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In Reply to: Re: Bowling for the truth - Michael Moore's mockumentary posted by Mike W. on April 11, 2003 at 11:56:01:
Mike,
regardless of your personal take on Moore and the Columbine documentary, have you perhaps thought about why this country has the highest homicide rate (ratio) of all the other industrialized countries?
I teach a violence class and we get numbers...real and raw data we deal with...you can even check some of those from the Bureau of Justice.
No matter how you cut the cake the percentage of violent crimes and homicide in the US is many times higher than many other countries....it behooves us all Americans to ask ourselves why it is so, and try to find ways to talk about it, and to effect some social change, no matter how hard that can be at a cultural level.
Guns have a lot to do with all of this, and with the particular culture we talk about, and that Moore tried to talk about.
So, when all is said and done, you have some staggering figures looking at you about murders and the EASE with which that takes place. When I get kids from the Juvenile Hall to come and testify how they got there...they tell their life story. I am telling you...if guns were not so easily available, and pulling the trigger was not such an easy option...many of them would not be there. And it is bigger than that...it is the void all around...the family void etc for people who come from life situations without parenting and with big vacuums to fill.
Cults - and other things - do a great job in filling those vacuums.
