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Columbine Shooting Analysis

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America is a nation blossomed with prosperity, yet it is notorious for the proliferation of appalling violence and homicides. By focusing on the Columbine High School massacre, Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine explores the environment/causes that lead to shooting tragedies and exposes the culture of fear that governs the unstable American society. On April 20, 1999, two senior students, Erik Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and severely wounded 21 others with a 9mm carbine and a 12-gauge shotgun at Columbine High School. The bloodbath is directly related to the extensive accessibility of ammunitions. Through an investigation, Moore shockingly discovers that a Michigan local bank rewards free guns to customers who open new …show more content…

immediately increased by 140 percent. Submerged in tremendous fear and uneasiness, citizens even practiced shooting at models of Osama Bin Laden for future self-defence. The climate of fear have shaped Americans’ aggressive attitudes and formulated their unrestful behaviours. To delve deeper into this problem, Moore traces the origin of their fears. He states that while corporations use fear to stimulate consumption (i.e. firearms consumption after 9/11), the government uses fear to justify its political actions. In addition, media also repetitively displays crimes to produce sensationalism and attract more audiences. In other words, fear is effective used as an instrument to manipulate the public and to achieve personal gains. However, the side effect is a violent, unstable society. Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine begins as an investigation of gun abuses but then expands to explore the causes of customary violence in the United States. Under his camera, Moore reveals a society destabilized and paranoid by a culture of fear and distrust, providing an insightful and unprecedented explanation of the United States’ violence and shooting

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878 Words | 4 Pages

On April 20, 1999, the unimaginable occurred at Columbine High School in the small town of Littleton, Colorado. A school shooting, carried out by, then senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took the entire community by storm. With 15 deaths, including the perpetrators, and 24 non-fatal injuries, the memories of this horrific massacre will forever resonate in the minds of all. With a meticulously thought out plan, the two shooters prepared guns and bombs in order to perform the sickening act. Families, the FBI, local officials, psychologists, and more spent a multitude of time trying to figure out the reasoning as to what motivated the two boys to kill and cause so much pain to others.

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592 Words | 3 Pages

Columbine, by Dave Cullen is a non-fiction book documenting the horrific massacre which took place in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. Not only does the writer give great detail about the shooting itself, he also gives and in depth look into the lives of the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their victims. The focus of this book is for the author to attempt to bring to light what really happened and hopefully gain better understanding as to why it all took place. Cullen, a journalist, begins an extensive nine year research in order to achieve awareness of the happenings before, during and after this tragic event. Entries from the perpetrators personal journals, stories from the ones who witnessed the shootings first hand, countless interviews from the victim’s families, as well as multiple other pieces of information give the reader an extremely up close and personal surrounding Columbine.

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1215 Words | 5 Pages

What decision-making methods were utilized in the case? According to Charles E. Lindblom, there are two types of decision-making methods: the root method and the branch method. The root method, which he also calls he rational-comprehensive method, is an approach to decision-making where an individual chooses an objective and ranks all the relevant values in obtaining the objective. The person making the decision must “formulate many possible alternatives to achieve the stated objective.” This type of method is heavily based upon theory.

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230 Words | 1 Pages

In his essay, “A Pedagogical Response to The Aurora Shootings” (235) Henry Jenkins analyzes shocking events involving public shootings in society. His main objective is to discuss why violence is a prominent factor in our popular culture and how the media inflames the issue. Jenkins does pose his belief that violence should be critically debated in order to research the main cause of violence within people. He also states that people must step out of the “media effects” assumption of violence and expands the scale to the meaning of what violence represents in movies and books. Jenkin states, “To be extra clear, I do not think media is where this debate should be focused” (236).

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1578 Words | 7 Pages

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out an attack on Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. They fired guns towards students, killing thirteen people and injuring more than twenty. Afterwards, they turned the firearms on themselves. In his book ‘Columbine’, Dave Cullen analyses how and why Eric and Dylan massacred the victims at the school. When viewed in hindsight, events such as this are inspected to every minute detail; there are always ways in which the outcome could be changed.

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3337 Words | 14 Pages

The escalating frequency of school shootings throughout the years has become an alarming issue, raising the question as to why one would commit such a horrific act. On December 14th, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother and soon after drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he proceeded to kill twenty first grade students and six school employees. Lanza, a troubled individual with a history of various mental health issues, including schizophrenia and Aspergers Syndrome, was profoundly engrossed with violent video games, firearms, and the narratives of mass shootings. Examining Adam Lanza’s violence through the perspective of James Gilligan's Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, it becomes apparent

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563 Words | 3 Pages

Dave Cullen’s journalistic portrayal of the infamous school shooting in Columbine reveals the raw truth of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris’ murder spree while uncovering misconception surrounding it. Cullen dives deep into the heart of motive and recovery, offering a newfound understanding of both the victims and the killers. The tragedy at Columbine was planned as a series of explosions that would have killed nearly 2,000 students. The bombs failed, however, so the shooters abandoned their plan and went on a spree through the school instead, using semiautomatic weapons they acquired at a gun show, where background checks can be bypassed.

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602 Words | 3 Pages

In his article, author Derek Thompson highlights the felonious actions that mark today’s society. Thompson’s purpose is to call lawmakers and researchers alike to take a stand against mass shootings and to stop the perpetrators. He utilizes stylistic devices as well as argumentative devices to enlighten the reader of the relationship between all of the recent shootings and their contagion. Beginning his article, Thompson lists the recent mass murders in the United States while also using figurative language, convincing the reader to agree with his argument that mass shootings are contagious.

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1640 Words | 7 Pages

Moore’s segment in the documentary Bowling for Columbine also supports Ehrenreich’s argument that the shows humiliate the lower class. Just as the clips of minorities arrested cause fear, they also give a sense of humiliation. The clips give viewers a sense of resignation when you see the restlessness of the lower class’ heads being forced against pavement. Both ideas presented by Moore and Ehrenreich suggest that these shows are negative sensationalism toward the lower

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246 Words | 1 Pages

The film seeks to clarify why the Columbine slaughter happened and why the United States' vicious wrongdoing rate, particularly concerning violations submitted with guns, is generously higher than those of different countries. Firstly, the “bowling” term is brought up because the shooters were supposedly in a bowling class during the morning in which the massacre took place, highlighting the fact that it is a very little educational class. Furthermore, the poor consideration from the High School’s staff to the students’ threats and drills around the school, raises the character of disregard in the US school system. Secondly, the investigative report provides a glance of the uncomplicated and free access to weapons authorized in the US, such

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299 Words | 2 Pages

In the documentary “Bowling for Columbine”, which is directed by Michael Moore, there is an abundance of fallacious arguments. From the most obvious Post Hoc fallacies demonstrated to strengthen the director’s argument, to the numerous fallacies committed by Moore himself, there is no shortage from which to choose. The fallacies that I have chosen to focus on are the Post Hoc used by Moore’s “opponents” and his own hasty generalizations and composition fallacies. The title of the film “Bowling for Columbine” is and ode to the fallacious reasoning of the gun proponents that Moore encounters throughout the film. Many of these figures cite the music of alternative rock singer Marilyn Manson as a driving force behind the Columbine school shooting,

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741 Words | 3 Pages

Columbine High School is located in Littleton, Colorado. The school was opened in the Fall of 1973. On April 20, 1999, 2 students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, planted explosives and shot fellow students and teachers in a horrific rampage that lasted just over forty minutes. (history.com) The Columbine School Shooting on April 19, 1999 forever changed the safety of children while in school.

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622 Words | 3 Pages

It’s no debate that gun violence in schools is a serious issue in the United States that affects students, teachers and communities. In Columbine by Dave Cullen, readers learn about the 1999 Columbine High School school shooting, as well as some of the largest myths about school violence that originated from one of the nation’s first school shootings. Through exploring both Columbine and various other resources, it becomes clear that the misinformation spread through the media immediately following school shootings simply exacerbates the real issue and causes more pain to the victims and their families. Within the book Columbine by Dave Cullen alone, we can see the beginning of both what we consider modern school shootings, as well as interference

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889 Words | 4 Pages

This article has great viewpoints, use of argumentative reasoning, and shows what truly happens in the hallways of a school shooting. The main person he explains is Eric Harris, who killed over two-thousand students and faculty in a Colorado high school in 1998. He set off bombs all over the school and used a semi-automatic

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841 Words | 4 Pages

Columbine High School was a school in the Jefferson County Public Schools. The school has a big history of events such as the Columbine Massacre. The Columbine Massacre was a school shooting that took place in Jefferson county, colorado. The shooting was caused by 2 boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Eric was a 18 year old boy who had many physiological problems and he was bullied at school.

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