Liberal documentary director Michael Moore — known for his vehement and sometimes controversial social commentaries — is at it again.
In an op-ed piece published on Moore’s personal website as well as The Huffington Post this week, the director of films such as Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911 suggested that showing gruesome crime scene photos of the children slain at Sandy Hook would encourage the demise of the National Rifle Association. Moore argues that a horrid picture can say a thousand opinion-changing words. As he wrote in his post titled “America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA)”:
Because if we were to seriously look at the 20 slaughtered children – I mean really look at them, with their bodies blown apart, many of them so unrecognizable the only way their parents could identify them was by the clothes they were wearing – what would be our excuse not to act? Now. Right now. This very instant! How on earth could anyone not spring into action the very next moment after seeing the bullet-riddled bodies of these little boys and girls?
Moore draws parallels between Sandy Hook and other iconic acts of violence in the U.S, arguing that published pictures of the murdered African-Americans during the civil rights movement as well as photos of massacred civilians in Vietnam did a lot to change public opinion towards important policies. In Moore’s opinion, Sandy Hook could be the turning point for gun laws in the U.S.
Is Michael Moore’s extreme suggestion too much? Many Newtown parents think yes. “I would be very strongly against that,” Jeremy Richman, who lost his 6-year-old daughter Avielle, told Fox News of Moore’s proposal.
Another parent of a 6-year-old boy killed in the attack was outraged by the idea.
“You can imagine what my reaction to that is,” the mother said, declining to comment further.
The only Newtown parent who has been arguably but publicly open to the idea is Veronique Pozner, the mother of the youngest victim in the Newtown tragedy.