Abstract
This paper studies Michael Moore's award winning docudrama "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), which provided an eye-opening look at the social problem of violence in the United States, particularly violence with guns. The film focused on events leading up to the Columbine High School shootings. The paper demonstrates how, from a sociological perspective, Moore effectively showed that both social institutions (e.g., the community, the school) and social relationships (e.g., within the community, between students) played a role in the Columbine tragedy. The paper also lauds Moore for effectively presenting the causes and consequences of this recurring social problem (i.e. gun violence) in an effective manner.

From the Paper
"One portion of the film that I found extremely revealing was when Michael Moore went up to Canada with his film crew for this movie, and interviewed people up there, who seemed less afraid, and said they were less afraid, than Americans he had interviewed for the film earlier. These two sets of interviews illustrated the point, very convincingly, that America has far more general fear bred into its culture, in terms of anxieties people feel just living life, than does Canada. For that reason, Moore implies, many Americans feel they need guns simply to protect themselves against the frightening elements "out there", a feeling that then feeds on itself, with more fear and more gun ownership. In contrast, Canadians who were interviewed for the film do not even lock their front doors, and most do not own guns or feel any need to own guns. Moore convincingly explored, also, how the mythology of the Wild West (e.g., Western movies starring actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood) are so much a part of the American identity that Americans actually also identify with guns and gun ownership as if it were needed in order to feel safe."

Tags:gun, shooting, school, columbine, teenager, crime, death, bullet, 2nd, amendment, bear, arms

Abstract
In this article, the writer describes the major characters involved in the Columbine shooting. This includes the shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the students and teachers, the Sheriff and his Deputy, the police and the school custodian.

From the Paper
"The following presents a description of the major characters of the Columbine shooting. The characters are identified and the discussion presents what they did and how they were affected. There were many characters involved in the Columbine shooting. The shooters of students were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. These individuals began shooting students after bombs that had been planted in the school did not explode as planned they committed suicide in the library. Additional characters that were critically involved included twelve students and one teacher who were ..."

Tags:Columbine, students, shootings, sheriff, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, suicide, high school

Abstract
This paper provides an examination of Michael Moore's documentary film, "Bowling For Columbine" as a work of propaganda. It looks at Moore's exposure of the roots of violence, his techniques and how they support his thesis. The paper also looks at Moore's desire to provoke as well as to inform.

From the Paper
"When Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine was released it was certainly a controversial film. Closely following the tragic incidents at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado Moore's film set out to expose the root of the problems behind such acts of violence. In doing so he learns that the conventional answers of easy availability of guns, violent national history, violent entertainment and even poverty are inadequate to explain this violence when other cultures share those same factors without the equivalent ..."

Tags:bowling for columbine, michael moore, propaganda

Abstract
This paper discusses Michael Moore's thesis in the film "Bowling for Columbine" and examines how Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim might respond to Moore's analysis of the culture of guns in America.

From the Paper
"In the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" writer-director Michael Moore argues both directly and by illustrative evidence, that ready access to guns goes far to explain the high incidence of death and injury in the United States, due to the use of guns as weapons, whether illegally or legally obtained. As Moore points out, the annual U.S. toll of gun deaths accounts for the combined gun death toll of several of the world's industrialized democracies including Great Britain and Canada."

Tags:Gun control, Michael Moore, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Abstract
The paper illustrates how the cinematic techniques used by the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" are crafted upon the use of irony. The paper also shows how "Bowling for Columbine" is compelling because directory Michael Moore uses slice-of-life film in 'real time' to show how he, along with the viewer, is searching for answers as to what is real, in a culture where so much unreality characterizes the depiction of American violence. The paper discusses Moore's belief that greater corporate and individual responsibility in America is necessary to prevent the Columbine tragedy from occurring again.

From the Paper
"The cinematic techniques used by the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" by Michael Moore are entirely crafted upon the use of carefully delineated irony. The film contrasts the real need to protect the nation's citizens with the zealous love affair that Americans have with guns. The title of the film refers to the tragedy at Columbine High School, Ohio where the all-too typical adolescent angst of a group of troubled teens was the tinder that combined with the spark of easy access to guns. This cumulated in a conflagration of violence, as they vented their frustrations upon their fellow pupils. Only in America, Moore suggests, could such a horrific event occur. It is not that teens are not unhappy or bulled in other lands, but no other land makes it so easy and acceptable to wield the deadly power of firearms as a way to vent anger."

Tags:gun, control, firearms, weapons, shootings

Abstract
This paper discusses the different explanations and rationalizations offered in an attempt to understand the horrific events that took place at a high school in Columbine, Colorado. Much of the focus of the paper is devoted to literature concerned with the pain of being unable to articulate or assert the self and how this type of pain is what triggered the Columbine tragedy. The paper continues with a discussion of the gender differences in acting out emotional pain and turmoil and concludes with the admonition that undoing the causes of self-destructive behavior in teens will take a cultural excavation and a reconfiguring of male and female identities.

From the Paper
"One does not need to look very far to find individuals who are similarly conflicted in their inability to articulate themselves and find ways to do that are often bizarre and unrewarding to themselves and society as a whole. The tragedy that occurred four years ago, in 1999, at Columbine high school is an example of such a tragedy. A Website erected on the Internet in honor of the event describes the event as such. "Two students in black trench coats killed twelve schoolmates and a teacher Tuesday at Columbine High School, most of them in the library. The gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, then apparently killed themselves. They were called the 'Trenchcoat Mafia'" before the incident occurred."

Tags:tragedy, eric, harris, dylan, klebold, trenchcoat, mafia, classmates, adolescents, hatred, hit, list, expression

Abstract
This paper explains that a number of theories regarding the motives of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the killers in the Columbine High School massacre, have been offered since the shootings. The author points out that many people argue that both Klebold and Harris felt isolated from the rest of their classmates; however, this theory seems to have been debunked. The paper relates that, nonetheless, in reaction to Columbine, schools throughout the country enacted programs designed to expose and prevent bullying in the classroom. The author suggests that another theory is the boys' attraction to violent video games and movies. The paper states that the only things society can do to prevent violence is to pay close attention to warning signs, increase security and to be cautious especially, as in this case, if there is abnormal behavior.

Table of Contents:
Setting
Aftermath
Our Stance

From the Paper
"At 11:14am, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried two propane bombs into the school cafeteria concealed in duffle bags. Luckily, these bombs failed to detonate, possibly preventing hundreds of further casualties. Five minutes later, Harris and Klebold began their shooting spree from the top of the stairs leading into the west side of the school. At 11:23am, the first 911 call is made coming from the school. Two minutes after the call, the first police car arrives on scene at the high school. A pipe bomb (much smaller than the malfunctioned propane bombs) explodes in the cafeteria at 11:27am creating smoke and scattering students."

Tags:zero-tolerance programs, video games, evilness detectors

Abstract
This paper examines how "Bowling for Columbine" is a piece of filmmaking designed to provoke viewers regardless of their political beliefs and how underlying the film are solid truths about the history of and current state of affairs in the United States. It looks at how it examines in particular three main themes: racism, gun control, and the psychological and sociological impacts of mass media by using the Columbine shooting incident as an anchor.

From the Paper
"No one need watch Bowling for Columbine to discover that race relations in the United States have been poor since the birth of the nation. Wresting millions of Africans from their home countries, treating them worse than cattle, and enslaving them and their families in deplorable conditions for centuries do little to foster good race relations. The abolition of slavery contributed little to the improvement of white-black relations in the United States, since Reconstruction was a dismal failure in this respect and in fact permitted hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan to thrive. The animated sequence in Bowling for Columbine, combined with Moore's treatment of racial profiling, show that Moore is keenly aware of and sensitive to race-related issues. Moore also shows how race relations in the United States contributed indirectly to the Columbine shootings, which occurred in a mainly white, middle-class suburban town. According to Moore, blacks have been convenient scapegoats of violent crimes."

Tags:racism, gun, control, united, states

Abstract
This paper takes a look at the cultural conditions and emotional settings that exist within American society that may cause such atrocities as the one that occurred in 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

From the Paper
"No sooner had the gunfire begun around 11:30 a.m. on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, than accounts of it began to emerge, ranging from what happened to why it happened. In no time, culturally saturated "narrative truths" merged with the "historical truths" of the event and came to define it. It soon began to sound similar to other cultural stories in its cast and type of characters, sequence of events, story line, motivational inquiry (why the actors did what they did), the boundaries of the event (who was and was not on stage), and the like. The massacre quickly became woven into often-competing discourses, diagnoses, or interpretations which variously foregrounded parental responsibility, the power of the peer group, bad genes, and vulnerable temperament. Certain cultural categories quickly emerged as part of a recognizable taxonomy: Violence, schools, teens, gangs, adolescence, workplace, safety, and control. The Columbine shooting became part of standardized ways of accounting for the way events like this happen. Psychohistorian David R. Beisel (1999) describes how his university classroom discussions on the day following the Columbine shootings echoed the discussions in the media. The unsaid and the culturally unsayable are the underside of the said and the sayable. It is almost as if the media provide the secondary elaboration rather than the dream work itself -- yet claim to present the dream itself and are believed. Beisel (1999), states that the media not only provides information, but also performs a defensive function."

Tags:violence, teens, gangs, adolescence, workplace, safety, control, elaboration, dream

Abstract
This paper examines the main effects of media violence and attempts to determine if it provoked Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to go on a shooting rampage at their high school. It looks at how such effects as imitation and copying, triggered novel behaviors, disinhibtion and desensitization can all be applied to the background and lifestyle of the murderers.

From the Paper
"Eric Harris has a website that openly expressed his anger towards his town and his high school. Some quotes from his website were, "God, I can't wait until I can kill you people," and " I'll just go to some downtown area in some big city and blow up and shoot everything I can." The two boys were tormented and picked on at school; they even told their classmate that they were going to seek revenge (Morris, 1999, p. 45). Harris and Klebold made a video for a class, where they were hit men who were hired out by people who were picked on to kill the people who picked on them. They used references in this video to the video game Doom, that they played and also referred to the movie, Pulp Fiction (Morris, 1999, p. 26). It is apparent that these young men were not stable; they idolized Nazism and praised Hitler. "

Tags:eric, harris, dylan, klebold, videos, disinhibtion, desensitization