[Joe Brower]

Oh, goody. Another anti-gun propaganda film, due to be out around November. Just what we need, with the 1994 "Assault Weapons Ban" due for sunset a year from now. Coincidence? No way. And you think that this "film" will depict how the brave sheriff "resource officer" at the school ran away when he came under fire? Or how the heroic SWAT troopies waited outside for THREE HOURS while the killing inside proceeded? They even sent out for pizza while they waited! Again, not a chance.

In this month's (August) "America's First Freedom" NRA magazine, Wayne LaPierre's column mentions this upcoming smear-flick, which I had not heard of until now. I could not find the particular article he describes, "Van Sant hits bullseye with gun film" in the Toronto Star anywhere on the web, but a google search using "elephant van sant" yielded several results, one of which is the article above.

Here are links to a couple of other articles on this upcoming "masterpiece":

Elephant

Gus Van Sant takes on school violence in new film

Hey, who knows? Maybe this will inspire even more worthless punks to do that copycat thing, giving the blood-dancers even more grist for the mill.

[Joe Brower]

MWLWN LABE

[Support Free Republic]

See that good looking dude on the left? He's got FAR BETTER THINGS to do than conduct Freepathons! Come on, let's get this thing over with.

[secretagent]

Can't tell from the review - perhaps Van Sant will recruit more parents to home schooling!

[Jhensy]

To cast the film, Van Sant interviewed a bunch of kids from various high schools in his hometown of Portland, Ore. It's unclear exactly what he was looking for...

Oh, I'm sure ol' Gus ("My Own Private Idaho") knew exactly what he was looking for...research was surely very extensive involving teenage boys and casting couches....

... a stylized realism that depends for a lot of its effectiveness on a relentlessly tracking camera that follows these kids everywhere, even into the bathroom.

Huh. Who'd a thunk it.

Happily, this final section is redeemed by some signature Van Sant moments (wish-fulfillments?) such as the killers kissing in the shower

Hooray for Hollywood.

[Eaker]

And people believe this crap.

Eaker

[spodefly]

The left is getting great mileage by dancing on the graves of the victims of school shootings. Nowhere in any of their "investigations" do they consider Ritalin, bad parents, a failed Ed system, a permissive me me me culture ... nope ... it's the evil guns (period) that cause all the problems.

[Travis McGee]

All the more reason to do a little counter-propagandizing.

Besides my book, I understand there is a book called "Molon Labe" also being written, possibly by Boston T. Party, author of "The Gun Bible."

Support these books, give them as gifts, send them to opinion makers (columnists, editors etc) in the undecided middle of America.

[PatrioticAmerican]

I live just down the street from Columbine. The residents HATE the cops for their cowardice. As one lady put it, "If SOMEONE would have been shooting back, maybe not all those poor people would have died! Of course, our Sheriff doesn't want US to have the guns, just his Coward Cops." This was a 76 year old lady who had lived in Colorado her whole life.

I actually think that Columbine is what helped get the CWP passed in Colorado.

[Blood of Tyrants]

If this is a masterpiece, then I just flushed a priceless treasure down the toilet. Oh, the humanity!

[Restorer]

And you think that this "film" will depict how the brave sheriff "resource officer" at the school ran away when he came under fire? Or how the heroic SWAT troopies waited outside for THREE HOURS while the killing inside proceeded?

You have a decent point here.

However, it is flawed by your blaming the cops who were only following their tactical doctrine. Just like the people who blame the security personnel who allowed the 911 hijackers to board.

In both cases, the problem was not with the personnel who did their jobs as they were told. It is with the instructions they were given. Those instructions were based on faulty assumptions about the perpetrators.

In the Columbine case, the assumption was that the intruders would take hostages and negotiate, rather than just kill as many people as they could. Based on experience up to that point, this was a logical assumption.

If the deputy on guard had returned fire and gunned down one or both students, there would have been an enormous outcry about the police killing "students," since the enormity of what they were going to do would have been unknown.

Similarly, the passengers on the first three 911 planes did exactly what the media and government had told us to do for years: don't resist. You'll fly around for a few days and then be released. Maybe you'll get to write a book about the experience or sell movie rights.

Once the intent of the hijackers was known, on the third plane it apparently took the passengers only a few minutes to organize a counterattack. That's what we should remember and be proud of. It took the hijackers many years to plan and execute their attack. It took a couple dozen random Americans less than 15 minutes to counterattack successfully.

Had the rank and file police known what was happening inside Columbine, I have no doubt they would have been glad to charge in. Blame the media and liberal culture for paralyzing their instincts, not the individual cops.

Both of these events change the way we all see the world. Don't blame those who didn't see it differently before they happened. We didn't either.