History of the USA

This film was awarded the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2003 and is a reflection on the US gun culture and its effects. The title refers to the tragedy at Columbine High School, where, in April 1999, 12 students were assassinated by two of their classmates. It was not the first time that a fatal shooting had happened in a school, but the number of victims led many Americans to question their liberal gun laws. Watch the extract, you can read the script either before or after viewing.

"Once upon a time, there were these people in Europe called Pilgrims and they were afraid of being persecuted. So they all got on a boat and sailed to the New World, where they wouldn’t have to be scared ever again.

But as soon as they arrived, they were greeted by savages, and they got scared all over again, 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. So they burnt 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.

Which brings us to the genius idea of slavery. You see, boys and girls, the 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 Wal-Mart 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 now 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 old masters’ heads got chopped off. And when white people heard of this, they were freaking out, going “Oh, don’t kill me, big black man!”

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 old masters’ heads off. 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.

Man, all hell broke loose. Black people everywhere started demanding their rights and white people had a major freaky and they were like: “Run away! Run away!”

And they did, they all ran, fleeing 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 on their houses and gates around the neighborhoods.

Finally, they were all safe and secure and snug as a bug. And everyone lived happily ever after."