire Osama bin Laden and taught al Quaeda how to fly planes into buildings. However, if you can get past his leftist social agenda, Moore has created a very thoughtful film that is not as anti-gun as it is anti-violence but with a little anti-military and pro-socialist health care thrown in as well.

© The Michigan Times 2002