Some of the most frequent answers were that America has had a violent history, which makes Americans have a violent nature. Another usual response was the ethnic diversity of the United States. The responses disturbed Michael Moore, as he set out to find the real answer. Moore disproved the theory of ethnic diversity by showing that Canada, which has very diverse cities of its own, has an amazingly low gun related murder rate. Moore had visited Canada to interview people on why the crime rate is so low there and so high in America. First he asked a group of teenagers who said, "We get revenge by teasing people, not by taking guns to school". In Ontario there are 70,000 people; in 2002 there were zero murders, in 2001 there was 1 murder, compared to America who has 11,000 murders in one year, something had to be the determining factor of the large difference in murders. He learned that out of the 30 million people in Canada, 7 million own guns, 13% of the population is not white, and residents of Canada do not lock their doors.
A possible answer that Michael Moore found was the media playing a very significant role in violence. While in Canada, Moore compared American news telecasts to that of Canadians. Moore found that American telecasts sensationalized gun related murders, instilling fear into the American population. Canadian telecasts on the other hand, hardly even mention crime as a part of their news. Moore theorized, and I agree, that the media is at least partly responsible for instilling fear into the population, increasing gun related deaths. America's murder rate actually decreased by 20%, but the media's coverage increased the rate by 600%. Americans are conditioned by television and local news stations, which almost brain washes people to believe that the communities are more dangerous than what they actually are. Although the crime rates increased, the fear of crime, thanks to the media and politicians has increased.
