Columbine Fallacies

Michael Moore created the documentary Bowling for Columbine to investigate why shootings like the Columbine High School massacre happen, and, in general, why America has the killing rates it does. He strategically does this by walking the viewers through what many believe to be reasons for gun violence in America, and he shows how they are just fallacies. Even though it may not be apparent at first, it seems that Moore has created a list of fallacies. For example, Moore shows that some believe our violent history, violent games and movies, racial diversity, or easy accessibility to firearms is responsible for the killings in the United States. Like a process of elimination he crosses each one off of his list, demonstrating their implausibilities

He accomplished finding this fallacy by first asking some New Yorkers what they thought about Canadians. One said, “Canadians don’t watch the violent movies we do.” However, Moore presented in his documentary a short clip of a violent movie with someone’s leg getting shot off with a laser. At the same time Moore said, “That’s wrong. Hoards of young boys all throughout Canada eagerly await the next Hollywood bloodbath.” Subsequently, he had himself recorded talking to some teenagers, who had just watched the movie, playing a game where they shot people at the movie theatre arcade. He asked if the reason they chose that game because of the violent movie they just watched, and one responded with, “Well, yeah.” Another time in the film, Moore included a scene from the movie Terminator in french, while he asked the rhetorical question, “Don’t they watch the same violent movies in France?” On another note he said, “Most of the world’s violent video games come from Japan.” He used these scenes and statements to eliminate the fallacy that the violent games and movies are the culprits for the massacres in the United States. All this helped the viewers understand the threat responsible for Americans killing each other is something besides violent movies and games, crossing another fallacy off his

He fulfilled this by showing that he stopped to eat in a Canadian restaurant and saw what Canadian news was like. Their news was actually encouraging, unlike our news in the United States. It seems to be so supportive that Canadians don’t even lock their doors. Moore asked a group of people if they locked their house at night and they all replied, “No.” Then, he asked if they locked their house on the way out the door, and they all said no. He must have not believed them, because he took a walk down the street and just started opening up people’s doors and walking in. Every door that the film showed him trying to open was unlocked. On the other hand, a typical American would lock their door, because of how frightening our news is, with all the stories about the killings, thefts, and riots. Our news is almost like some sick type of terrorism. To show that news reporters should be blamed, Moore asked a news reporter in South-Central LA, “If you have to choose between a guy with a gun and the near drowning of a baby, and you can only be in one place which do you go to?” The reporter replies, “ The gun.” These stories about firearms cause Americans to shoot each other out of