"Bowling for Columbine" Is a very commanding and credible depiction of

gunshot deaths in the US today. The film examines the psychology of guns, violence

and death.

Charlton Heston emerges as an apologist for the NRA with a cynical presence at

especially offensive shooting deaths. The movie underscores the equally cynical

but more pious stance of the public information media summed up by the "If it

bleeds it leads" exhortations to cub reporters.

The public information media portrayal of violent death occupies a far greater

percentage of media time, than the reality. Only 3% of all US deaths can

be attributed to accident, homicide and suicide. This excess attention to

violent modes of death has been called the "pornography" of death by

Geoffrey Gorer in 1957. In my own books on death and suicide I make the direct

analogy with sexual repression. Awareness of natural death is avoided or

repressed, but it returns in the form of an excess preoccupation with violent

modes. Hence the metaphor of pornography.

This relates to the next link on Shooting in “Seven Schools”