Synopsis for
Bowling for Columbine (2002) More at IMDbPro »

In Michael Moore's discussions with various people... including South Park co-creator Matt Stone, the National Rifle Association's then-president Charlton Heston, and musician Marilyn Manson... he seeks to explain why the Columbine massacre occurred and why the United States has a high violent crime rate (especially crimes involving guns).

"Bowling"

The film title originates from the story that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold the two Colorado high school students who were responsible for the Columbine High School massacre/shooting spree on April 20, 1999, attended a school bowling class early that morning, at 6:00 a.m., before they committed the attacks at school starting at 11:19 a.m. Later investigation showed that this was based on mistaken recollections, and Glenn Moore of the Golden Police Department concluded that they were absent from school on the day of the attack.

Moore incorporates the concept of bowling in other ways as well. For example, Moore films men of the Michigan militia uses bowling pins for their target practice. When interviewing former classmates of the two boys, Moore notes that the students took a bowling class in place of physical education. Moore notes this might have very little educational value; the girls he interviews generally agree. They note how Harris and Klebold had a very introverted lifestyle and a very careless attitude towards the game, and that nobody thought twice about it. Moore asks if the school system is responding to the real needs of their students or if they are reinforcing fear. Moore also interviews two young residents of Oscoda, Michigan, in a local bowling alley, and learns that guns are relatively easy to come by in the small town. Eric Harris spent some of his early years in Oscoda while his father was serving in the U.S. Air Force.

Moore compares gun ownership and gun violence in other countries with gun ownership and gun violence in the United States. Moore concludes that there is no connection between gun ownership and gun violence. In search of the reason for the United Statess trigger mania, Moore discovers a culture of fear created by the government and the media. He says that fear leads Americans to arm themselves, to gun-making companies' advantage. Moore suggests sarcastically that bowling could have been just as responsible for the attacks on the school as Marilyn Manson, or even Bill Clinton, who launched bombing attacks on several countries around that time.

"Free gun for opening a bank account"

Michael Moore upon receiving his free gun at the bank. An early scene depicts how Moore discovered a bank in Michigan that would give customers a free hunting rifle when they made a deposit of a certain size into a time deposit account. The film follows Moore as he goes to the bank, makes his deposit, fills out the forms, and awaits the result of a background check before walking out of the bank carrying a brand new Weatherby hunting rifle.

Just before leaving the bank, Moore jokingly asks, "Do you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns at a bank?"

"Happiness is a Warm Gun" (montage)

About 20 minutes into the film, The Beatles song "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" plays during a montage in which the following footage is shown:

People buying guns; residents of Virgin, Utah, a town that passed a law requiring all residents to own guns; people firing rifles at carnivals and shooting ranges; footage of Denise Ames operating an assault rifle; footage of Carey McWilliams, a visually impaired gun enthusiast; footage of Gary Plauche killing Jeff Doucet, a man who had kidnapped his son and molested him; the suicide of Budd Dwyer; a 1993 murder where Emilio Nuñez shot his ex-wife Maritza Martin to death during an interview on the Telemundo program Ocurrió Asi; the suicide of Daniel V. Jones; a man who takes his shirt off and is shot during a riot.

"Weapons of mass destruction"

Moore links the violent behavior of the Columbine shooters to the presence in Littleton of a large defense establishment, manufacturing rocket technology. It is implied that the presence of this facility within the community, and the acceptance of institutionalized violence as a solution to conflict, contributed to the mindset that led to the massacre.

Moore conducts an interview with Evan McCollum, Director of Communications at a Lockheed Martin plant near Columbine, and asks him:

"So you don't think our kids say to themselves, 'Dad goes off to the factory every day, he builds missiles of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'"

McCollum responded:

"I guess I don't see that specific connection because the missiles that you're talking about were built and designed to defend us from somebody else who would be aggressors against us."

"What a Wonderful World" (montage) The film then cuts to a montage of rather treacherous American foreign policy decisions, with the delibrate intent to contradict McCollum's statement by citing examples of how the United States has frequently been the aggressor nation. This montage is set to the song "What a Wonderful World" performed by Louis Armstrong.

The following is an exact transcript of the onscreen text in the Wonderful World segment:

1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator.

1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed.

1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.

1963-1975: American military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asiaduring the Vietnam War.

September 11, 1973: U.S. stages 1973 Chilean coup d'état in Chile. Democratically-elected President Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 Chileans murdered.

1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed.

1980s: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion.

1981: Reagan administration trains and funds the Contras. 30,000 Nicaraguans die.

1982: U.S. provides billions of dollars in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.

1983: The White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis.

1989: CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as President of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington. U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega. 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S.

1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait.

1998: Clinton bombs possible weapons factory in Sudan. Factory turns out to be making aspirin.

1991 to present: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.

2000-2001: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in aid.

Sept. 11, 2001: Osama bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.

The montage then ends with handheld-camera footage of the second WTC plane crash, the audio consisting solely of the hysterical reactions of the witnesses, recorded by the camera's microphone.

"Climate of Fear"

Moore attempts to contrast this with the attitude prevailing in Canada, where (he states) gun ownership is at similar levels to the U.S. He illustrates his thesis by visiting neighborhoods in Canada near the Canada-U.S. border, where he finds front doors unlocked and much less concern over crime and security.

In this section, a montage of possible causes for gun violence are stated by several social pundits. Many claim links with violence in television, cinema, and computer games; towards the end of the montage, however, a series of statements all claim Marilyn Manson's responsibility. Following this is an interview between Moore and Marilyn Manson backstage in Manson's dressing room after a concert. Manson shares his views about the United States' climate with Moore, stating that he believes U.S. society is based on "fear and consumption", citing Colgate commercials that promise "if you have bad breath, people are not going to talk to you" and other commercials containing fear-based messages, and that the media would rather point at him as the one responsible for the killings instead of the President, who ordered more bombings on Kosovo that specific day than any other. When Moore asks Manson what he would say to the students at Columbine, Manson replies, "I wouldn't say a single word to them; I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did."

"Statistics"

Moore follows up his climate of fear thesis by exploring the popular explanations as to why gun violence is so high in the United States. He examines Marilyn Manson as a cause, but states that Germany listens to more Marilyn Manson and has a greater Goth population than does the United States, with less gun violence (Germany: 381 incidents per year). He examines violent movies, but notes that they have the same violent movies in other countries, showing The Matrix with French subtitles (France: 255 incidents per year). He also examines video games, but states that violent video games come from Japan (Japan: 39 incidents per year). He concludes his comparisons with the suggestion that the United States' violent history is the cause, yet negating that with the violent histories of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (UK: 68 incidents per year), Moore ends his segment with gun-related deaths-per-year statistics of a few major countries.

United States - 11,127 (3.601/100,000) Germany 381 (0.466/100,000) France 255 (0.389/100,000) Canada 165 (0.484/100,000) United Kingdom 68 (0.109/100,000) Australia 65 (0.292/100,000) Japan 39 (0.030/100,000)

"K-Mart refund"

Moore takes two Columbine victims, Mark Taylor and Richard Castaldo, to the American superstore K-Mart headquarters in Troy, Michigan, ostensibly to claim a refund on the bullets still lodged in their bodies. After a number of attempts to evade the issue, a K-Mart spokesperson says that the firm will change its policy and phase out the sale of handgun ammunition; this comes after Moore and the victims go to the nearest K-Mart store, purchase all of their ammunition, and return the next day with several members of the media. "We've won," says Moore, in disbelief. "That was more than we asked for."

"Charlton Heston and Me" (The Charlton Heston Interview)

At the climax, Moore visits actor and current National Rifle Association chairman Charlton Heston in his Hollywood home for an up-close and personal interview where Moore asks him about American firearm violence. Heston's long response includes the suggestion that the United States has a "history of violence" and more "mixed ethnicity" than other countries which contribute to the skyrocketing violent crime. Moore then asks Heston if he'd like to apologize for leading NRA rallies in Flint after the Buell Elementary School shooting and in Littleton after the Columbine shooting. Heston (caught off-guard and slightly angered) tells Moore that he and the NRA is not responsible for the gun violence in America and claims that guns don't kill people... the wrong people who have guns do. Heston claims that it's every American's free right to bear arms. When Moore begins asking more abrasive questions about his role in the NRA rallys and support of gun ownership and Heston's opposition to handgun control laws to limit or make illegal sales of all firearms, Heston walks out of the interview and firmly tells Moore and his film crew to leave his house.