Bowling For Columbine, By Michael Moore

School shootings are a tragedy that is all too common, particularly in the USA. Michael Moore chose to delve a little deeper to find the possible causes of this, particularly in relation to the 1999 school shooting at the town of Columbine through the documentary Bowling for Columbine. Based on this documentary, the causes of the school shooting are due to the environment: primarily the United States’ violent history, then the abundance of guns in the country. The cause of the school shooting was not violent media or mental illnesses. America’s violent foreign policy can be considered a direct cause of school shootings. When kids see that their country solves their problems through guns and violence, they can just as easily apply that to their life. America’s position as an aggressor leads to that kind of behaviour being acceptable among children. Throughout the documentary, the audience is shown all the predilection that America has for guns when solving issues with other countries. The same day of the shooting in Columbine, America bombed Kosovo and kills 200 000 civilians. America enabled Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to kill people because they provided the two with the resources and the training to do so. In 1998,
There is blame placed on music like Marilyn Manson. However, the documentary shows that Germany, which has a huge Goth culture and Marilyn Manson following, still did not have nearly as many incidents with gun violence as in the U.S. Violent movies are shown around the world, yet America continues to have high rates of gun violence. Banning violent music or video games as a solution to gun violence really does not solve the problem. By banning video games and music, which could be used as positive outlets for negative emotions is just aggravating the issue. Ultimately, violent media are not the source of violence like school