How sad - VT College loss of life

[skategoat]

This is from a vietnam veteran sniper who has just graduated from graduate school at the age of fifty and probably one of the wiser heads I know. Interesting angle that I haven't seen out there anywhere else.

"

"It is a sad state that we as Americans are in these days. At Virginia Tech...an old man barred the door and received multiple gunshot wounds as young healthy....some athletic....adults cower and ran from that senseless evil. While others ALLOWED themselves to lined up and executed. I thought education provided and enhanced objective thinking in people...not turn them into cowards and sheep. I can't believe that a young man or woman did not cover that old gentleman and allow HIM to escape. GOD forgive me for my harshness but maybe those are a gene pool that we don't need in America. What are we to do when those are the kind of people that define our future as a nation? These are no longer kids at 18 plus years. I have known many fierce, tough young men and warriors at 17 and 18 yrs and know a few young Hillbillys in WV that would have retaliated on that satanic idiot quite sufficiently. ..but sadly ...those kind of young men are becoming fewer every day. This kinder, gentler nation premise is just not going to work. Our first president had it right when he said "Eternal vigilance is thr cost of freedom." You aren't free when you live in fear or have to rely on someone else for protection...and personally...I don't need or want someone to protect me. "

Dr Hays

Your friend is the living embodiment of Monday Morning Quarterback. Nobody knows how one would react in this kind of situation. I have no idea what I would have done. Maybe jump the guy, maybe cower in fear, maybe run like hell. Who knows?

As for his being ex-military giving him some sort of license to speak about bravery, I wonder, is this the same military that coined the term "pink misting"?

[Dr D]

He isn't a member of the "greatest generation" but he is lamenting the loss of those values. I realize that I know him personally so that colors what I percieve from his comments so I will share that in an attempt to help all understand. He isn't attacking the individuals present at this attrocity, only the system and culture that created them. ITs certainly not the victims fault in any way shape or form. We have built a society of sheep and pacifists. There is no doubt about that. History clearly shows the end of that road leading to auschwitz and the like.:(

[Dr D]

Dear God:

Why didn't you save the school children at ?.

Bath , Michigan 1927

Houston, TX 1959

Moses Lake , Washington 2/2/96

Bethel , Alaska 2/19/97

Pearl , Mississippi 10/1/97

West Paducah , Kentucky 12/1/97

Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97

Jonesboro , Arkansas 3/24/98

Edinboro , Pennsylvania 4/24/98

Fayetteville , Tennessee 5/19/98

Springfield , Oregon 5/21/98

Richmond , Virginia 6/15/98

Littleton , Colorado 4/20/99

Taber , Alberta , Canada 5/28/99

Conyers , Georgia 5/20/99

Deming , New Mexico 11/19/99

Fort Gibson , Oklahoma 12/6/99

Santee , California 3/ 5/01

El Cajon , California 3/22/01 and

Blacksburg, Virginia 4/16/07

Sincerely,

Concerned Student

-----------------------------------------------------

Reply:

Dear Concerned Student:

I am not allowed in schools.

Sincerely,

God

----------------------------------------------------------

How did this get started?...

-----------------

Let's see,

I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare

complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools.

And we said, OK..

------------------

Then,

someone said you better not read the Bible in school,

the Bible that says "thou shalt not kill,

thou shalt not steal,

and love your neighbors as yourself,"

And we said, OK...

-----------------

Dr. Benjamin Spock said

we shouldn't spank our children

when they misbehaved

because their little personalities

would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.

And we said,

an expert should know what he's talking about

so we won't spank them anymore..

------------------

Then someone said

teachers and principals better not

discipline our children when they misbehave.

And the school administrators said

no faculty member in this school

better touch a student when they misbehave

because we don't want any bad publicity,

and we surely don't want to be sued.

And we accepted their reasoning...

------------------

Then some wise school board member said,

since boys will be boys

and they're going to do it anyway,

let's give our sons all the condoms they want,

so they can have all the fun they desire,

and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school.

And we said, that's another great idea...

------------------

Then some of our top elected officials said

it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs.

And we said,

it doesn't matter what anybody,

including the President,

does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good....

------------------

And someone else took that appreciation a step further

and published pictures of nude children

and then stepped further still by

making them available on the Internet.

And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech....

------------------

And the entertainment industry said,

let's make TV shows and movies that promote

profanity, violence and illicit sex...

And let's record music that encourages

rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...

And we said,

it's just entertainment

and it has no adverse effect

and nobody takes it seriously anyway,

so go right ahead.

------------------

Now we're asking ourselves

why our children have no conscience,

why they don't know right from wrong,

and why it doesn't bother them to

kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

------------------

Undoubtedly,

if we thought about it long and hard enough,

we could figure it out.

I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,"

------------------

Pass it on

if you think it has merit!

If not then just discard it...

but if you discard this thought process,

then don't you dare sit back and complain about

what bad shape this country is in

In God We Trust

[Galen]

Thanks, I had no idea Madeline Murray O'Hare was ultimately responsible for everything wrong in this country.. :rolleyes: Seriously though, this has got to be one of the hugest steaming piles of nonsense I've read in a while..I especially like the end where they say if you don't agree, you have no right to complain. Oh yeah, I wanna hang with those guys!

[Neuffy]

Then,

someone said you better not read the Bible in school,

the Bible that says "thou shalt not kill,

thou shalt not steal,

and love your neighbors as yourself,"

....and that the appropriate punishment for women who turn out not to be virgins at the time of their marriage is being stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20-1), that those who work on Sunday should be put to death (Exodus 35:2), and, you know, has Leviticus, which is pretty much as intolerantly and evil as it comes.

And we said, OK...because using the Bible as a moral guide is truly misguided.

-----------------

Dr. Benjamin Spock said

we shouldn't spank our children

when they misbehaved

because their little personalities

would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.

And we said,

an expert should know what he's talking about

so we won't spank them anymore..

(This is wrong how? Children who are spanked have a distinct tendency (statically) to abuse others, and to see the world in a significantly more power-dominated, antagonistic manner.)

------------------

Then someone said

teachers and principals better not

discipline our children when they misbehave.

And the school administrators said

no faculty member in this school

better touch a student when they misbehave

because we don't want any bad publicity,

and we surely don't want to be sued.

And we accepted their reasoning...

Because it really was worse back when schoolchildren were beaten by their teachers. If you think that bringing back corporal punishment to schools will _reduce_ school shootings, you've got another think coming.

------------------

Then some wise school board member said,

since boys will be boys

and they're going to do it anyway,

let's give our sons all the condoms they want,

so they can have all the fun they desire,

and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school.

And we said, that's another great idea...

Because teaching abstinence has worked so well? Because condoms alone increase promiscuity? I'm not sure where this is going...Is this a bibilical morality argument?

------------------

Then some of our top elected officials said

it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs.

And we said,

it doesn't matter what anybody,

including the President,

does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good....

A reference to Clinton, and his mortal sin?

------------------

And someone else took that appreciation a step further

and published pictures of nude children

and then stepped further still by

making them available on the Internet.

And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech....

Who has said this? Child pornography is still notably illegal virtually everywhere, and people are charged with it, and jailed, on a regular basis. Actually, IIRC, Texas may soon make child pornography or abuse (can't remember which) a crime worthy of the death penalty.

------------------

And the entertainment industry said,

let's make TV shows and movies that promote

profanity, violence and illicit sex...

And let's record music that encourages

rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...

And we said,

it's just entertainment

and it has no adverse effect

and nobody takes it seriously anyway,

so go right ahead.

Wait. Satanic themes? You can't be serious...Illicit sex causes these shootings? Sounds like this would fit in with Westboro Baptist Church's teachings fairly well, wouldn't it?

------------------

Now we're asking ourselves

why our children have no conscience,

why they don't know right from wrong,

and why it doesn't bother them to

kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

Truly? Children have no consciences, and don't know right from wrong? Or a small minority don't? There's rather a large difference here. Also, the wording of "even themselves" is indicative of it being worse to kill oneself than to kill strangers or classmakes. Is this being intentionally said? Why?

------------------

Undoubtedly,

if we thought about it long and hard enough,

we could figure it out.

I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...

the endemic bullying that takes place in schools along with a failure of mental healthcare, an attitude that belittles those who are either different or unpopular, and easy access to guns.

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,"

...and what we have sown is hatred of the other, indifference ot the suffering of others, and allowed those who want attention through violence to get it.

------------------

Pass it on

if you think it has merit!

If not then just discard it...

but if you discard this thought process,

then don't you dare sit back and complain about

what bad shape this country is in...especially considering that youth violence has gone down, as has most crime...

Not to discard this thought process, but it does seem to make some incorrect, illogical leaps.

I hope this wasn't meant seriously.

[kjl]

edit: deleted. I don't want to get involved. Stupid politics invading my hobby forum.

[skategoat]

I have an idea! Let's go back to 1950!

"Ward, I'm very worried about the Beaver."

[Derf]

Great response, but you should edit it to emphasize your notes because it can be hard for a tired eye to discern them.

[Neuffy]

Sorry, neglected that. Better? (eg. Are italics sufficient?)

[Dr D]

holy crap that illicited a heated response!!!!

ITs just the usual email forward forward forward stuff going around. If that gets you riled up you better not check your email:lol:

there are more than two sides to every argument! if there were only one or two they'd be easier to sort out.

And as always the truth lies somewhere in the muddied up middle.

[Dr D]

Sunday, April 22, 2007

<HR SIZE=1><!-- writer and photo option --><HR noShade SIZE=1><!-- end option -->VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE

Death toll limited before campus gun ban

5 years ago, shooter subdued by armed students

<HR SIZE=1>Posted: April 22, 2007

1:00 a.m. Eastern

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<HR SIZE=1><!--

© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com--><!-- copyright -->© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com <!-- end copyright -->

A deeply troubled and disgruntled foreign student runs afoul of college authorities.

He comes to the Virginia campus armed and starts shooting in one building.

But, unlike the massacre at Virginia Tech last week, the damage was contained in this incident that occurred five years ago, before the state legislature banned guns on college campuses.

(Story continues below)

<TABLE align=right><TBODY><TR><TD width=210>

Peter Odighizuwa</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

On Jan. 16, 2002, Peter Odighizuwa, a 43-year-old student from Nigeria, walked into the Appalachian School of Law offices of Dean Anthony Sutin, 42, a former acting assistant U.S. attorney, and professor Thomas Blackwell, 41, and opened fire with a .380 ACP semi-automatic handgun – shooting them at close range.

Also killed in the same building was student Angela Denise Dales, 33. Three others were wounded.

As soon as the gunfire erupted, two students acting independently of one another, Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, ran to their vehicles to retrieve firearms. Gross, an off-duty police officer in his home state of North Carolina, got his 9mm pistol and body armor. Bridges got out his .357 Magnum.

Bridges and Gross went back to the building where the shots were heard and as Odighizuwa exited, they approached from different angles. Bridges yelled for him to drop his weapon and the shooter was subdued by several unarmed students.

Gross went back to his car and got handcuffs to detain the shooter until police arrived.

Most news reports of the incident failed to mention the presence of two armed students and their role in subduing the shooter, saying only that he was tackled by bystanders.

Odighizuwa was tried for the murders and sentenced to multiple life terms in prison.

Virginia Tech, like many of the nation's schools and college campuses, is a so-called "gun-free zone," which Second Amendment supporters say invites gun violence – especially from disturbed individuals seeking to kill as many victims as possible.

Foreign-born student Cho Seung-Hui murdered 32 and wounded another 15 before turning his gun on himself. A year earlier, the Virginia legislature banned all guns on campus in the interest of safety.

[C5 Golfer]

+1

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OthWr/principal&gun.htm

[Neuffy]

On the gun control issue: Yeah, that's the thing. You either have to severely restrict guns, or have enough of them. It's this middle ground that's so dangerous.

Personally, my inclination is against guns. But only if we can actually reduce availability sufficiently. Having little "gun-free-zones" doesn't mean a whole lot. Eliminating guns that are designed specifically to kill people (eg. mag size>5 rifles, most handguns) would have made the Virginia Tech incident either not occur, or not occur in the easy-to-arrange-and-highly-effective manner it did, with legally bought guns. But having a gun-free-zone in the middle of a guns-everywhere-legally zone? Without any real measures to prevent the bringing of guns into the gun-free zone (eg. like aircraft security, not that I'm advocating that for universities or schools...). That just seems misguided. Unless, of course, the intent is to prevent the classic "drunk guy with a gun shoots somebody in the heat of the moment" scenario. For that, it may have some merit.

In that 5 year old case, IIRC, the guy didn't have ammo left when he was "subdued." If he had intended to continue shooting people, perhaps there would have been a use for the armed students.

[Dr D]

<TABLE id=table3 width="100%" border=0><!-- MSTableType="nolayout" --><TBODY><TR><TD><!-- #BeginEditable "Main" -->

This article was originally published in the

Boulder Weekly, and is posted here by permission.

Oct. 15, 1999

A principal and his gun

by Wayne Laugesen

Vice Principal Joel Myrick held his Colt .45 point blank to the high school boy's head. Last week, he told me what it was like. "I said 'why are you shooting my kids?' He said it was because nobody liked him and everything seemed hopeless," Myrick said. "Then I asked him his name. He said 'you know me, Mr. Myrick. Remember? I gave you a discount on your pizza delivery last week."

The shooter was Luke Woodham. On that day in 1997, Woodham slit his mother's throat then grabbed a .30-30 lever action deer rifle. He packed the pockets of his trench coat with ammo and headed off to Pearl High School, in Pearl, Miss.

The moment Myrick heard shots, he ran to his truck. He unlocked the door, removed his gun from its case, removed a round of bullets from another case, loaded the gun and went looking for the killer. "I've always kept a gun in the truck just in case something like this ever happened," said Myrick, who has since become Principal of Corinth High School, Corinth, Miss.

Woodham knew cops would arrive before too long, so he was all business, no play. No talk of Jesus, just shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading. He shot until he heard sirens, and then ran to his car. His plan, authorities subsequently learned, was to drive to nearby Pearl Junior High School and shoot more kids before police could show up.

But Myrick foiled that plan. He saw the killer fleeing the campus and positioned himself to point a gun at the windshield. Woodham, seeing the gun pointed at his head, crashed the car. Myrick approached the killer and confronted him. "Here was this monster killing kids in my school, and the minute I put a gun to his head he was a kid again," Myrick said.

True humanitarian

I've been intrigued by Myrick ever since that day. Most have never heard his name, because the mainstream press barely reported how the massacre was stopped. I've become more interested in Myrick's story with every subsequent mass murder. If only someone like Myrick had been at Columbine, I've pondered.

A few months ago, Soldier of Fortune Publisher Bob Brown asked me if I had any suggestions as to whom should receive his magazine's Humanitarian Award of 1999. In the wake of Columbine, the answer seemed clear: Joel Myrick. Brown talked it over with his staff, gave it some thought and went with my choice. Brown and I will present Myrick with his award Friday in Las Vegas, at the annual Soldier of Fortune Convention and Expo.

Myrick and his gun, no matter how one looks at it, saved lives. His actions saved the lives of waiting victims at a nearby junior high. He may have kept Woodham from shooting police, who would have arrived at the scene disoriented, without Myrick's home turf frame of reference. Arguably, Myrick and his gun even saved the life of the killer, who likely would have killed himself or been shot by SWAT cops after spilling more blood.

Although Myrick saved lives, beyond question, some treat him as a leper. After the shootings, and the relatively peaceful ending to something that could have made Columbine pale in comparison, Myrick was in exile. He'd held a gun to a student's head, and his colleagues simply couldn't accept that.

"Nobody wanted to dog me, but nobody wanted to side with me, either," Myrick says. "I felt like I was being betrayed by everybody."

And that was Mississippi. This summer he studied at Harvard, where he'd been awarded a prestigious education fellowship. That's when uppity intolerance and mass stupidity took on new meaning for Myrick. "Once people found out my story, I got a lot of dirty looks and strange stares," Myrick said. "A few people confronted me."

Myrick shouldn't feel bad. Only goofy losers gave Myrick funny looks, and such people never learn. Myrick's gun, and his ability and willingness to use it, saved lives plain and simple. Yet somehow, in the minds of the anti-intellectual gun control crowd, he's a bad man who did an immoral deed.

By any sane, rational view, Myrick is a life-saving humanitarian. Even in my view, however, his heroic act will be marred by an asterisk in the annals of history. Despite the presence of this brave man, two students still died. Therefore, the footnote of far off history books will read something like this:

*The late 20th Century was an era of crude polemics, in which some people believed hardware items, such as handguns, caused mass murders.

Therefore, ineffective laws that reflected this view made it illegal for this legendary hero to have his gun on campus. The gun was in a truck, giving the killer valuable time as Myrick ran to retrieve it. In modern society, of course, responsible adults have better access to hardware than killers do.

Arguing with a moron

Myrick is as much of a hero as the law would allow. He was only seconds away from the shootings, yet the law had him far away from his gun. Federal law precludes anyone but a cop from having a weapon in or near a school. The modern spree of school shootings began sometime shortly after this law was enacted. In most places, state and local laws needlessly duplicate the federal law, serving only to accommodate political grandstanding.

In Pearl, federal, state and local laws helped Luke Woodham shoot nine students. The deer rifle had to be reloaded after every shot. To hit nine students, Woodham needed time. The moments it took Myrick to reach his gun are what allowed Woodham to continue shooting and almost escape. Gun laws, and nothing else, gave Woodham that time.

But talking to gun control advocates is like talking to five year-olds. Tell a five-year-old it's time for bed, and he'll say "No." Ask why not, and he'll say "because." Likewise, I've told a few gun control advocates about Myrick-telling them how he would have saved more kids had it not been for gun laws-and they've said "guns kill." Or, "we have too many guns." Or, "Woodham killed his victims with a gun."

At which point I say, "Woodham violated several gun laws by having his gun on campus. The law did nothing to deter him, but plenty to deter the man who set out to stop the killings." To which a gun controller replied: "But guns kill."

Sucked in and trapped by this bizarre logic, I attempted to address it. I said: "But Joel Myrick's gun didn't kill. Rather, it allowed children, including the deranged killer, to live."

"Yeah, but all of these school shootings are done by guns," he told me.

So I pounded my head against a wall. Politics and sociology are complex. But if any socio-political issue should be a simple, exact science, it's gun control. All honest modern studies show that gun control, in this culture, benefits criminals while leaving law-abiding victims defenseless.

In his book More Guns Less Crime, Yale law professor John Lott ran the numbers every which way possible. He set out to write a book about guns being bad, and found that every gun law ever enacted in this country has resulted in more violent crime. I saw him on TV recently, debating a gun control advocate. Lott cited numbers and anecdotes. His opponent, in essence, said "but guns kill."

Politics of nothing

Right here in Boulder, a city of self-proclaimed enlightenment, city council members are hard at it trying to enact more gun control in the light of Columbine. Weird. Today in Boulder, it is absolutely illegal in every way, shape and form for a student to walk onto, or anywhere near a public school with a gun of any kind. Remove all state and local gun laws, and you still have a federal law that clearly forbids firearms of any kind within 100 yards of public schools.

Anyone who shoots up any school, anywhere, is violating gun laws. So what does the Boulder City Council think up to address the very real concern of school massacres? Hey, let's pass some gun laws. Duh. "If we can save one life," it would be worth it, Councilman Dan Corson told the Daily Camera.

If the city council manages to craft a gun law that isn't redundant to the Nth degree, it will serve only to make victims of future massacres more defenseless-guaranteed. Some politicians know this, but they don't care. What matters is how the public perceives the headlines their words garner. Guns kill. Duhhh. "Let's outlaw guns."

Gun control was essential to Hitler and slave owners in the Old South. Proven fact: Gun control oppresses and kills. Proven fact #2: Responsible adults, such as Joel Myrick, save lives. When unencumbered by bizarre gun laws, they can save even more lives.

So let's appeal to the Boulder City Council and the Boulder Valley School Board to explore ways of empowering law abiding adults. Perhaps it's time for the school district, with the full support of city hall, to establish a voluntary defensive weapons training course for teachers and administrators. Politicians who find a way to balance the firepower between forces of good and evil, by arming some teachers and administrators, might not get re-elected. But they might preclude a future disaster like Columbine, where SWAT teams sat helplessly in a parking lot while a teacher in the building prepared to fire at the shooters with a fire extinguisher.

Have a good laugh at this idea, on me. Then ask yourself whether it's more important to be re-elected, or to cut short a future school massacre.

We will never rid society of guns unless we eliminate the natural phenomenon of internal combustion. A gun is a crude instrument and nothing more than a controlled explosion. America is home to about 250 million of them, and they're with us to stay regardless of law.

If you want to save lives, the answer is simple. Stop keeping guns from the hands of would-be heroes-the only people who obey gun laws. Joel Myrick had a gun, legally in his truck. Myrick and his gun saved lives, but they could have saved more. The lesson: Some guns save lives.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[Dr D]

"More Guns Less Crime"

IF for no other reason than that an objectively thinking individual set out to write a book on how bad guns were and yet the data did not prove that to be true, so he wrote the book anyway and you have raw facts proving that freedom works and oppressive laws don't written by a gun control advocate. Interesting read!

[Jack M]

"More Guns Less Crime"

IF for no other reason than that an objectively thinking individual set out to write a book on how bad guns were and yet the data did not prove that to be true, so he wrote the book anyway and you have raw facts proving that freedom works and oppressive laws don't written by a gun control advocate. Interesting read!

Haven't read it, but your description reminds me of Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore sets out to make a "documentary" (purposefully in quotes there) about how we need more gun control, but has a huge comeuppance in the end when he discovers that Canadians own more guns per capita than we do and have less crime and less gun crime.

[C5 Golfer]

Haven't read it, but your description reminds me of Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore sets out to make a "documentary" (purposefully in quotes there) about how we need more gun control, but has a huge comeuppance in the end when he discovers that Canadians own more guns per capita than we do and have less crime and less gun crime.

Canada incarceration rate 129 prisoners per 100,000

USA incarceration rate 702 prisoners per 100,000

from: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/267035.shtml

Hmmmmmm.. seems there maybe more of a problem in the USA than just a gun.

[skategoat]

While I'm not sure what the sheer numbers are here in Canada, I can assure you that the vast majority of guns here are shotguns and hunting rifles. It is near impossible to acquire a handgun or automatic weapon. We also have restrictions on magazine capacity. As for carry permits again, forget about it.

The majority of handguns and automatic weapons that do exist in Canada are smuggled in from the U.S. or, they originate in the U.S. and are brought in via Jamaica.

So, Michael Moore's premise that we own as many guns as Americans but are somehow more responsible or "different" in how we use them thereby resulting in a much lower death rate, doesn't hold much water.

Access is the issue. When a disgruntled, disfunctional or mentally disturbed individual seeks retribution for his perceived injustices, he cannot simply walk into their neighbourhood gun shop or their father's closet and select his tool of choice.

Not to say that gun violence doesn't occur here - it certainly does - it's just that it is much more difficult to pull off.

Edit: My last comment on this: It's mind boggling to think that there are a vast number of Americans who truly believe that they have it right and everybody else has it wrong when it comes to gun control. There is no "First World" nation that has easier access to firearms. There is no "First World" nation with a higher death rate by firearms. Yet, the defenders of the Second Amendment, argue that guns are not a problem. They see no correlation between death by gun and access to said guns. These are relatively sane and intelligent people. These same people now say that because there are 200 million guns out there, we need more guns so that the people who already own the guns will be afraid to use them just in case they are shot by the people who they are trying to shoot. Ah yes, the old Mutually Assured Destruction theory.

It leaves me scratching my head.

[kjl]

Michael Moore sets out to make a "documentary" (purposefully in quotes there) about how we need more gun control, but has a huge comeuppance in the end when he discovers that Canadians own more guns per capita than we do and have less crime and less gun crime.

It's interesting you use the word "comeuppance". Do you view it as a failure or a weakness on Moore's part that he admits in his own movie that it's not the ownership of guns that's the problem, but that it is our culture? It seems that admitting that one's preheld beliefs were wrong based on closer examination of the facts would be a good thing, not a bad thing.

Personally, I think the guy is obnoxious, and hurts his side more than helps, but I think that part of the movie casts him in a better light than, say, his harrassment of Charleton Heston after Heston actually invites him into his house.

[C5 Golfer]

I think it is a shame that M Moore got an Oscar. Should be force to give it back.

"Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary, by the Academy's own definition.

The injustice here is not so much to the viewer, as to the independent producers of real documentaries. These struggle in a field which receives but a fraction of the recognition and financing of the "entertainment industry." They are protected by Academy rules limiting the documentary competition to nonfiction.

Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. Moore leads the reader to draw inferences which he must have known were wrong. Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which were not sentences he uttered. Bowling uses deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect.

A film which does this may be a commercial success. It may be entertaining. But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 12 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary is a non-fictional movie.

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

[Jack M]

It's interesting you use the word "comeuppance".

http://dict.die.net/comeuppance/

that's what I meant.

[Dr D]

much of canada's west is to far from the "crown" to follow the rules that closely.

I have been on many ranches out in BC where the lack of a handgun would be suicidal. Places where you might kill several predators in the course of a days work protecting cattle. The guns both handgun and otherwise are necessary parts of that culture whether they are legal or not. They don't carry them to town mind you but they are there.

The simple fact that a gun is a piece of metal and a tool no different than a knife or a rake for that matter should suffice in proving the point. Guns are tools, people kill people not guns. I am comfortable with the assumption that the complete erradication of guns would only lead to a knife problem or a baseball bat problem. Blaming cultural problems on innanimate objects is silly.

I could kill someone just as easily with a COILER:lol:

[kjl]

http://dict.die.net/comeuppance/

that's what I meant.

I guess comeuppance usually has a negative connotation, in a karmic payback kind of way. Like, "guy makes fun of handicapped people, gets in car accident on way to football game, ends up handicapped", or "bully picks on kids smaller than himself till he runs across the little kid with the black belt and gets pwned".

Anyways, it sounded like from your post that that section of Bowling for Columbine was a "ha ha, serves you right, Michael Moore" moment for you, whereas for me that section was more like a "holy crap, maybe Moore isn't 100% jerk" moment.

[kjl]

I am comfortable with the assumption that the complete erradication of guns would only lead to a knife problem or a baseball bat problem.

I don't think the gun-control side with argue with that. I think they would argue that a knife problem or a baseball bat problem would be preferable to a gun problem. Like a crazed lunatic rampaging through VT with a knife or a baseball bat probably wouldn't end up being able to kill 33 people.

Blaming cultural problems on innanimate objects is silly.

Blaming one sociopath's problems on the lack of corporal punishment, Clinton's affair, child porn, and that new fangled rock n' roll (your "Dear God" post) is equally silly ;)

[Dr D]

Blaming one sociopath's problems on the lack of corporal punishment, Clinton's affair, child porn, and that new fangled rock n' roll (your "Dear God" post) is equally silly ;)

Agreed you must have missed the part where I prefaced the post with the fact that it was an email forward going around. I didn't author it! I just threw it out for comment. The truth always lies in the middle somewhere and we only hear from the 10% on either extreme of a given subject.