[roaring]
The National Rifle Association has produced a film
which you are sure to find of great interest.
Let's look at it.
[Moore] It was the morning of April 20, 1999,
and it was pretty much like any other morning in America.
The farmer did his chores.
The milkman made his deliveries.
The president bombed another country whose name we couldn't pronounce.
Out in Fargo, North Dakota, Kerry McWilliams went on his morning walk.
Back in Michigan, Mrs. Hughes welcomed her students for another day of school.
And out in a little town in Colorado, two boys went bowling at 6:00 in the morning.
Yes, it was a typical day in the United States of America.
[woman] May I help you?
Yeah. I'm here to open up an account.
Okay. What type account would you like?
I want the account where I can get the free gun.
Okay.
I had spotted an ad in the local Michigan paper
that said if you opened an account at North Country Bank,
the bank would give you a gun.
You do a CD and we'll hand you a gun.
We have a whole brochure here that you can look at.
Once we do the background check and everything, it's yours to go.
Okay. Um, all right. Well, that's the account I'd like to open.
We have a vault which at all times we keep at least 500 firearms.
500 of these you have in your vault?
-In our vault. -Wow.
-We have to do a background check. -At the bank here, or...?
At the bank, which, we are a licensed firearm dealer.
Oh, you are? You're a bank and a licensed firearm dealer.
What do I put for race? White or Caucasian or...?
-Caucasian. -Caucasian.
I knew you were gonna make me spell the – Cau-ca-sian.
-Is that right? -Yes.
Thank you s – [chuckling]
I don't think that's the part they're gonna be worried about.
Um, "Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective,
or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?"
I've never been committed to a mental institution.
What does that mean, "Have I ever been adjudicated mentally defective"?
Would be something involved with a crime.
Oh, with a crime. Okay. So if I'm just normally mentally defective, but not criminal –
Exactly.
-There you go, Mike. -Okay. Thank you very much. Wow.
-I have one personally. -That's a nice action.
-It is. And it's – -You got one?
It's a straight shooter, let me tell you.
Wow. Sweet.
Well, here's my first question.
Do you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns in a bank?
-[trigger clicks] -[rock music playing]
♪ Some people say ♪
♪ That bowling alleys got big lanes ♪
♪ Got big lanes, got big lanes ♪
♪ Some people say ♪
♪ That bowling alleys all look the same ♪
♪ Look the same, look the same ♪
♪ Everybody's comin' home for lunch These days ♪
♪ Last night there were skinheads on my lawn ♪
♪ Take the skinheads bowling ♪
♪ Take them bowling ♪
♪ Take the skinheads bowling ♪
♪ Take them ♪
-Gung ho! -[firing sounds]
[announcer] Each gun makes lots of battle sounds!
Just press the trigger and listen!
-[gun fires, bullet ricocheting] -[machine gun fire]
It sounds like a gun battle over there!
-Is it real? -Looks like real!
-[gun fires] -Hey, it sounds like real!
[announcer] Right! The Sound-O-Power.
Military and Western rifles by Marx!
[Moore] This was my first gun.
I couldn't wait to go outside and shoot up the neighborhood.
[chuckles] Those were the days.
[man] ♪ I was born in Michigan ♪
♪ And I wish and wish again ♪
♪ That I was back in the town Where I was born ♪
[Moore] By the time I was a teenager I was such a good shot,
I won the National Rifle Association's Marksman Award.
You see, I grew up in Michigan, a gun-lover's paradise.
And so did this man,
the Oscar-winning actor and president of the National Rifle Association,
Mr. Charlton Heston.
[screaming]
We come from a state where everyone loves to go hunting.
-Ha! -[Moore] Even the dogs.
[man] There were actually, uh, two of the hunters at the camp.
They thought they'd get a few pictures of the dog dressed up as a hunter,
to kinda just have some fun around camp.
And one of the guys had the idea that, "Why don't we sling a rifle on the dog's back
to make the pictures a little more interesting."
The victim was kneeling down in front of the dog when the weapon slipped.
Uh, the one round went through the victim's shin,
the right part of his shin, and came out through the back of his calf.
[Moore] Was the dog held at all for any period of time by the police?
No, it wasn't. No.
Um, in Michigan, law basically states that people can commit crimes,
that animals aren't some form of, uh,
whatever that could commit a crime.
[Moore] An animal cannot commit a crime or be charged with a crime in this state.
[man] Exactly.
[Moore] Is it possible the dog knew what it was doing?
That I don't know. I really wouldn't be able to tell you that.
The dog was cute dressed up as a hunter. There's no doubt about it.
I mean, it was – it was a funny picture,
um, uh, you know, to look at.
It was kind of neat.
[Moore] Yep, this was the kind of place I was from.
-A box of 270s. -[man] Coming up.
-There you go. -Perfect.
Oh-oh-oh-oh! Sorry about that. Sorry.
It's all right. Didn't discharge.
You don't need no gun control. You know what you need?
We need some bullet control.
We need to control the bullets. That's right.
I think all bullets should cost $5,000.
-[audience laughing] -$5,000 for a bullet.
You know why?
'Cause if a bullet cost $5,000, there'd be no more innocent bystanders.
[laughing, cheering]
Every time somebody get shot people'd be like, "Damn, he must have did something.
Shit, they put $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass!"
People will think before they kill somebody if a bullet cost $5,000.
"Man, I would blow your fucking head off if I could afford it.
I'm gonna get me another job. I'm gonna start saving some money.
And you a dead man!
You better hope I can't get no bullets on layaway."
[gunfire]
[Moore] Not far from where Charlton Heston and I grew up
is a training ground for the Michigan Militia.
[Moore] Why do you use the bowling pins?
[man] From a self-defense or technical standpoint, it's a small target
which also represents the vitals on a – on a –
on a human being, should you ever have to shoot at one.
[Moore] The Michigan Militia became known around the world
when, on April 19, 1995,
two guys living in Michigan who had attended militia meetings,
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols,
blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City,
killing 168 people.
The Michigan Militia wanted everyone to know that they were nothing like McVeigh and Nichols.
This is an American tradition.
It's an American responsibility to be armed.
If you're not armed, you're not responsible.
Who's gonna defend your kids? The cops? The federal government?
[man] No. None of them.
It's your job to defend you and yours.
If you don't do it, you're in dereliction of duty as an American.
Period.
We're just here to let them know that, hey, we're here to help.
We're not the bogeymen that we're made out to be.
We're here to help and defend the people of this country.
[Moore] I'm sure you guys are the kind of people people would like to have as their neighbor.
If somebody's in need, you're there to help them.
[man] Pretty much. We're all normal people. We all have regular jobs, professions.
-And this is what we do on our own time. -What kind of job do you have?
-I'm a draftsman. -Draftsman? How about you?
-Unemployed right now. -Unemployed?
-Frank, what do you do for a living? -I work for a heat-treating company.
-I drive truck for them. -Uh-huh.
-How about you? -I'm a real estate negotiator.
[Moore] Real estate negotiator? [laughing]
White collar all the way.
You don't bring that with you, though, do ya, when you're negotiating the real estate?
-No. -All right.
-Where do you live? In suburban Detroit? -Westland.
-So what do you have in your home? -Uh, Smith & Wesson nine millimeter.
-Nine millimeter? -Yep.
-How about you? -With hollow points.
-12-gauge. -12-gauge at home?
-Yep. -Mm-hmm. How about you?
-M16. -At home?
-Yep. -Yeah?
-At the ready. -[Frank] I don't agree –
-[Moore] Huh? -I don't agree with that.
'Cause you have to worry where your rounds are going. Do you have frangibles in it?
I know where they're gonna go when I aim and shoot.
Whose idea was the calendar?
-That would probably be Kristen. -A picture's worth a thousand words.
I mean, it's not – A, it demonstrates a level of sophistication
that you wouldn't expect out of militia.
B, you know, we're people too.
-Right. -And we have a lot of fun with it.
It was a fund-raiser, and it showed that we're not so serious.
You know, we're not these conspiracy nuts who wouldn't want our pictures to get out.
And it was a fun fund-raiser, you know?
[woman] I've had guns, um,
pretty much since I was old enough to have them.
And I learned how to use them.
-Um – -[squealing]
You're silly.
Because – Because being a female, number one,
I felt it was important to be able to protect myself with the best means possible.
And one of those means is having a gun.
When a criminal breaks into your house, who's the first person you're gonna call?
Most people will call the police because they have guns.
Cut out the middleman. Take care of it.
-Take care of your own family yourself. -[chattering]
If you're not going to protect your family, who is?
[man] We're not racists. We're not extremists.
We're not fundamentalists.
We're not terrorists or militants or other such nonsense.
-We're citizens. -We're just concerned citizens.
We have a desire to fulfill our responsibilities and duties as Americans,
and an armed citizenry is part of that.
♪ Full of charm ♪
♪ That's why I wish again That I was in Michigan ♪
♪ Down on the farm ♪
-What do you grow here? -Right now, there's tofu beans there.
Soybeans. Tofu soybeans.
-You're a tofu farmer? -Yeah. Yeah.
-Food farmer. I'm a food farmer. -Food.
I grow food for people to eat, you know.
No herbicides, no pesticides on that stuff.
Right. All natural.
-Right. -Yeah. It's better.
-Certified organic. -Uh-huh. Healthier.
-Yeah. -Basically.
[Moore] This is James Nichols, the brother of Terry Nichols.
James graduated from high school the same year I did
in the district next to mine.
On this farm in Decker, Michigan,
McVeigh and the Nichols brothers made practice bombs before Oklahoma City.
Terry and James were both arrested in connection to the bombing.
[female reporter] US attorneys formally linked the Nichols brothers of Michigan
with Oklahoma bomb suspect Timothy McVeigh.
Officials charged James, who was at the hearing,
and Terry, who was not,
with conspiring to make and possess small bombs.
[Moore] Terry Nichols was convicted and received a life sentence.
Timothy McVeigh was executed.
But the feds didn't have the goods on James, so the charges were dropped.
I'm just glad to be out and free so I can get on with my life.
-Did Timothy McVeigh ever stay here? -Yes. Yes.
Uh, he stayed here several times.
For the longest period, about three months or so. I don't know.
But he was a nice guy.
-Decent guy. -Oh, yeah.
-[Moore] They didn't find anything on this farm? -As to what?
-Bomb-making material? -Any kind of explosives.
Uh, yeah, I had blasting caps, dynamite blasting caps,
dynamite fuse, black powder – you know, for muzzle loaders.
Sure. Diesel fuel, fertilizer.
But that is normal farm stuff.
That is no way connected in any way whatsoever
to the Oklahoma City bombing or bomb-making.
Them people, law enforcement, if you want to call them that, were here,
and they were shaking in their shoes.
They were physically shaking. Scared to death.
[Moore] Of?
Because they thought this was gonna be another Waco.
Because certain people,
namely my ex-wife and other people,
said I'm a radical, I'm a wild man,
I got a gun under every arm, down every leg,
in every shoe, every corner of the house.
You say anything to me, I'll shoot you. [laughs]
If the people find out how they've been ripped off
and – and enslaved in this country by the government,
by the powers to be...
they will revolt with anger,
with merciless anger.
There'll be blood running in the streets.
When a government turns tyrannical, it is your duty to overthrow it.
[Moore] Well, why not use Gandhi's way?
He didn't have any guns, and he beat the British Empire.
I'm not familiar with that.
Oscoda has a bad habit of raising psychos. Bad habit of it.
[Moore] This is Brent.
And this is his buddy, D.J.
They live in Oscoda, Michigan, across the bay from the Nichols' farm.
Eric Harris, who would later go on to commit the massacre
at Columbine High School in Colorado,
spent part of his childhood here.
Eric lived on the air force base in Oscoda,
where his dad flew planes during the Gulf War.
Twenty percent of all the bombs dropped in that war
were from planes that took off from Oscoda.
I asked Brent if he remembered anything about Eric.
I never knew him, but I knew of him. He left here before I got here.
I've only lived here about seven years, off and on.
[Moore] He's about the same age as you, so you must have people in your class that –
Yeah, like a friend of mine. He knows him. He was in class with him.
He's lived up here all of his life.
I went to school with him, and it shocked me to hear it on the news.
You know, that especially a kid from here would be doing that.
I didn't last too long in this high school here. I got kicked out. I got expelled.
-Why was that? -I had a run-in with a kid one time.
And I pulled a weapon on him – pulled a gun on him.
-A gun? What kind of gun? -Nine millimeter.
I could've made a mess out of that situation.
-[Moore] Could've been worse. -A lot worse.
-You could've been Eric Harris. -I could've been.
-So they kicked you out of school? -They kicked me out for 380 days.
Or 165 days. Whatever a full school year is.
Matter of fact, for the longest time that's what my plan was – to move out to Colorado.
[Moore] Colorado?
'Cause I've got, you know, family out there.
Matter of fact, one of my uncles is a janitor for the Columbine school.
-Really? -Yeah.
After Columbine, what was it like here in Oscoda?
My name was second highest on the bomb list
because of the reputation you get in this town.
Why? Why was your name – You mean they did a list of–
Of suspects.
Of students who potentially would call in a bomb threat after Columbine?
-And you were number two on the list? -I was second or third on the list, yeah.
Why is that?
Because the whole fact is, like I said, this town really gets people down.
Yeah, but why did they single you out?
Because I was a troubled kid and –
-Were you in trouble in school? -Oh, yeah.
But why did they put you at number two on their list, after Columbine,
of the students that could be a threat?
-Come on. There must be a reason. -Well, okay.
The thing is, I have a thing called The Anarchist Cookbook.
It shows you how to make bombs and stuff like that in it.
If there was anything went wrong, they're gonna come to me first, and I don't need that.
Just 'cause you owned a copy of the book? Never made a bomb yourself?
Nope – Oh, as in – Oh, I've made 'em.
It was nothing big. It wasn't even as big as a pipe bomb.
It's just, you know, like a little tennis ball bomb or something like that.
Out of The Anarchist Cookbook, the latest thing I built –
I think it would have to be –
I think I made about a good five-gallon drum of napalm.
You know, homemade napalm.
-Kids knew that you were doing this? -Yeah.
-So you were number two, then, on the list? -Right.
Who was number one?
I don't know. They never told me that name. Which kind of made me mad.
-'Cause you didn't make it to number one? -Cause I didn't make it to number one.
I know it's kinda silly, but, you know,
I-I guess it had been kind of like an ego thing there,
knowing that I was number one at something in Oscoda,
even though it was a bomb threat list.
[Moore] Do you believe it was right to blow up the building in Oklahoma City?
-I'm not saying you did it. -No. No. No.
-I'm just saying, was it right? -Why was it blowed up?
That's a good question. Why was that building blowed up?
-And who blew it up? -But whoev –
-But if someone did it, it would be wrong? -Yeah.
It is wrong to take the lives of those people.
Yeah.
I use the pen, because the pen is mightier than the sword.
But you always must keep a sword handy for when the pen fails.
I sleep with a .44 magnum under my pillow.
[Moore] Come on. That's what everyone says.
-Is that true? -It's true.
-If we were to go in – -The whole world knows that.
If we were to go look under your pillow right now, would we see a .44 magnum?
-Yeah. Mm-hmm. -Honestly?
Would you take us and show us right now?
[Moore] He took me into his bedroom, but told the cameraman to stay out.
Sure enough, there was a .44 magnum under his pillow.
[Moore] There it is. Okay.
-Is it loaded? -[Nichols] Ay-yi-yi.
-[chamber clicking] -[Moore] Okay. I believe you.
-[Nichols laughs] -Don't do that!
Don't – Don't do that! Don't put the gun to your head!
-[Nichols laughing] -Geez.
-I'm not gonna get hurt. -This thing is loaded.
It's loaded. It's safe.
You've got to pull the trigger, or pull the hammer and shoot it.
[Moore] Mmm. Put the hammer back.
No one has the right to tell me I can't have it.
That is protected under our constitution.
-Where does it say a handgun is protected? -No, "gun."
-We should – Every citizen – -It doesn't say "gun."
-It says "arms." -"Arms." What is "arms"?
-Could be a nuclear weapon. -Not – That's right. Could be a nuclear weapon.
Do you think you should have the right to have weapons-grade plutonium here?
-We should be able to have anything – -Should you have weapons-grade plutonium?
I don't want it.
But should you have the right to have it if you did want it?
-That should be restricted. -Oh. Oh.
So you do believe in some restrictions.
Well... there's wackos out there.
♪ Happiness is a warm gun Bang bang, shoot shoot ♪
[woman] The town of Virgin, Utah,
has passed a law requiring all residents to own guns.
♪ Bang bang, shoot shoot ♪
♪ When I hold you ♪
-I'm gonna kill that monkey. -♪ In my arms, oh, yeah ♪
♪ And I feel my finger on your trigger ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ I know nobody can do me no harm ♪
[man] Kerry McWilliams proudly displays the target he used to pass his shooting test.
But the thing is, he can't see it. He's blind.
[gun fires]
Kerry has had a love affair with guns
since he first got his hands on an M16 as a teenager.
I'm actually most comfortable with assault rifles.
-♪ Gun ♪ -♪ Happiness ♪
-♪ Bang bang, shoot shoot ♪ -♪ Well, don't you know that happiness ♪
-[gunshot] -[gunshot]
-[man shouts] -♪ Is a warm gun ♪
-[woman screaming] -[gunshot]
♪ Yeah ♪
This is a great place to raise your children.
A really great place to raise your kids.
Very, uh, close-knit community we have here.
Everybody looks out for everybody.
-[Moore] Good people. -Good people.
This just happens to be a place where
two young men made very bad, very wrong decisions,
and there has been international notoriety as a result of it.
Other than that, I don't know that Littleton is a lot different
than a whole lot of other suburban communities.
[theme music playing]
Good morning, Mr. Edwards, members of the board.
I'd like to report that I've found the perfect location
for our new corporate office, South Metro Denver.
[chuckles] You can see I don't need these,
because South Metro Denver
has about the same amount of sunshine and precipitation as Southern California.
It's so incredible, you're just gonna have to see it for yourselves.
How's this look, Mr. Edwards?
-[executives murmuring] -Good deal. Yeah.
We're south of Denver in a community called Littleton.
And, um, this house is pretty much your average,
uh, middle-class, suburban home.
The burglar, the rapist is still here in the neighborhood somewhere.
And so citizens sometimes think that, uh –
I have people tell me all the time –
Where exactly is the burglar or rapist right now?
If I was to try and stab you through this right here –
That – I'm only – You're gonna have to be really close.
-Right. And here's the bottom line on this – -What if I had a spear?
Now, downstairs is where the safe room was constructed.
And this is a solid core door. Very heavy door.
And now the criminal has to break through this door.
So you've created another barrier.
-An ax would do it. -An ax would do it.
I think Columbine did a couple of things.
One is, it changed – it changed how we talk.
-That's the first thing, because – -How's that?
Well, for instance, if I say Columbine, everybody knows what it means.
I don't have to explain to you that Columbine, um...
-[Moore] What's wrong? -Nothing. I just...
-What's wrong? -I-I just –
[voice breaking] Sometimes Columbine bothers me.
-I'll be fine. Just a minute. -That's okay. That's okay.
Um...
Uh, there – there's something, um –
something overwhelming about that kind of, um...
that kind of indiscriminate,
um, killing.
This facility where we're located right now
and two other major facilities where our employees work
are either in or very near Littleton.
So we have over 5,000 employees at these facilities,
quite a number of whom live in Littleton,
many of whom have children who attend Columbine High School.
I suppose in one way you could say that what happened at Columbine High School
is a microcosm, uh, of what happens throughout the world.
[Moore] You know the signs we see around here, the ones that say "We are Columbine"?
Is that how you, Lockheed Martin, feels?
That you're the biggest employer here in Littleton,
you're the biggest weapons-maker.
"We are Columbine"?
I think we probably embody that spirit
that, yeah, we're all members of this community,
and it behooves us to help one another and to reach out to assist one another.
[Moore] He told us that no one in Littleton, including the executives at Lockheed,
could figure out why the boys at Columbine had resorted to violence.
Why – Why would kids do this?
Uh, some of the root of that
probably has to do with their anger about various issues.
And we became aware of a program that provides anger management training.
So we made a $100,000 contribution to the Jefferson County Schools
to use this training in the schools.
We hope to help both teachers and students
learn alternative ways to deal with anger.
[Moore] So you don't think our kids say to themselves,
"Well, gee, Dad goes off to the factory every day and he built missiles.
These were weapons of mass destruction.
What's the difference between that mass destruction
and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?"
I guess I don't see that connection – 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.
Societies and countries and governments do things that annoy one another.
But we have to learn to deal with that annoyance
or that anger or that frustration in appropriate ways.
We don't get irritated with somebody and, just 'cause we're mad at 'em,
uh, drop a bomb or shoot at 'em or fire a missile at 'em.
[pop ballad playing]
♪ I see trees of green ♪
♪ Red roses too ♪
♪ I see them bloom ♪
♪ For me and you ♪
♪ And I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ I see skies of blue ♪
♪ And clouds of white ♪
♪ The bright, blessed days ♪
♪ The dark, sacred nights ♪
♪ And I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ The colors of the rainbow ♪
♪ So pretty in the sky ♪
♪ Are also on the faces ♪
♪ Of people going by ♪
♪ I see friends shaking hands ♪
♪ Saying, "How do you do?" ♪
♪ They're really saying ♪
♪ I love you ♪
♪ I hear babies crying ♪
♪ I watch them grow ♪
♪ They'll learn much more ♪
♪ Than I'll ever know ♪
♪ And I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ Yes, I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful ♪
♪ World ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
-[people gasping, screaming] -[woman] Oh, my goodness!
-Oh, my goodness! -Oh, my word!
[trembling] Oh, my word!
[Moore] South of Denver and Littleton,
on the grounds of the US Air Force Academy,
there sits an actual B-52 bomber.
The plaque underneath it proudly proclaims
that this plane killed Vietnamese people
on Christmas Eve, 1972.
It was the largest bombing campaign of the Vietnam War.
Just outside Denver is Rocky Flats,
the largest plutonium weapons-making factory in the world,
and now a massive radioactive dump.
A few miles away, buried inside a mountain, is NORAD,
which oversees our nuclear missiles,
many of which dot the Colorado landscape.
And once a month, Lockheed transports one of its rockets,
with its Pentagon payload,
through the streets of Littleton,
passing nearby Columbine High School
on its way to an air force base on the other side of Denver.
The rockets are transported in the middle of the night
while the children of Columbine are asleep.
[gunfire, explosions]
[sirens blaring]
[reporter] Twenty-two NATO missiles fell on the village of Bogutovac, near Kraljevo.
Deadly cargo was dropped on the residential part of the village.
We're striking hard at Serbia's machinery of repression
while making a deliberate effort to minimize harm to innocent people.
[reporter] On the hit list were a local hospital and primary school.
[President Clinton] We all know there has been a terrible shooting
at a high school in Littleton, Colorado.
I hope the American people
will be praying for the students, the parents, and the teachers.
And, uh, we'll wait for events to unfold and then there'll be more to say.
[woman] Jefferson County 911.
[woman 2] There's something going on at Columbine High School.
Someone's shooting a gun.
-Do you know if anybody's injured? -Yes.
[woman 3] They've got pipe bombs, Uzi's, you name it, buddy.
-[man] You're shitting me. -I'm not.
-[woman 4] A student hit in the spine at Columbine. -[woman 5] We've got another kid on line.
-Shot in the head. -He's shot in the head?
-[woman 6] Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. -[man] We have automatic weapons. Okay?
- Yes. -All right.
Can you guys send lots and lots of paramedics?
-[man2] So, are you still under an attack? -[woman7] Yes. The school is still under attack.
[man 3] We got a couple kids out in the hall that are shot, so they're trying to get to them.
Do not let anybody else in until we tell them.
-[woman 8] Jefferson County 911. -Hi, it's Izzy Povich at NBC News.
- Yes? -We're calling about the school shooting.
We're on the air live right now on MSNBC.
Can you – I mean, can I – Is that something you could just –
Literally, I could patch you through and you could tell us on the air.
Literally, I could put you through now.
-[woman 8] I understand that. -[Povich laughs]
[woman 8] Now they said he's gone to the library. He's in the building.
[Povich] Gone to the library. He's in the building.
Hi. This is Stephanie Phillips from Dateline. How you doing?
-[woman 9] Good. How are you? -Fine, thanks.
-I love your show. -Oh, I'm so glad.
-Thank you. -I watch it every night. [laughs]
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
-[woman 10] Jefferson County 911. -I am a teacher at Columbine High School.
There is a student here with a gun. He has shot out a window.
[woman 10] Has anybody been injured, ma'am?
[teacher] Yes! Yes! And the school is in a panic.
I am in the library. I've got students down –
[teacher screams] Under the tables, kids!
Heads under the tables!
I saw a student outside. I was on hall d– Oh, dear God!
Okay, I was on hall duty. I saw a gun. I said, "What's going on out there?"
And he turned the gun straight at us and shot.
My God, the window went out.
And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit.
-We've got help on the way, ma'am. Okay? -Okay – Oh, God!
-Stay on the line with me. -Oh, God.
[gunshots]
He's shooting in the library right now. He's firing shots from the library.
-He's firing shots in the library. -Coming our way. Do we need to leave?
[woman 10] Okay, hold on there.
[teacher] They just shot shots inside the cafeter –
I may have to try and get out of here and call you back.
[woman 10] Okay.
[woman 11] I called in before, trying to find out where I'm supposed to go,
and they put me on hold for frickin' ever.
-[woman 12] Hi, it's Wendy at CNN still. -[woman 13] Oh, hi, Wendy.
We're just taking names and numbers right now from the press.
-[Wendy] 'Cause Fox has somebody on now. -Huh?
- Fox has somebody from your office – - I know.
We've talked to a whole bunch of people and we can only do so many
because we've got so many more calls coming in.
[man] I gotta get to my daughter at Columbine. I've been trying for an hour.
- I can't get anywhere near there. -[woman 14] Sir?
Okay, calm down. Okay?
[man] I think we're entitled to the information, as parents, on where our children are!
[woman 14] We have a lot of units out there right now.
I can't get anywhere near it. I want to find out how to get in touch with my daughter.
How do I get information on my daughter?
[woman 14] I don't have any of that information right now. I do have –
Why in the hell not? It's been over an hour.
[man 2] Uh, my son is Eric Harris,
and I'm afraid that he might be involved in the shooting at Columbine High School.
[woman 15] Involved how?
Uh, he's a member of what they're calling "The Trench Coat Mafia."
- Have you spoke with your son today? -No, I haven't.
- Have they picked up anybody yet? -They're still looking for suspects.
Your son is with who? Wh-What gang?
[Mr. Harris] Well, they're calling them "The Trench Coat Mafia."
I just heard that term on TV.
[woman 16] Stay low, because if you try to leave, I don't want you to get shot.
Stay very low and quiet.
Stay low and quiet.
[low voices chattering]
[woman whispering] Be very quiet.
[no audible dialogue]
[Moore] When the shooting was over, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
had killed 12 students and one teacher.
Dozens of others were wounded by the over 900 rounds of ammo that were fired.
It is believed that the guns that they used were all legally purchased
at stores and gun shows,
and many of the bullets were bought at the Littleton Kmart just down the street.
Harris' diary also detailed ideas about hijacking an airplane
and crashing it into New York City.
Some may characterize that as fantasy.
In the end, they turned the guns on themselves.
And then he came into the library and shot everybody around me
and put a gun to my head and asked if we all wanted to die.
We started hearing shots in the hall,
and then they came in and they all told us to get under the desks,
and we all got under the desks – [gasps]
And then they just started coming in the library and opening fire.
I just started screaming and crying and telling him not to shoot me.
And so he shot the girl ins –
He shot her in the head in front of me.
And he shot the black kid because he was black.
[Heston] I have only five words for you –
"From my cold, dead hands!"
[crowd cheering]
[Moore] Just ten days after the Columbine killings,
despite the pleas of a community in mourning,
Charlton Heston came to Denver
and held a large, pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association.
-Good morning. -[audience] Good morning.
Thank you all for coming,
and thank you for supporting your organization.
I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today.
I have a message from the mayor,
Mr. Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver.
-[booing] -No, no, no, no.
He sent me this...
and it says, "Don't come here. We don't want you here."
I say to the mayor, this is our country.
As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land.
[applause, cheering]
"Don't come here"?
-We're already here! -[applause, cheering]
I am here today...
because my son, Daniel, would want me to be here today.
[applause]
If my son, Daniel, was not one of the victims...
he would be here with me today.
Something is wrong in this country...
when a child...
can grab a gun – grab a gun so easily...
and shoot a bullet...
into the middle of a child's face,
as my son experienced.
Something is wrong.
But the time has come to come to understand that
a Tec-9, semi-automatic, 30-bullet weapon
like that that killed my son,
is not used to kill deer.
It has no useful purpose.
It is time to address this problem.
We have work to do, hearts to heal,
evil to defeat, and a country to unite.
We may have differences, yes,
and we will again suffer tragedy almost beyond description.
But when the sun sets on Denver tonight and forevermore,
let it always set on "We, the people,"
secure in our land of the free and home of the brave.
I, for one, plan to do my part.
-Thank you. -[applause, cheering]
When they had their convention in Colorado a week or a month after Columbine –
-The NRA. -Yeah. That was just stupid.
Just don't do that. Of course you have the right to. But what are you doing?
That's just upsetting a whole city full of people. Why would you do that?
[Moore] This is Matt Stone.
He grew up in Littleton and has fond memories of Columbine.
But, yeah, Columbine is a crappy school in the middle of a bunch of crappy houses.
[Moore] Matt and his friend Trey Parker
found a way to take out their anger of being different in Littleton
and turn it not into carnage, but into a cartoon.
♪ Just another Sunday morning ♪
♪ In my quiet mountain town ♪
♪ You can see your breath Hanging in the air ♪
♪ You see homeless people But you just don't care ♪
♪ It's a sea of smiles In which we'd be glad to drown ♪
♪ It's Sunday morning In our quiet little white-bread ♪
♪ Redneck mountain town ♪
Columbine is a normal high school in a normal suburb, basically.
Yeah. Painfully, painfully, painfully normal.
Just absolutely, painfully, horribly average. You know?
Littleton in general is.
I remember being in sixth grade,
and I had to take the math test to get into honors math in seventh grade.
And they were like, "Don't screw this up,
because if you screw this up, you won't get into honors math in seventh grade.
And if you don't get in in seventh grade, you won't get in in eighth grade.
And then not in ninth, tenth or 11th grade, and you'll die poor and lonely."
And that's it. You know what I mean? It's, like –
You know, you believe in high school and a lot of its kids,
but the teachers and counselors and principals don't help things.
They scare you into doing – into conforming and doing good in school
by saying, "If you're a loser now, you're gonna be a loser forever."
So with Eric and Dylan, right, people called them "fag."
They were like, "If I'm a fag now, I'm a fag forever."
And you wish someone just could've grabbed them and gone,
"Dude, high school's not the end of –"
A year and a half? Or a year, was it? I don't know.
-No, no. A year – -You can move out, cut your hair.
-They were weeks from graduation. -Yeah. You're done.
It's amazing how fast you lose touch with all those people.
They just beat it in your head, as early as sixth grade.
Right.
Don't fuck up, because if you do, you're gonna die poor and lonely.
And you're like, "Well, fuck, whatever I am now I'm that forever."
And of course it's completely opposite.
All the dorks in high school go on to do great things,
and all the really cool guys are living back in Littleton as insurance agents.
Almost person to person, it's completely that way.
If someone told them that, maybe they wouldn't have done it. But-- Yeah.
[Moore] I guess we'll never know why they did it.
But one thing adults should never forget – It still sucks being a teenager.
And it really sucks going to school.
[boy] What's your view on high school?
Uh, I love it. Uh, I learn.
I get picked on by bastards who hate me,
and the principal's a dick.
All right. What causes school violence?
Uh... him.
-Him? -Yeah.
[Moore] Yes, and after Columbine,
it really sucked being a student in America.
[male reporter] Since last spring's shooting at Columbine High,
schools nationwide have extended zero tolerance policies,
suspending and expelling students for all kinds of behavior considered unruly
or warning signs of violence to come.
This second-grader in Illinois was suspended for ten days
for bringing a nail clipper to class.
That's a weapon, his school said.
[male reporter 2] An elementary school suspended a first-grader
for pointing a chicken strip at a teacher in the cafeteria.
The eight-year-old was fooling around with a friend at lunch last week
when he pointed a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and then said, "Pow, pow."
[female reporter] He pointed a folded piece of paper like this one, shaped like a gun,
and told his classmates he was going to kill them during a game of cops and robbers.
If this isn't a warning sign, then what is it?
[male reporter 3] This Virginia high school student
spent a month out of classes,
originally sent home for dyeing his hair blue.
[male reporter 4] A high school honor student from Michigan
could be expelled later today at a school board hearing.
Seventeen-year-old Jeremy Hicks
wore a Scottish bagpiper's outfit to his junior prom
that included a plaid kilt, a feathered hat,
and a traditional knife known as a Sgian Dubh.
[female reporter 2] This T-shirt landed a high school student in court.
She wanted to start an anarchy club.
The little time bombs that are out there ticking, waiting to go off.
And there are many of them in every community.
[female reporter 3] Students in at least seven different states
have been suspended or arrested
for talking about or planning plots of their own.
It's almost like guerrilla warfare.
You don't know from which direction
the enemy will be coming.
Having a well-conceived and strictly enforced dress code
can dramatically improve the safety of a school
and can ensure a positive learning environment for everyone.
As this student's appearance demonstrates,
having a lax policy about dress
makes it easy for a student to conceal a weapon
and makes it difficult to identify intruders on campus.
A dress code can reduce weapons violations,
relieve tensions between gangs, reduce disciplinary infractions,
and generally improve the atmosphere of the school.
Our policy requires that students tuck in their shirts,
making the belt line visible at all times.
Our students may not wear baggy pants
or colors and insignias that are commonly associated with gang activity.
This policy was a collaborative effort.
[Moore] Yes, our children were indeed something to fear.
They had turned into little monsters.
But who was to blame?
All the experts had an answer.
Angry, heavy metal subculture.
Where were the parents?
Violent movies.
-South Park. -Video games.
-Television. -Entertainment.
-Satan. -Cartoons.
-Doom. -Society.
-Toy guns. -Drugs.
Shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
-Marilyn Manson. -Marilyn Manson.
Marilyn Manson has canceled the last five dates of his US tour
out of respect for those lost in Littleton.
But the singer says artists like himself are not the ones to blame.
This is perhaps the sickest group
ever promoted by a mainstream record company.
♪ I'm not a slave ♪
♪ To a God that doesn't exist ♪
[Moore] After Columbine it seemed the entire focus on why the shootings occurred
was because the killers listened to Marilyn Manson.
Two years after Columbine,
Manson finally returned to Denver.
The Ozzfest at Mile High Stadium
brings shock rocker Marilyn Manson to Denver tomorrow.
[Moore] There were protests from the religious right.
But I thought I'd go and talk with him myself.
[Manson] When I was a kid growing up, music was the escape.
That's the only thing that had no judgments.
You can put on a record and it's not gonna yell at you for dressing the way you do.
It's going to make you feel better about it.
Some will be so brash to ask
if we believe that all who hear Manson tomorrow night
will go out and commit violent acts.
The answer is no.
But does everybody who watches a Lexus ad
go and buy a Lexus?
No, but a few do.
I definitely can see why they would pick me,
because I think it's easy to throw my face on a TV.
Because I'm, in the end, sort of a poster boy for fear
because I represent what everyone's afraid of.
Because I do and say what I want.
If Marilyn Manson can walk into our town
and promote hate, violence, suicide, death,
drug use and Columbine-like behavior,
I can say, "Not without a fight you can't."
The two by-products of that whole tragedy were,
uh, violence in entertainment and gun control.
And how perfect that that was the two things
that we were gonna talk about with the upcoming election.
And also then we forgot about Monica Lewinsky,
and we forgot about the president was shooting bombs overseas.
Yet I'm a bad guy
because I sing some rock and roll songs.
And who's a bigger influence, the president or Marilyn Manson?
I'd like to think me, but I'm gonna go with the president.
Do you know that the day Columbine happened,
the United States dropped more bombs on Kosovo
than at any other time during that war?
I do know that, and I think that's really ironic that nobody said,
"Well, maybe the president had an influence on this violent behavior."
That's not the way the media wants to take it and spin it and turn it into fear.
'Cause then you're watching television,
you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear.
There's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder.
Cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate.
If you have bad breath, they're not gonna talk to you.
If you got pimples, the girl's not gonna fuck you.
And it's just this – It's a campaign of fear and consumption.
And that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea that,
keep everyone afraid and they'll consume.
Mm-hmm. Right.
That's really as simple as it can be boiled down to.
If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine
or the people in that community,
what would you say to them if they were here right now?
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.
-I'm Nicole Schlieve. -And I'm Amanda Lamontagne.
-And you went to Columbine? -Yes.
Uh-huh. And you were with Eric and Dylan in their class?
Yeah, we were in their bowling class.
-You were in their bowling class? -Yeah.
What's bowling class?
Um, it's just an elective you can take for a gym credit.
-Where is the educational value of this? -[Amanda chuckles]
Um... I guess there isn't really any.
No. There's not.
-[laughs] -Is there any –
I learned how to bowl a lot better, that's for sure.
What were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold like?
-Weird. -Yeah?
-I mean, not very social. -I didn't really know who they were. Yeah.
Not very social. Just kinda kept to themselves.
How good bowlers were Eric and Dylan?
When we played them, all I remember is they were just, like, crazy.
-They would just, like, chuck the ball. -Chuck it down there.
Throw the ball down there. Didn't care too much about how they bowled.
They didn't really care about their scores.
What were the suspects doing
the morning of attack?
I heard that they were bowling.
That's the only thing I'm aware of.
[bowling pins falling]
[Moore] So did Dylan and Eric show up that morning and bowl two games
before moving on to shoot up the school?
And did they just chuck the balls down the lane?
Did this mean something?
Um, well, I guess they went to their favorite class.
[Moore] Why wasn't anyone blaming bowling
for warping the minds of Eric and Dylan to commit their evil deeds?
Was it not just as plausible as blaming Marilyn Manson?
After all, it was apparently the last thing they did before the massacre.
But wait a minute. There's lots of bowling going on in other countries.
And don't they listen to Marilyn Manson in Germany,
the home of sinister Goth music?
[German accent] Some Gothic festival.
Don't they watch the same violent movies in France?
No.
Most of the violent video games are from Japan.
Many people in America believe that it's the breakup of the family unit
that's caused so many wayward youth to turn to violence.
I'll save you the trouble. I'll run away and kill myself.
How would you like that? You can't keep me here!
But statistics show that there are more broken homes and divorce
in Great Britain than in the US.
It's official. Fergie's marriage has ended.
Liberals contend that it's all the poverty we have in America
that causes all this violence.
But the unemployment rate in Canada is twice what it is here.
Of course most people say it's because we Americans have a violent history,
a violent past.
Cowboys and Indians, the Wild West,
a history of conquering and bloodshed.
Well, if that's all it takes to end up with such a violent society
like we have in America,
how do you explain this?
[shouting]
Yet in spite of all of this, how many people are killed by guns each year?
In Germany, 381.
In France, 255.
In Canada, 165.
In the United Kingdom, 68.
[bell clangs]
In Australia, 65.
In Japan, 39.
In the United States,
11, 127.
[man] But that – 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.
Oh, 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.
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?
-What is it? -What is it?
I don't know.
Now it's time for a brief history of the United States of America.
Hi, boys and girls. Ready to get started?
Once upon a time, there were these people in Europe called Pilgrims,
and they were afraid of being persecuted.
-[all scream] -[murmuring]
So they all got in a boat and sailed to the New World
where they wouldn't have to be scared ever again.
-Oh, I'm so relaxed. -I feel so much safer.
But as soon as they arrived they were greeted by savages,
and they got scared all over again.
-Injuns! -So they killed them all.
Now, you'd think wiping out a race of people would calm them down.
But, no! Instead, they started getting frightened of each other.
-Witch! -Witch!
So they burned witches.
In 1775, they started killing the British so they could be free.
And it worked, but they still didn't feel safe.
So they passed a second amendment
which said every white man could keep his gun.
I loves my gun. Loves my gun.
Which brings us to the genius idea of slavery!
You see, boys and girls, white people back then were also afraid of doing any work.
So they went to Africa, kidnapped thousands of black people,
brought them back to America and forced them to work very hard for no money.
-And I don't mean "no money" like – -I work at Walmart and make no money.
I mean zero dollars. Nothing! Nada! Zip!
Doing it that way made the USA the richest country in the world.
So did having all that money and free help calm the white people down?
No way. They got even more afraid.
That's because after 200 years of slavery,
the black people outnumbered the white people in many parts of the South.
Well, you can pretty much guess what came next.
The slaves started rebelling, there were uprisings,
and ol' Master's head got chopped off!
And when white people heard of this, they were freakin' out and going –
I want to live! Don't kill me, big black man!
Well, just in the nick of time came Samuel Colt
who, in 1836, invented the first weapon ever
that could be fired over and over without having to reload.
And all the Southern whites were like, "Yee-haw!"
But it was too late.
The North soon won the Civil War and the slaves were freed.
Yep, they were free now to go chop all the ol' masters' heads off.
-And everybody was like – -Oh, no! We're gonna die!
But the freed slaves took no revenge. They just wanted to live in peace.
But you couldn't convince the white people of this.
So they formed the Ku Klux Klan.
And in 1871,
the same year the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization,
another group was founded – the National Rifle Association.
Soon politicians passed one of the first gun laws,
making it illegal for any black person to own one.
It was a great year for America – the KKK and the NRA!
Of course they had nothing to do with each other and this was just a coincidence.
One group legally promoted responsible gun ownership
and the other group shot and lynched black people.
And that's the way it was all the way to 1955,
when a black woman broke the law by refusing to move to the back of the bus.
White people just couldn't believe it.
-Why won't she move? -What's going on?
Man, all hell broke loose!
Black people everywhere started demanding their rights,
and white people had a major freaky fear meltdown.
-And they were all like – -Run away, run away!
And they did – they all ran, fleein' to the suburbs,
where it was all white and safe and clean.
And they went out and bought a quarter of a billion guns
and put locks on their doors, alarms in their houses,
and gates around the neighborhoods.
And finally they were all safe and secure and snug as a bug.
[screams]
[gunshot]
And everyone lived happily ever after.
[Moore] Or did they?
Because if you turn on the evening news,
America still seems like a pretty scary place.
[announcer] Who is he? Is he dangerous? What's he up to?
What are you trying to pull?
[announcer] Why are people scared?
[Moore] Remember all the Y2K scares?
Weren't we told that our very society was about to collapse
because somebody forgot to type in a couple of digits on the computer?
There's gonna be mass chaos and confusion.
[female reporter] Tonight, the countdown begins.
All day, store director Rick Smith watched consumers get Y2K-ready.
Batteries sell extremely well, the lamp oil, generators.
[Moore] After sending the country into a panic,
the clock struck midnight...
-and nothing happened. -[cheering]
Or how about those killer bees that were going to attack America?
We're almost certain they'll arrive this year.
[female reporter] Schmidt expects the Africanized bees to reach Texas this year,
cross into Arizona in about two to three years.
He's concerned because the killer bee is overly aggressive.
They will follow you for half a mile.
[Moore] The bees never came.
Remember the first time you heard that someone had hidden a razor blade
in an apple at Halloween?
Before long, kids were not permitted to go out in the dark on Halloween
and go trick-or-treating at strangers' homes.
[male reporter] A lot of people say they won't give out candy treats on Halloween.
It's too dangerous and they're too scared.
[Moore] Well, guess what?
There never was any razor blade in the apple.
In fact, only two kids in the past 40 years have been killed by Halloween candy,
and both of them were poisoned on purpose by relatives.
Bye!
[female reporter] It was like a scene from a horror movie.
This Hooksett man was mowing his lawn when a fox darted out of the woods
and attacked his riding mower.
A warning about a popular weight loss supplement.
What you don't know may kill you.
[man] You ride them every day,
but in an instant an escalator can mangle you or a loved one.
7 on Your Side reveals why you may be riding a Stairway to Danger.
You might want to take some extra precautions. Keep a low profile.
Don't go around dancing with a bunch of Americans in the streets.
Make sure that you don't draw a lot of attention to yourself
and the fact that you're an American.
The nation's top doctor says one in five Americans
suffers some form of mental disorder.
The Surgeon General, David Satcher, pleads with people to seek help now.
[Moore] The media, the corporations, the politicians
have all done such a good job of scaring the American public
it's come to the point where they don't need to give any reason at all.
Today the Justice Department did issue a –
a blanket alert.
It was in recognition of a general threat we received.
Uh, this is not the first time the Justice Department have acted like this.
I hope it's the last.
But given the attitude of the evildoers, it may not be.
[soundtrack: dramatic music swells]
[screams]
I just love these boulevards down here though.
You don't get this in most of LA.
How come whenever I'm out here I turn on the 11:00 news
and I hear, "Tonight in South Central, a drive-by shooting."
Or "Tonight in South Central," um, this, that or whatever.
-I mean – -Right.
I mean, they're not making that up, are they?
No, but they're choosing what they're covering.
If you turn on TV, on the news –
[Moore] Yeah?
[Glassner] What are you gonna hear about? Dangerous black guys, right?
[Moore] Mm-hmm.
Unnamed black guy who's, you know, accused of some crime, or –
[Moore] Right.
[Glassner] You're gonna see pictures
of black guys doing bad things and hearing stories about black guys doing bad things.
We've heard this our whole lives.
The suspect is a black male in his 20s.
We are told he has a large Afro, sideburns. He was wearing a silver chain at the time.
[male newscaster] Police say the suspect is a black man,
6'1", 160 to 180 pounds, about 35 years in age.
The suspect is a black male, aged 16 to 18.
[woman] The suspect is African-American.
-Police believe – -Police –
-[man] Police say – -[woman]... a black man--
-Suspect – -Suspect –
[woman] The suspect is a black male. [man] A black man –
-A black man. -A black –
-Black male. -Black man.
[woman] A black man –
[Moore] Susan Smith drowns her two children.
-She tells people a black guy – -[Glassner] Right.
stole the car and stole the kids.
And everyone, at first, bought it.
[man on phone] Some guy jumped, at a red light, into her car
with her two kids in it, and he took off.
It's a black guy, she says.
-[dispatcher] Black male? -Yes, ma'am.
[Smith] And I told 'em I loved 'em. And I hollered I loved them.
And it's just a tragedy.
[Glassner] The anonymous, urban,
which means, usually, black male
comes by and does this is the excuse for all kinds of things.
[Moore] Charles Stuart, the lawyer in Boston.
[Glassner] Right. Exactly.
[Moore] Kills his pregnant wife, says a black guy did it.
Everybody buys it.
[male newscaster] The suspect described as a black male about six feet tall.
Chuck and Carol Stuart were robbed at gunpoint as they left a Lamaze class.
It seemed the ultimate urban nightmare.
[Moore] You know, the thing I love about this country of mine
is that whether you're a psychotic killer or running for president of the United States,
the one thing you can always count on
is white America's fear of the black man.
[male newscaster] We've heard the stories on the news and in the papers,
and they have killed people.
Killer bees, also known as Africanized bees.
I'm scared. I'm really worried with them.
[newscaster] Rosemary Shibley never expected a nest of Africanized killer bees
to shack up across the street from her.
But I'm terribly allergic to them and so are my grandkids.
[newscaster] They're originally from southern and eastern Africa.
Dr. Warwick Kerr brought some to Brazil in 1956
and tried to mate them with the European bee, the kind that we're used to.
But they got loose, took over
and moved all the way to the southern United States.
The main difference between a traditional honeybee and an Africanized bee
is the bees' aggressiveness.
If I was to do this to an Africanized bees' hive,
I could have several hundred stings in a matter of minutes.
[newscaster] Danny Self raises the kinder, gentler, European bees,
and he's done the research.
[Self] The only way that you can tell the two of 'em is doing measurements on the body parts.
Quite frankly, the black community has become entertainment
for the rest of the community.
[Moore] Meaning what?
The entertainment being the crime of the day –
"If it bleeds, it leads" –
gets to be the front story,
and then that becomes the perception and the image of an entire people,
which couldn't be further from the truth, in my opinion.
In fact, you'll find, I think,
most African-Americans are quite adverse to gun possession.
In suburbia, I think there's some notion
that there's going to be an invading horde
come from either the city or from someplace unknown
to savage their suburban community.
To me, not only is it bizarre,
but it's totally unfounded.
And these pistols, curiously enough,
weren't being taken off of kids in the city of Flint,
but were being taken off of kids out in the out-county area
in the suburban communities.
-And – -I didn't think that's what you were gonna say.
I thought you were gonna say it's all these black kids in inner city schools
that had these guns.
No. That's –
We've never really had many problems with guns in the city.
Not to say we haven't. We've had some.
But that's never been the biggest problem.
The biggest problem has been the gun possession
by these adolescents in suburbia.
-[Moore] How'd you get a gun? -I stole mine.
-Where'd you steal it from? -I stole it from a friend of mine.
-Where'd he get it? -His dad owns a bunch of guns.
-What were you doing with the stolen guns? -We went down to Detroit to try to sell 'em.
'Cause I can get a buck-fifty a pop for a nine millimeter.
-Uh, really? -Yeah.
-Who were you trying to sell them to? -Anybody that would really want 'em.
Mostly gangs and stuff like that.
-Gangs in the city of Detroit? -Yeah.
-Black? -Uh, predominantly.
-Yeah? -Yeah.
-So now you're okay? -Yeah, I'm free now. I'm completely clear.
-You can keep selling guns? -Well, I can't really keep selling guns.
It's getting too risky, man. Everybody knows me up here.
People want guns, or drugs, or alcohol, they come to my house.
-And that's just too much. -Yeah, too much hassle.
[siren wailing]
[Glassner] My favorite statistic in all the research I did
discovered that the murder rate had gone down by 20 percent.
The coverage –
that is, how many murders are on the evening news –
went up by 600 percent.
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.
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.
So we're right here on the corner of Florence and Normandie.
This was kind of ground zero for the LA riots.
[Glassner] Right.
If a couple of white guys go down and walk around South Central,
they're gonna get killed,
which I can tell you is a common perception.
The odds that something's going to happen to us are really, really slight.
-Minuscule. -Right. Okay.
But, you know, if you look up there, you get a different symbol
of the Hollywood sign.
It means something very different than the corner of Florence and Normandie
for most Americans and most of the world.
It means glamour and Hollywood, except that we can't see it.
I can't see the Hollywood sign. Where is it?
You can't see it because of something
that's probably much more dangerous for us right now,
which is the stuff we're breathing.
The pollution that's blocking the Hollywood sign, we're breathing this.
That's far more dangerous than all the other stuff the media's telling us to be afraid of.
[Moore] As we left the corner of Florence and Normandie,
I noticed that a number of helicopters had appeared in the sky.
Within seconds, the news media started to arrive.
-[Moore] So what's the story here? -[man] I'm waiting. I thought you would know.
No, I don't know anything.
A sergeant told me it's a guy with a gun, but they're not sure.
-That's all they told me. -All right.
Since no action, I'm not getting the camera down.
I just happened to see the chopper. We were going to another story.
-What story you going to? -It's a near drowning.
-It's a drowning? -Near drowning.
How about the story about how you can't see the Hollywood Hills
because of the pollution?
Could you maybe do a story on that tonight?
Pollution. You probably could. I probably could.
You can't see it. You can't see anything around here.
If you have to choose between a guy with a gun and a near drowning of a baby,
and you can only be in one place at one time –
-Go with the gun. -You go with the gun always.
-Go with the gun. -Yeah.
Is it all over here?
All over? All over?
-Not yet. Not yet. -Looks like it.
Just wait for these sergeants down here to come down 'cause they got all the details.
Okay. Hey, I was just wondering, I just got here to LA today.
I can't see the Hollywood sign down on the hills there, down Normandie.
-I can't see the sign 'cause of the pollution. -Right.
Is there anybody you can go and arrest for polluting up the air?
-Absolutely not. -Nobody?
-No. -Why's that?
Why is that, Sergeant?
[man shouting]
Oh, he's fighting him.
[Moore] For over a decade, there has been one show on American television
that has consistently brought black and white people together
in an effort to reduce our fears and celebrate our diversity.
Get that hand back here.
[Moore] That show is Cops.
[vocalist grunts]
I went to see a former producer of Cops
and executive producer of World's Wildest Police Videos,
Mr. Dick Herlan.
Look "liberal" up in the dictionary, and my picture's in there somewhere.
-Yeah. -[Moore] So then –
You know, why not be compelled to do a show
that focuses on what's causing the crime,
as opposed to just chasing the criminals down?
Because I think it's harder to do that show.
I don't know what that show would be.
Anger does well. Hate does well. Violence does well.
Tolerance and understanding
and trying to learn to be a little different than you were last year does less well.
-[Moore] Does less well in the ratings. -Oh, yeah.
Maybe because we, in the television business,
because we tend to demonize black and Hispanic people,
then those watching it at home are going, "I don't want to help those people.
I'm not going to do anything to help them because I hate them now,
because they may hurt me."
You know what I'm saying?
I know what you're saying. I'm not sure that's what we're doing.
I'm not sure we're demonizing black and Hispanic people particularly.
I don't think we show black and Hispanic people as being criminals –
I'd like to say not more often, but probably they are more often.
But, um, we're certainly not trying to demonize black and Hispanic people.
[Moore] We show them on the news.
We show them on TV as pretty scary people.
[Herlan] Yeah.
And I agree. I'd like to see that reversed as much as possible.
I, um –
[Moore] Start tonight.
The thing is, I don't know how to start tonight.
I don't know how to tell that story.
If I was smart enough to do that –
-I'll pitch you one. -Okay. All right.
Um, do a show called –
Not Cops, but Corporate Cops.
[vocalist grunts] ♪ Oh, corporation man ♪
♪ Hey, corporate man ♪
♪ We're coming out to get you Better run while you can ♪
Uh, I love the idea.
I don't think it would make very interesting reality TV
unless we can get those people to get in their SUVs
and drive really fast down the road away from the police.
But I'm telling you, everyone in America who's got your basic, everyday job
is gonna love watching the boss
being chased down the street with his shirt off,
thrown to the ground and a knee to the neck.
I'm telling you, that is gonna get ratings.
I'm with you, and if I can find a police outfit
that would prosecute corporate criminals appropriately
and would go after them appropriately –
In other words, what you do to a man who's just stolen a lady's purse with $85 to it,
then you need to do an appropriate response to a man
who's just stolen $85 million from indigent people.
Then, boy, we're gonna be out there filming that.
But as a matter of fact, when police go after the guy
who's just stolen $85 million,
they treat him like he was a member of the city council,
as he may or may not be,
and it's not exciting television.
If you could get that guy to take his shirt off –
Right.
And throw his cellular phone at the police as they come through the door,
try to jump out that window, then we'd have a show.
You watch violence on TV in a place like Canada,
and you know it's not happening next door.
You watch it here, and you know it is happening next door.
-Right. -I think that's –
I don't know what the difference is, but there's a big difference.
Why isn't it happening in Canada?
Why aren't there 10,000 murders a year?
I don't know, but I want to go to Canada to retire
'cause it sounds like where we want to be.
I'd like to find out what that difference is, wouldn't you?
Yeah. I'm trying to find out.
[Moore] Where are you supposed to be now?
-School. -School.
School.
Aren't you worried about what you're not learning?
I'm mostly helping everybody else in the class. Then I barely get to do my work, period.
-[chuckles] -How about you?
-You're not worried about your education? -Well, I've got the textbook.
Why do you think we have so many gun murders in America?
Uh, I have no idea.
People must hate each other there or something.
You mean Canadians don't hate each other?
Well, we do, but we don't go to the point of shooting somebody just to get revenge.
-What do you do? -I don't know. Tease them, maybe.
-Make fun of them, ridicule them. -Throw eggs at them.
-Eggs. -Eggs.
How many gun murders in Sarnia this year?
None.
Last year?
I believe we had one at the time.
Year before that?
I can't recall what we had in the way of –
-Maybe one in the last three years? -Probably. Yes.
-Mm-hmm. -Very low. Very low for the city.
Mm-hmm.
Well, of course there's no murders here because there's only 70,000 people
and it's "The Kissing Capital of the World."
So I went down the river to another Canadian city
that was five times as large as Sarnia –
Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Detroit.
I was sure there'd be more murders in Windsor.
Ever hear of anyone being shot by a gun in Windsor?
No. No.
You remember any murders here?
There was one long time ago probably.
-How long ago? -Oh –
-In your lifetime? -In my lifetime.
Probably about 15, 20 years ago, there was one murder.
[Moore] In fact, this Windsor policeman told me
that the only gun murder he could recall in Windsor in the last three years
was committed by a guy from Detroit
who had a stolen gun from Minnesota.
With nearly 400,000 people in the Windsor area,
there were simply no Canadians shooting other Canadians.
I thought it might be time for some fun facts about Canada.
I hit the streets of New York to find out
what the average American thought about our friendly neighbor to the north.
Canadians don't watch as much violent movies as Americans do.
[screams]
That's wrong. Hordes of young boys all throughout Canada
eagerly await the next Hollywood bloodbath.
-Then the guy gets his leg taken off. -Oh, wow.
-And there was a lot of girls. -Showing cleavage.
-And naked. -Yeah?
-Naked at one point. -I like that stuff.
-What movie did you guys see tonight? -Sixth Day.
-Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger? -Yeah.
Did it make you want to come out here and play this shoot-'em-up game?
Well, yeah.
There's no poverty in Canada like there is here in the States.
[Moore] Wrong again.
We've also had much higher unemployment rate.
When Michigan was running at four percent,
we were still running at eight or nine percent.
We had an institutional unemployment rate.
I think there'd mostly be white people in Canada.
[Moore] Hmm. That's strange.
'Cause when I'm in Canada, I see black people everywhere.
And yellow people and brown people.
And 13 percent of the country is nonwhite.
So the Canadians are pretty much just like us,
and the reason that they have so few murders
has to be because they've got so few guns.
[gunfire]
What kind of guns do you own?
I hunt. I own rifles and shotguns.
-I own pistols. -Mm-hmm.
So how many guns total?
-Probably about seven. -Seven guns?
-Do you have a gun? -I have a few guns.
-Really? How many guns do you have? -Half a dozen.
You could name how many people right now that own guns that you know?
-Two, three, a dozen? -More than that.
There's a tremendous amount of gun ownership, being the nature of the country we are.
We're a large country geographically.
We grew up with hunting and fishing being a tradition.
In Canada, with a population of just around about 30 million,
there's about ten million families,
and the best estimate is somewhere in the region of seven million guns.
[Moore] Wow. Canada was one gun-loving, gun-toting, gun-crazy country.
[gunshot]
-Where can I get a gun? -I can buy a gun uptown anytime I want to.
[Moore] I see you're a Glock owner. Where can I get a Glock in Canada?
Most gun stores will sell them to you if you have the proper permits.
[Moore] In fact, despite all their tough gun laws,
take a look at what I, a foreign citizen,
was able to do at the local Canadian Walmart.
-Where's the ammunition at? -Where's the ammunition?
-Yeah. -Back here.
-What kind are you looking for? -You know, like, bullets.
[Moore] That's right.
I could buy as much live ammunition as I wanted to in Canada.
Do you take American?
-Do you lock your doors? -No.
Are you afraid of anything?
Not normally, no.
-Do you lock your doors at night? -No.
-You don't lock your doors? -No.
What are you – Are you afraid of anything?
Not really.
-Have you ever been broken into? -Yes, I have.
What happened?
They broke into my home. I wasn't there.
They broke in, they stole some booze, some cigarettes, and they left.
So I figured it must've been some teenagers out to have a little bit of fun.
That's all they took though – some booze and some cigarettes.
-Have you ever been a victim of crime? -Yes.
What kind of crime?
I've had people walk in while I've been sleeping
and vandalize my home and steal from me.
And that didn't want to make you lock your doors at night?
Nope. No.
[Moore] As an American with three locks on his doors,
I found this all a bit confusing.
Even here in Toronto, a city of millions, people just didn't lock their doors.
So you don't lock your doors, but we Americans do.
Why is that?
You must be afraid of your neighbor.
Do you ever leave your doors unlocked at home?
-Yes. -Yeah? You do?
-Where do you live? -Right around here.
-Toronto? -Around here.
-And you leave your doors unlocked? -Yeah.
You think, as Americans,
that the lock is keeping people out of your place.
Uh, we, as Canadians, see it more as
when we lock the door, we're imprisoning ourselves inside.
-You don't want to do that. -Not really, no.
Uh, we don't want to –
No.
[Moore] I decided to go unannounced to a neighborhood in Toronto
to see if this unlocked door thing was true.
Oh. Hi. Sorry. Just checking.
-[dog barking] -Oh. Hello.
-Oh. Hi. -Hi.
Nobody locks their doors. Nobody locks their doors in this town!
-You want it locked? -No, no, no.
-You like living here? -I like it very much.
-And the T-shirt? -The T-shirt too.
This door was wide open. And you're not afraid?
-Should I be afraid? -I don't know. You live here.
-I don't think I'm afraid. -You're not, are you?
-Thank you very much. -All right. No problem.
-I'm sorry about the intrusion. -No problem.
-And thank you for not shooting me. -No problem. No, no, no.
-Bye-bye. -Okay.
As an American, I gotta say this all seemed kind of strange
until I looked up at the TV in the bar
and noticed what they watch for their evening news.
They're friends of ours.
We'll certainly listen to them courteously and carefully.
But you don't just make war just 'cause someone says so.
Night after night, the Canadians weren't being pumped full of fear.
And their politicians seemed to talk kind of funny.
Making sure they have proper day care,
that they have assistance for their parents when they're elderly
and need to be in an old age home,
that they have proper health care that ensures they won't lose their business or their house
because they can't afford their medical bills.
That's how you build a good society.
No one wins unless everyone wins,
and you don't win by beating up on people who can't defend themselves.
That's been the approach spreading in some 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.
Where are the indigent in this city? Where do they live?
Uh, indigent?
You act like you've never heard the word before.
There's – We don't have that problem here, really.
So I asked him, "Could you at least take me to a Canadian slum?"
And, well, this is what a ghetto looks like in Canada.
[Moore] Is this the same sort of mentality that says, with Canadians,
you think if somebody gets sick,
they should actually be able to have health care?
-Oh, definitely. -Yes.
Yeah.
Why?
-Because! -Human rights.
Everyone's got the right to live.
-Did you just come out of the emergency room? -Yes, I did.
And how much did you have to pay for your treatment?
I wouldn't know what the bill is. It's covered by our hospital plan.
-You're telling me you didn't have to pay anything? -No, I don't.
I have family that lives in the States.
They used to live in Canada and moved over there,
and it's so different.
-[Moore] They get afraid more easily. -Oh, yeah.
Yup. Very much so.
Because everybody reacts over there just like that.
They don't stop and think.
First reaction is pull the gun up.
"You're on my property."
You know, like –
I don't know. It's just different over here.
-Where do you live? -Detroit.
-Come over to Canada for the night? -Right.
People are a little more open-minded here, a little more welcoming.
Feel any difference when you cross over to this country?
-Be honest now. Come on. -It's a lot lighter.
The segregation over there is definitely much more intensified in the States.
Yeah.
So you can feel it.
Almost like they just let you be.
That's Canada for you.
Every time I turn on the TV in the States, it's always about a murder here,
a gunfight, hostile position.
I just think the States, their view of things is fighting.
That's how they resolve everything.
If there's something going on in another country,
they send people over to fight it.
[boy] They are the most powerful country in the world though. Sorry.
Canada's more like, "Let's negotiate. Let's work something out,"
where the States is, "We'll just kill you, and that'll be the end of that."
Um, if guns were –
If more guns made people safer,
then America would be one of the safest countries in the world.
It isn't. It's the opposite.
[static]
[male dispatcher]
[woman]
[Moore] I heard that 911 call on TV someplace.
It was horrible. It was just –
He kept saying, "Where's the shooter?" She said, "He's gone. I need some help."
-[Moore] And the little girl was in there too? -She was on the floor.
-She was on the floor? -Mm-hmm.
And the police and the medics came?
By that time, the medics were here. The medics had just come in.
And I remember him stepping in and taking over the room.
-He says, "You have to leave." -Right.
And then when the medics come in, when the police come in,
you're no longer in control.
Was she still alive then? Probably not.
Her lips had begun to turn blue.
[Moore] Back in my hometown of Flint, Michigan,
a six-year-old, first-grade boy at Buell Elementary
had found a gun at his uncle's house where he was staying
because his mother was being evicted.
He brought the gun to school and shot another first-grader,
six-year-old Kayla Rolland.
With one bullet that passed through her body,
she fell to the floor and laid there dying
while her teacher called 911 for help.
No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl.
As if the city had not been through enough horror and tragedy in the past two decades,
it was now home to a new record –
the youngest school shooting ever in the United States.
On the morning of the shooting,
it only took the news helicopters and satellite trucks a half hour
to show up on the scene.
[man] Leave your mike on.
They're checking the truck. We're doing one in 30 minutes.
This evening about 7:00 will be a public memorial service.
We are expecting hundreds of people.
They will mourn the loss of little Kayla,
a tiny little girl who loved pizza, teddy bears
and who was taken away from us much too soon.
Gina?
Good morning, Christine.
The funeral home now passing out tens of thousands of these pink ribbons
to support the young girl's family.
Today will be an emotional day and has been already, remembering little Kayla.
Jeff Rossen, Fox 2 News.
[man] Nice job.
Yeah, Michelle, we're having technical problems, okay?
Well, don't talk to me about it. Call our sat truck.
I need a haircut, man. I'm a pig.
A rug.
Here we go.
Some too choked up even to speak about it.
There's a memorial service scheduled here for 7:00 tonight.
We're live in Flint, Michigan this afternoon.
Jeff Rossen, Q13 reports.
-Thank you. -[woman] Thank you.
-I kind of need it, don't I? -[woman] Yeah, you do.
I have some. I just didn't put it in. I didn't have a chance.
This man prayed for Kayla, then let the balloon go.
[laughs] I see we have the color picture, not the black and white card.
There are plenty of media here that covered Columbine.
There are some networks, especially,
that go from, unfortunately, tragedy to tragedy.
And I feel bad for them because that's all they see.
Tragedies.
We're just trying to crunch right now for the 5:00 and the 6:00.
Today we're feeding CNN and Fox, so...
[Moore] The national media had never visited Buell Elementary
or the Beecher school district in which it sat,
or this part of Flint ever before.
And few, if any, of these reporters bothered to visit it
even when they were here now.
If they had ventured just a block away from the school or the funeral home,
they might have seen a different kind of tragedy
that perhaps would contain some answers as to why this little girl was dead.
For over 20 years, this impoverished area
in the hometown of the world's largest corporation,
had been ignored as completely as it had been destroyed.
With 87 percent of the students living below the official poverty line,
Buell and Beecher and Flint
did not fit into the accepted and widely circulated story line
put forth by the nation's media.
That being the one about America and its invincible economy.
The number-one cause of death among young people in this part of Flint
was homicide.
The football field at Flint Beecher was sponsored by a funeral home.
The kids at Beecher have won 13 state track championships,
but they've never had a home track meet
because around the football field all they have is this dirt ring.
Years ago, someone here named the streets in this part of town
after all the Ivy League schools,
as if they dreamed of better days and something greater for themselves.
[Hughes] The children are doing well.
Faculty and staff are doing well. But we don't forget.
We don't forget.
I just don't want this to happen to anybody else.
-[sighs] -I know.
I know. I don't want it to happen to anybody else either.
-[voice breaking] I thought it would, um – -It's okay.
It's okay.
-[exhales] -I'm sorry.
That's all right.
[Heston] From my cold, dead hands!
[audience cheering]
[Moore] Just as he did after the Columbine shooting,
Charlton Heston showed up in Flint to have a big, pro-gun rally.
Freedom has never seen greater peril
nor needed you more urgently to come to her defense than now.
[Moore] Before he came to Flint, Heston was interviewed
by The Georgetown Hoya about Kayla's death,
and even his own NRA website talked about it.
[woman] We wanted to let the NRA know that we haven't forgotten about Kayla Rolland.
How could they come here? To me, it's like they're rubbing our nose in it.
I was shocked and appalled that they were coming.
[Moore] Heston was asked by a local reporter why he came to Flint
after the tragedy of Buell
and what did the NRA have to say about six-year-olds using guns?
[Heston] We spend $21 million every year.
We teach it to five and six-year-olds.
We say if you see a gun, don't touch it.
Leave the room. Call an adult.
And then Moses himself showed up.
-[Moore] Right here in the city of Flint? -Right here in Flint.
Were there people that wanted you to try this child?
Or even try him as an adult?
Oh. Oh, yeah.
There were people from all over America
that wrote and called and sent mail.
It was amazing to me.
Groups that were affiliated with the NRA,
groups that – people that I call gun nuts –
writing me and telling me what a horrible thing it was
that I had admonished homeowners in our country
to be careful about bringing weapons into their home.
They wanted this little boy hung from the highest tree.
There was such an undercurrent of racism and hate and anger.
Um... it was ugly.
That's a picture that the little boy that was involved in the Buell School shooting,
once he was brought back here to our office
about 15 minutes after the shooting took place.
I gave him some crayons and stuff to occupy him a little bit.
He came over and drew that picture for me
because at the time, I had pictures behind my desk that my children drew for me,
and he wanted to draw me one to hang behind my desk.
This is what he drew for you. What did he say this was?
That's him at his house.
That's him at his house, right here.
And why did you decide to hang onto it?
Because of the gravity of the situation and what had occurred.
And he asked me to hang that behind my desk,
so I put it in a frame, and that's where it will stay.
[Moore] Tamarla Owens was the mother of the six-year-old boy.
In order to get food stamps and health care for her children,
Tamarla was forced to work as part of the state of Michigan's
Welfare to Work program.
This program was so successful in tossing poor people off welfare,
that its founder, Gerald Miller,
was soon hired by the number-one firm in the country
that states turn to to privatize their welfare systems.
That firm was Lockheed Martin.
With the Cold War over and no enemy left to frighten the public,
Lockheed had found the perfect way to diversify
and the perfect way to profit from people's fears
with an enemy much closer to home –
poor black mothers like Tamarla Owens.
So you've got a one-parent family,
and the mother's traveling 60 miles, an hour and a half away to go to work,
an hour and a half to come home.
How does that help a community?
But that's part of the state making parents responsible,
making them work for their money.
-Welfare to Work. -Welfare to Work.
That's a program that ought to be stopped because it really has no merit.
I think it adds more to the problem than it does to solve it.
Really? You're the sheriff, and you feel this way?
I do. I do.
I wish I could put two parents in every home and make every parent equally responsible,
but you can't do that.
But we're not doing anything by taking the one parent and putting them on a bus
and sending them out of town to make $5.50 an hour.
[Moore] This is the bus that she was forced to ride every day
in order to work off the welfare money the state had given her.
She and many others from Flint who were poor
would make the 80-mile round-trip journey every day
from Flint to Auburn Hills in Oakland County,
one of the wealthiest areas in the country.
Tamarla would leave early in the morning and return late at night,
rarely seeing her young children.
What's the point in doing that?
Where does the state benefit? Where does Flint and Genesee County benefit?
We have a child dead. I think that may be part of the problem.
We drove the one parent out.
Now, you or anybody else that can tell me
that that best serves a community,
I shake my head and wonder why.
[Moore] How long have you been riding the bus?
I've been working here just about three years now.
-About three years? -Yeah.
I got my brother working here.
Half of my neighborhood works out here.
Just about everybody I know personally works out here in the mall.
In Flint, doing the same thing I'm doing now, they only pay minimum wage.
I come 40 miles to make three or four dollars more an hour.
-How much you make an hour here? -I make 8.50 an hour.
8.50?
-Is that enough to pay the bills? -No.
Did you know Tamarla Owens, the woman whose son shot the little girl?
I think she rode this bus.
I knew her a little bit. Not real good.
-Nice lady? -Yeah, she was okay.
She came to work every day. She did her job. She worked two jobs.
-Worked two jobs? -She was trying to make ends meet.
♪ Goin' hopping We're goin' hopping today ♪
♪ Where things are popping ♪
[Moore] This is Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill,
where Tamarla worked one of her two jobs.
♪ Bandstand ♪
She was a – She worked in this room as a bartender,
a fountain person making drinks, making shakes, desserts.
-Was she a good employee? -Yeah, she was.
She also worked at the Fudgery in the mall here.
[Moore] Right, where the state had placed her.
[Moore] Dick Clark is an American icon.
The man who brought rock and roll into our homes
every week on American Bandstand.
Every part of your life you can link up to a part of music usually.
So, as Dick says, it's the soundtrack of our lives.
Music is the soundtrack of our lives.
[Moore] His restaurant and the Fudgery here in Auburn Hills
applied for special tax breaks because they were using welfare people as employees.
Even though Tamarla worked up to 70 hours a week at these two jobs in the mall,
she did not earn enough to pay her rent,
and one week before the shooting
was told by her landlord that he was evicting her.
With nowhere to go and not wanting to take her two children out of school,
Tamarla asked her brother if they could stay with him for a few weeks.
It was there that Tamarla's son found a small .32-caliber gun
and took it to school.
Tamarla did not see him take the gun to school
because she was on a state bus to go serve drinks
and make fudge for rich people.
♪ Bandstand ♪
I decided to fly out to California
to ask Dick Clark what he thought about a system
that forces poor, single mothers to work two low-wage jobs to survive.
I'm doing a documentary
on these school shootings and guns and all that.
And, um, in my hometown of Flint, Michigan, which you know,
this little six-year-old shot a six-year-old.
Get in the car, Dave. Watch your arm. Watch your arm.
-Oh. Sorry. -I'm sorry. We're really late.
Anyways, but the mother of the kid who did the shooting
works at Dick Clark's All American Grill.
Forget it. Close the door.
-It's a Welfare to Work program. -Close the door.
-These people are forced to – Dick. -Bye.
No, no, no. I want you to help me to convince the governor of Michigan –
It's a Welfare to Work pr – These women are forced to work.
They've got kids at home. Dick! Aw, geez!
[cheering]
[Moore] In George Bush's America, the poor were not a priority.
And after September 11, 2001,
correcting America's social problems
took a back seat to fear, panic, and a new set of priorities.
One way to express our unity
is for Congress to set the military budget,
the defense of the United States,
as a number-one priority
and fully fund my request.
We've been selling a lot of chemical suits with the gloves and the hoods.
And we've been selling a lot of gas masks.
I'm trying to get one for myself and my puppy.
[female newscaster] Dennis Marks and his wife have been stocking up supplies.
Weapons. Ammunition.
[male newscaster] Walmart says after September 11, gun sales surged 70 percent,
ammunition up 140 percent.
In Dallas, they're already taking pot shots at Osama bin Laden.
[Moore] In the months following the 9/11 attacks,
we Americans were gripped in a state of fear.
None of us knew if we too would die at the hands of the evildoers
or who might be sitting next to some crazy guy trying to light his shoes on fire.
The threats seemed very real.
It's probably a little paranoia, but I'm not gonna take the chance, that's all.
Just trying to protect myself and my family.
[Moore] Our growing fears were turned into a handsome profit for many.
[newscaster] Mike Blake has seen a 30 percent increase in sales at ADT over the last month.
Most of the people he talks to are still uneasy over the September 11 terrorist attacks.
How are we afraid of all these things?
It's because a lot of people are making a lot of money off of it
and a lot of careers off of it.
And so there's vested interests, a lot of activity to keep us afraid.
[Moore] And what better way to fight box cutter-wielding terrorists
than to order a record number of fighter jets from Lockheed?
Yes, everyone felt safer,
especially with the army doing garbage detail on Park Avenue.
And the greatest benefit of all of a terrorized public
is that the corporate and political leaders can get away with just about anything.
I've never seen a better example of cash-and-carry government
than this Bush administration and Enron.
[Moore] There were a lot of things I didn't know after the World Trade Center attack,
but one thing was clear.
Whether it was before or after September 11,
a public that's this out of control with fear
should not have a lot of guns or ammo laying around.
Well, I was shot with a Tec-9.
-[Moore] Nine millimeter? -Yeah.
Yeah, it was –
I guess it was supposed to be semiautomatic,
but it kind of seemed like fully automatic to me,
from what I remember.
[Moore] This is Richard Castaldo.
And this is Mark Taylor.
Both of these boys were shot the day of the Columbine massacre.
Richard is paralyzed for life and in a wheelchair.
And Mark is barely standing after numerous operations.
The kids at Columbine had to pay a penalty.
We paid a penalty that day for this nation, the way we look at it.
Mark and Richard were disabled and suffering
from the 17-cent Kmart bullets still embedded in their bodies.
As they showed me the various entry points for the bullets,
I thought of one way we could reduce the number of guns and bullets laying around.
I asked the boys if they'd like to go to Kmart
to return the merchandise.
-[Taylor] Ready? -[Moore] Y... You go.
-Me? -[Moore] Yep.
Cool.
Okay.
Do you want me to grab –
-[Mark] That comes out. -[Moore] Okay.
[woman] There we go.
Hi.
-Excuse me. Turn the camera off, please. -We're here to see Mr. Conaway.
Okay, you have to turn the camera off while you're in the building
till I get clearance for you to turn it back on.
All right. Turn it off.
-Hi, Michael. -Hi. How are you?
I'm Mary Lorenz. I'm director of media relations for Kmart.
-Oh, good. -How can I help you today?
I'm here today – This is Richard Castaldo.
-Richard, nice to meet you. -And this is Mark Taylor.
Mark.
And they're students from Columbine High School.
They were shot at Columbine in the massacre
with bullets from Kmart.
You came a long way, all the way from Colorado.
Yeah, I was just thinking that,
since you stopped selling the handguns and all,
that it kind of made sense to stop selling the bullets too.
Our request is that you get rid of the nine-millimeter bullets
and that you don't sell them in the store completely.
We do carry – You probably are aware of Kmart.
Hopefully, you're shoppers of our stores.
That we do only carry sporting firearms
and the accessories that go with the hunting sport.
We'll certainly take your message to our chairman and CEO, Chuck Conaway.
-He's not here today. -He's not here today?
He's not here actually this whole week.
Not at all during the week?
Do you have a limit on the number of bullets, ammunition that people can purchase?
I can't answer these questions for you.
I'm not the merchandiser who places those products.
Can we speak to that person?
But I can get answers to those questions for you if you would like to leave your card.
-I can get those answers for you. -We don't want to leave a card.
Let me just be blunt. The reason why we can't take a card and come back
is because Mark here, he's got a Kmart bullet just an inch away –
-Right? From your aorta? -Yeah.
-In between my aorta and spine. -Between your aorta and spine.
I'm glad to see that you're still able to stand.
I told them that somebody here would listen,
somebody here would – would – would take their request seriously.
Not just a PR person, but somebody who has some authority,
who can answer some of the questions that they want answered.
Kmart does care about this, but I can't go any further right now.
So, until I make a call, I'm going to go back to the office
and see if there's anyone in merchandising.
[Moore] Mary went back upstairs and two hours later,
she brought down this guy whose job it is to buy the bullets for Kmart.
-Stay out of trouble. -Yes.
We're not the ones in trouble, guys.
Mark thought he'd show him his bullet wounds.
Those are his bullet holes from your bullets.
That's where the Kmart bullets went in.
Well, take care.
[Moore] Is anybody else gonna come down?
Is anybody else gonna come down? Is that it?
-Let me check. -Okay. Thank you.
We waited around a couple more hours, but no one else came down.
As we left the building, Mark came up with an idea.
He suggested that we go to the nearest Kmart and buy out all their bullets.
[Taylor] Just take as many of those as you can.
[clerk] You can come around here and look.
What else do we have over here?
You got .357s? Sure. I'll take them all. Take everything you got.
-So you're 17, and you're what? -Sixteen.
-Oh, shit. -Be careful.
Oh, my God, Craig.
[Moore] Mark pretty much cleaned them out of their ammunition.
And the next day we decided to go back to Kmart headquarters with all the bullets.
This time we brought the press.
Our local first coverage of southeastern Michigan continues now with all-new stories.
Coming up here in our 6:00 report,
a warning to everyone this summer to watch out for snakes.
You'll hear from a mom who was bitten by a rattlesnake.
And also new, students who survived the Columbine massacre are in town.
They are very angry with Kmart.
[Moore] We're here to see Chuck Conaway, the chairman of Kmart.
-[man] How you doing, sir? -How you doing?
It's always a pleasure to see you. Okay. Uh –
They would like to speak with Mr. Conaway.
Here's the nine millimeters.
These are the bullets that are in both Richard
and in Mark's body right now.
[Taylor] Want to take that? I don't want to touch those.
I will do that for you, sir.
[man] Move your group outside, I'll have somebody here in five minutes.
Do me a favor. Don't block the door. Just off to the side, if you would.
[Moore] We'll go outside, and somebody will come out.
My name's Lori McTavish.
I'm the vice president of communications for Kmart.
I'm happy to deliver a statement on behalf of the company.
What happened in Columbine, Colorado was truly tragic
and touched every American.
And we're sorry for the disadvantage to this young man.
Kmart is phasing out the sale of handgun ammunition.
The business plan calls for this to be complete
in the continental US within the next 90 days.
-Wow! -Kmart representatives met Mr. Moore
and the students from Columbine, Colorado yesterday
and listened to their concerns
about the product carried in Kmart stores.
The company committed, at the end of that meeting,
that Kmart would have an answer for them within a week's time.
Well, the first thing we want to do is thank you
for committing to no longer selling handgun ammunition in your stores
and within 90 days.
The process will be phased out within 90 days.
And after 90 days, there will be no more selling of ammunition
that can go into handguns or assault weapons.
Firearm ammunition will be – We will not sell it after 90 days in our stores.
-Well, we greatly appreciate that. -Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. This is very great.
Thank you. Wow. That blows my mind.
That's more than what we asked for.
-This is remarkable. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Well, like I told you – Did you think? -No.
I'm, like – We're, like –
We were just getting ready to go to the air –
-We were getting ready to go home. -Go to the airport.
[Moore] The kids from Columbine had scored an overwhelming victory against Kmart,
and it inspired me to do something that I knew I had to do.
All I needed was a star map.
[buzzing]
[ringing]
-Hello? -Mr. Heston?
- Yeah. -This is Michael Moore.
- Yes. -The filmmaker?
-Yes, of course. -Yes. How you doing?
Fine, thank you.
Listen, I was wondering if maybe I could talk to you.
We're making a documentary about the whole gun issue,
and I'm a member of the NRA.
I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about the –
Tell you what. Let me look at my calendar.
I may be able to give you some time tomorrow.
I have some people here now.
How can I – Pardon me?
- Hold the phone. -Okay. Thank you.
Okay. I can give you a little time tomorrow morning.
- I think that's Thursday. -Yes.
-Let's say 8:30. -8:30 in the morning?
Okay. And just come here?
-Here. Yeah. -Yes. Okay, good.
-[ringing] -[man] Hello?
Hi. It's Michael Moore here to see Charlton Heston.
-Okay. -[beeps]
[piano playing "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"]
Hi.
Good morning.
-How are you? -Fine, thank you.
Thank you very much for agreeing to see me.
[Moore] He took me out to his pool and tennis house
so we could have a chat.
I told him that I was a lifetime member of the NRA
and showed him my membership card.
Good for you. Well done.
-I assume you have guns in the house here? -Indeed, I do.
Bad guys, take notice.
-So you have 'em for protection? -Yeah. Sure.
-Have you ever been a victim of crime? -No. No.
-Never – Yeah. Never been assaulted? -No.
No violence toward you, but you have guns in the house.
-Loaded. -Loaded. They're loaded?
Well, if you really need a weapon for self-defense,
you need it loaded.
Okay, but why do you need it for self-defense?
I don't.
You've never been a victim of crime. You haven't been assaulted here.
-That's true. -Why would you –
So why don't you unload the gun?
Because, uh, the Second Amendment gives me the right to have it loaded.
I agree. I totally agree with that.
But I'm just saying the Second Amendment gives me –
Let's say it's a comfort factor, you know?
It gives you comfort to know that there's a loaded gun?
Yeah.
Comfort, meaning it allows you to relax and feel safe?
-Not worry about it. -Not worry, not be afraid.
And I'm not really, but I'm exercising one of the rights
passed on down to me
from those wise, old, dead, white guys that invented this country.
If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
You could still exercise the right by having the gun unloaded and locked away somewhere.
I choose to have it.
What sort of strikes me as interesting is that in other countries,
where they don't have the murder rate, the gun murder rate that we have,
that many people say that's because they don't have guns around.
It's hard to get a gun in Britain or Germany or whatever.
But we went to Canada,
and there's seven million guns in ten million homes.
-There won't be very long. -But hear me out though.
Canada is a nation of hunters.
Millions of guns, and yet they had just a few murders last year.
That's it. Of a country of 30 million people.
Here's my question.
Why is it that they've got all these guns laying around,
yet they don't kill each other at the level that we kill each other?
I think American history has a lot of blood on its hands.
-And German history doesn't? -No.
-And British history? -I don't think as much.
Oh. Germans don't have as much blood on their hands?
-They do, yes. -The Brits?
They ruled the world for 300 years at the barrel of a gun.
They're all violent people. They have bad guys, they have crime.
They have lots of guns in the past.
It's an interesting point which can be explored,
and you're good to explore it at great length,
but I think that's about all I have to say on it.
You don't have any opinion though as to why we are the unique country,
the only country that does this, that kills each other on this level with guns?
Well, we have probably a more mixed ethnicity
than other countries, some other countries.
You think it's an ethnic thing?
No, I don't – I wouldn't go so far as to say that.
We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning.
It's – But I have no answer for that.
What do you mean, you think it's a mixed ethnicity?
I don't understand.
-You said how is it so many Americans – -That we're unique. Yeah.
kill each other.
I don't know that that's true, but even –
No, you know that. We have the highest murder rate with guns.
It's way higher than any other country.
The only answer I can give you is the one I already gave you.
Which is?
Which is that we have a history of violence,
perhaps more than most countries.
Not more than Russia, not more than Japan or China.
-Not more than Germany. -Not more than Germany.
But certainly more than Canada.
I come from Flint, Michigan, and last year a little six-year-old boy
took a gun into a classroom and shot and killed a six-year-old girl.
And it was really a tragic thing.
-This was kids though. A kid? -Yeah. Did you hear about this?
-Yeah. -A six-year-old shooting a six-year-old.
-Yeah. -Well, here's my question though.
After that happened, you came to Flint and held a big rally.
Mm-hmm.
-And, you know, I just – -So did the vice president.
Yeah, but did you feel it was being at all insensitive
to the fact that this community had just gone through –
Actually, I wasn't aware of that at the time we came.
We came and did an early morning rally
and went onto wherever we were going.
You didn't know at the time you were there that this killing had happened?
-Had you known, would you have not come? -Would I have canceled?
I don't –
-It's hard to say. -It wasn't like it was already planned.
The choice to come there was made after this horrible killing took place.
Mm-hmm.
Had you known that, would you have come?
I don't know. I have no idea.
-Maybe not? Maybe not. -Okay. Thank you.
You think you'd like to maybe apologize to the people in Flint
for coming and doing that at that time?
You want me to apologize – me to apologize to the people in Flint?
Or the people in Columbine for coming after their horrible tragedy?
Why do you go to the places after they have these horrible tragedies?
I'm a member of your group here, and I'm –
I'm afraid we don't agree on that.
You think it's okay to just come and show up at these events?
No.
You don't think it's okay?
Mr. Heston, just one more thing.
This is who she is.
Or was.
This is her. Please don't leave.
Mr. Heston, please. Take a look at her.
This is the girl.
Hmm.
[Moore] I left the Heston estate atop Beverly Hills
and walked back into the real world,
an America living and breathing in fear.
In your mind you imagine somebody
who might break into your house to harm you or your family.
What does that person look like?
-You, her, him, the camera guy, anybody. -Me? Her? Really?
There could be a gun in the camera. I don't know.
[Moore] Where gun sales were now at an all-time high.
You can shoot as fast as with a semiautomatic.
[Moore] And where, in the end,
it all comes back to bowling for Columbine.
Three bowling alley employees shot to death Sunday night
at the AMF Broadway Lanes.
There's nothing I really know. I mean, I really don't know anything.
Just that three people died in Littleton in a bowling alley.
I'm sorry.
Have a nice day.
[Moore] Yes, it was a glorious time to be an American.
[man singing: punk rock] ♪ I see trees of green ♪
♪ Red roses too ♪
♪ I see them bloom ♪
♪ For me and you ♪
♪ And I say to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ I see skies of blue ♪
♪ And clouds of white ♪
♪ Bright, sunny days ♪
♪ Dark, sacred nights ♪
♪ And I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ The colors of the rainbow ♪
♪ Are so pretty in the skies ♪
♪ Are also on the faces ♪
♪ Of people walking by ♪
♪ I see friends shaking hands ♪
♪ Saying how do you do? ♪
♪ They're really saying ♪
♪ I love you ♪
♪ I see babies cry ♪
♪ I watch them grow ♪
♪ They'll learn much more ♪
♪ Than I'll ever know ♪
♪ And I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ Yes, I think to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful world ♪
♪ World ♪
♪ And I say to myself ♪
♪ What a wonderful ♪
♪ World ♪
[song ends]