Culture of Fear

Tessa Nickerson

Mr. Hertz

English 2

17 October, 2012

Do We Live In a Culture of Fear?

Are you living in fear? In the documentary “Bowling For Columbine”, directed by Michael Moore, he discusses the concept of fear in the U.S. This documentary is about the school shooting that happened at Columbine High School in 1999. Moore also says that we live in a culture of fear fueled by the media and government (Moore, Bowling for Columbine). I agree that Americans do live in a culture of fear.

We Americans live in a culture of fear because of everything that surrounds us. In America, the number of people that have been killed by guns per year is about 11,000. In other countries, such as Canada or Japan, the number is less than 100. Violence exists in the U.S and the media uses that violence to create more fear (Moore). I think that it should be harder to actually get guns, because if less people had guns then more people wouldn’t be living in fear.

After the terrorist attack on 9/11, gun sales went up quite a bit. People were scared. Scared of what, you may ask. Scared of terrorists, scared of people, scared of everything. Yes, we have the right to ‘bear arms’, but we shouldn’t abuse that right.

According to Michael Moore, on Halloween night a few years ago, there had been reports of razors in apples that were being handed out to children. Other reports said that candies were being drugged. It turned out that there weren’t any razors in the apples, and the candy that had been drugged was for family members, by family members. In some towns it was illegal to go trick - or - treating because people were scared of their children getting hurt.

To summarize, Americans do live in a culture of fear. I think that if people calmed down and stopped being so scared of one another, then there would be less death by guns. Also, if the news didn’t just show reports of bad things that happen, then people would not live in a culture of fear.

Works Cited

Moore, Michael, Kathleen R. Glynn, Jim Czarnecki, Charles Bishop, Michael Donovan, Charlton Heston, Brian Danitz, Michael McDonough, Kurt Engfehr, and Jeff Gibbs. Bowling for Columbine. United States: MGM Home Entertainment, 2003.