I just watched the film, “Bowling for Columbine.” It is a documentry by Michael Moore on America’s infatuation with guns and violence. It was tagged as a “funny movie.” However, i found it a very sobering movie and a really troubling depiction of the state of America. I didn’t really realize that other countries like Canada, England, Germany, France, Austrailia and other major countries had amazlingly less numbers of gun-related deaths than here in America (and the strange thing is that they have a similar number of guns – and R rated movies, violent video games and rock music, etc). The numbers were anywhere from 40-300 comared to 11,000+/year in America. Truly staggering. What is the difference here than other places?
He took a good stab at the American media, which builds a huge amount fear into us here. He seemed to argue that in other countries, the media was not the same. Not knowing the media in other countries i can’t know for sure. But, i do know that the media here is in the business of alarming us to any and every thing that might cause us harm. From Y2k, to diets, to airport security, to cell phones, to just about any regular everyday thing, it seems that according to the media, we are just about always on the verge of being killed, hurt or whatever at any moment.
I am glad I saw this movie. Not totally sure what to think of it. Not like i am going to start picketing outside the local gun shop. I think maybe I’ll just work a little harder at trying to see “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”