Bowling for Columbine
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1:04:00
- Black?
- Uh, predominantly. Yeah.

1:04:02
- Yeah. So now you're out now,
you're okay.

1:04:04
- Yeah, I'm free now.
I'm completely clear.

1:04:06
- You can keep selling guns.
- I can't keep selling guns.

1:04:09
It's getting too risky.
Everybody knows me up here.

1:04:11
People want guns, drugs or
alcohol, they come to my house

1:04:14
and that's just too much.
1:04:15
- Yeah, too much hassle.
- Yeah.

1:04:17
- My favourite statistic in all
the research I did discovered

1:04:23
that the murder rate had gone
down by 20%. The coverage -

1:04:28
that is, how many murders are
on the evening news -

1:04:31
it went up by 600%.
1:04:34
- The American people are
conditioned by network TV,

1:04:38
by local news,
1:04:40
to believe that
their communities are

1:04:42
much more dangerous
than they actually are.

1:04:45
For example, here,
in this community,

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crime has decreased every year
for the past eight years.

1:04:51
Yet, gun ownership,
particularly handgun ownership,

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is on the increase.
1:04:56
- Crime rates have been
dropping, dropping, dropping.

1:04:58
Fear of crime has been going
up, up, up.

1:05:02
How can that be possible?
It doesn't make any sense.

1:05:04
But it makes perfect sense
when you see what we're hearing

1:05:08
from politicians and seeing
in the news media.

1:05:11
- So we're, uh, we're right here
1:05:13
on the corner of Florence
and Normandie.

1:05:16
It's kind of Ground Zero
for the L.A. riots.

1:05:18
- Right.
1:05:19
- You know, if a couple
of white guys

1:05:22
would go down and walk around
South Central,

1:05:24
they're gonna get killed.
1:05:25
Which I can tell you
is a common perception.

1:05:28
The odds that something's
going to happen to us

1:05:30
are really, really slight.
1:05:32
Minuscule.
- Right. Okay.

1:05:34
- But you know,
if you look up there,

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you get a different symbol
of the Hollywood sign.

1:05:39
It means something
very different

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than the corner
of Florence and Normandie.

1:05:43
For most Americans
and most of the world,

1:05:45
it means glamour and Hollywood,
except that we can't see it.

1:05:48
- I can't see the Hollywood sign.
Where is it?

1:05:50
- Right. You can't see it because
of something that's probably...

1:05:53
much more dangerous for us
right now,

1:05:55
which is the stuff
we're breathing.

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- The pollution that's blocking
the Hollywood sign,

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we're breathing this.

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