Friday morning's shootings at a Colorado showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" are simply evidence that America is "a violent nation," said Michael Moore, director of "Bowling for Coumbine," a 2002 documentary about the U.S. culture of firearms and violence that drew its title from an earlier shooting in Colorado.
When asked if he'd like to comment about the events by TheWrap, the outspoken and politically active filmmaker did not lobby for gun control. He simply replied with a one-sentence email in which he said he sees continued violence until the world "[has] its fill of us."
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Moore's email reads:
"I believe anthropologists and historians will look back on us and simply conclude that we were a violent nation, at home and abroad, but in due time human decency won out and the violence ceased, but not before many, many more had died and the world had had its fill of us."
On his Twitter account, Moore began the day with the tweet, "Too sad at the moment to comment." He later retweeted a Friday morning message from the official Twitter account of the NRA's American Rifleman magazine: "Good morning, shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?"
That tweet (below) was subsequently deleted without comment from the NRA's Twitter feed. An NRA spokesperson said it was posted by an individual with no knowledge of the events in Colorado.
"Bowling for Columbine," which grossed close to $60 million worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, was Moore's examination into the roots of the Columbine High School massacre, in which two teenagers opened fire in the Colorado town and killed 12 students and one teacher in 1999.
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In addition to making points about the ease with which guns can be obtained, the film pointed to a history of violence in U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
When Moore won an Oscar for the film in 2003, he sharply divided the Kodak Theatre audience with a speech that condemned the George W. Bush administration for its "fictitious war" in Iraq. His speech was greeted with a mixture of cheers and boos from the audience and shouts from stagehands backstage, though presenter Diane Lane took him aside and told him the remarks were "very inspirational."