Michael Moore: I left the Heston estate atop Beverly Hills and walked back into the real world. To an America living and breathing in fear. Where gun sales are now at an all record high. And where, in the end, it all comes back to 'Bowling for Columbine'.
Michael Moore: How many people are killed by guns each year? In Germany; 381. In France; 255. In Canada; 165. In the United Kingdom; 68. In Australia; 65. In Japan; 39. In the United States; 11,127.
Father of Columbine victim: But that, to me, brings up an important question; then what is so different about Americans? Are we homicidal in nature? Because in
Europe and Australia... Most other free-world countries they don't have this. They don't have people who snap and go on murderous rampages.
Michael Moore: Well no, they're just like us. I mean, they have the occasional person that snaps and kills a lot of people. How about a British soccer riot? Those aren't Quakers there...
Father of Columbine
victim: Every time that I bring up comparisons with other free-world countries, what I hear is; "Oh, our culture is so different. We're so different". And as you said, they have violent video games, they have violent movies, they have alienated youth... They, like us, don't have prayer in schools. What is so radically different? What is it about us?
Michael Moore:
What is it?
Father of Columbine victim: What is it?
Michael Moore: What is it?
Father of Columbine victim: What is it? I don't know.
Michael Moore: In George Bush's America the poor were not a priority. And after September 11th correcting America's social problems took a back seat to fear, panic and a new set of priorities.
George W. Bush: [Archive speech] One way to express our unity is for Congress to set the military budget and the defense of the United States as the number one
priority, and fully fund my request...
[Graphic on Canadian news show]
Newsperson: New Speedbumps!
Michael Moore: In your mind, somebody might break into your house to harm you or your family. What does that person look like?
Man wearing 'Fuck Everybody' Cap: You.
Michael Moore: Me?
Man wearing 'Fuck Everybody' Cap: Her.
Michael Moore: Her?
Man wearing 'Fuck Everybody' Cap: Him.
Michael
Moore: Really?
Man wearing 'Fuck Everybody' Cap: The camera guy. Anybody. There could be a gun in the camera for all I know.
[from a Columbine student video]
Student #1: What's your views on high school?
Student #2: Uh, I love it. I learn, I get picked on by bastards who hate me, and the principal's a dick.
Student #1: Who's responsible for school shootings?
Student #2: [points at a random student] Him!
Michael Moore: [to Charlton Heston] Mr. Heston, I'm a member of the N.R.A. I was wondering if I could talk to you about the whole gun issue.
Mike Bradley - Mayor of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada: No one wins unless everyone wins. And you don't win by beating up on people who can't defend themselves. And that's been the approach, unfortunately, that's been spreading with some of the right-wing governments across North America. They pick on the people that can't defend themselves. And at the same time, they're turning around
and giving financial support and tax breaks and tax benefits to people that don't need them.
Michael Moore: After Columbine, no one could figure out why the boy had resorted to violence.
Barry Glassner - Author of 'The Culture of Fear': My favorite statistic, in all the research I did, discovered that the murder rate had gone down by 20%. The coverage - that is, how many murders are on the evening news - it went up by 600%.
Arthur A. Busch - County Prosecutor: Flint, Michigan: The American people are conditioned by network TV, by local
news, to believe that their communities are much more dangerous than they actually are. For example here in this community crime has decreased every year for the past eight years. Yet gun ownership, particularly handgun ownership, is on the increase.
Barry Glassner - Author of 'The Culture of Fear': Crime rates have been dropping, dropping, dropping. Fear of crime has been
going up, up, up. How can that be possible? It doesn't make any sense. But it makes perfect sense when you see what we're hearing from politicians and seeing in the news media.