Barbara Kopple, the Academy Award winning director of Harlan County U.S.A and American Dream turns her attention to gun rights and laws in her latest work. Any time an American filmmaker turns their attention to this subject matter its difficult not to refer to Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine, regardless of ones thoughts on that particular filmmaker. Ten years, one Virginia Tech and a change in the White House on from that particular film, now seems as good a time as any for someone to take a look at how things have changed since Moore took home the Best Documentary Oscar.

So, how have things changed? Well, not very much. Regulation is still out of control, and ridden with loopholes, and the NRA are still as politically dangerous as they were in the days of Republican control. The political minefield surrounding firearms is little short of a nightmare, with the filmmaker surrounding any opinion with the realities of a very messy situation. Its not as free-wheeling as Moore’s film, and as a result it isn’t as downright entertaining as Moore’s take on similar material, not that thats particularly a criticism, moreso just an observation.

As Kopple takes us on a tour of the USA we see such sights as the devastating emergency room of a Philidelphia hospital, the wounds of a city thats home to people that deem it necessary to place a gun in every room of their house. When one physician reveals that more “kids” are killed in the city in one weekend than were slaughtered at Columbine High, a murky area of unscrupulous divide is revealed, with the cities suffering from the Right’s demands for freedom. The NRA appear, providing the film with an easily boo-able antagonist, with the group relying upon a self-perceived, self-declared new “minority” of American people, convinced that the post-Obama socio-political landscape has placed them at the bottom of the pile of the civil collective. This isn’t true obviously, but it doesn’t stop the surprisingly influential NRA exploit this train of thought of the disillusioned for their own benefit.

Gun Fight, produced by HBO, will no doubt pop up on BBC4, More4 or Sky Atlantic in the near future.