Americans and Weapons: an analysis of gun culture

The documentary film Americans and Weapons gives you a view on the American people’s relationship to guns, and on how much guns are actually a part of their everyday lives. In the film you see Americans using guns in different situations for different purposes. It quickly becomes clear that weapons are a big a part of many people’s lives in the US. For some people guns are for protection, others only use them for going hunting, and some just go shooting for fun. In the documentary there is an interview with a historian who explains that guns are a part of the American people’s culture and that it has always been like this. This tradition of having and carrying weapons is connected to the American revolutionary war in the 18th century when the US became independent as well as it is connected to other conflicts and threats towards the inhabitants of the US. The historian says that the very violent history of the country has caused people to want this safety of having a gun to protect themselves with.

There are also some interviews with different American people in the documentary, and not all are in favour of “the right to bear arms”. Some of them think the high murder and crime rates in the US can only be decreased by removing “the right to bear arms” and by making guns illegal. Others think that there just ought to be a few more restrictions on what types of weapons people are allowed to buy. However, the majority don’t see any problems caused by “the right to bear arms”.