NCJ Number
210375
Journal
Global Crime Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2004 Pages: 241-249
Date Published
May 2004
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article provides a sociological critique of the message of the documentary film "Bowling for Columbine," which seeks to determine why America has a relatively high number of gun murders.
Abstract
The film views the 1999 mass murder of 12 Columbine High School students and a teacher by 2 students as a symptom of a violent, gun-obsessed American culture. This article notes that most murders in the United States result from conflict between acquaintances or family members or as part of the commission of predatory crime. In challenging the film's view that gun-related violence in the United States is pervasive and uniformly culturally based, this article cites murder rates for the United States that show most areas of the United States have murder rates comparable to the least violent countries in the world. The highest percentage of murders in the United States occur in urban areas, with the murder rate varying from city to city and even among neighborhoods within cities. Violence in America and any other country must be explained by examining immediate social and physical environments of particular murders. Sociologist Donald Black has developed a theoretical approach for examining violent conflict that focuses on the "social structure" of the conflict, including the social characteristics of the offenders and victims, the social distance that separates them, and the presence and social location of third parties who may escalate or de-escalate conflict. This is a more fruitful approach for examining factors in violent behavior and how to prevent it than focusing on a broad indictment of cultural values. 10 tables and 14 references