Bowling for Columbine Page #9

Because I think it's harder to do that show.

I don't know what that show would be.

Anger does well.

Hale does well. Violence does well.

Tolerance, understanding, learning

to be different than you were does less well.

- In the ratings?

- Yeah.

Maybe because we in the television business,

because we tend to demonize

black and Hispanic people,

then those watching it at home go,

'I don't wanna help those people.

I won't do anything to help them.

I hate them now because they may hurt me.'

You know what I'm saying?

I know what you're saying.

I'm not sure that's what we're doing.

I don't... I'm not sure we're demonizing

black and Hispanic people particularly.

I don't think we show black and Hispanic people

as being criminals...

I'd like to say not more often,

but probably they are more often.

But I certainly don't think we're...

We're certainly not trying to demonize

black and Hispanic people.

We show them on the news, on TV,

as um... pretty scary people.

Yeah.

And I agree. I think I'd like to see that reversed

as much as possible.

Start tonight.

The thing is, I don't know how to start tonight.

I don't know how to tell that story.

- If I knew... If I was smart enough to do that...

- If I pitch you one, OK?

All right.

Do a show called not Cops,

but Corporate Cops.

Oh, corporation man

Hey, corporate man

We're coming out to get you

Better run while you can

We're coming out to get you

Better run while you can

Er... I love the idea.

I don't think it would make

very interesting reality TV,

unless we can get those people to get in

their SUVs and drive really fast down the road

away from the police.

But I'm telling you, everyone in America

who's got just your basic, everyday job

is gonna love watching the boss being chased

down the street with his shirt off,

thrown to the ground and a knee to the neck.

I'm telling you, that is gonna get ratings!

I'm with you, and if I can find a police outfit

that would prosecute corporate criminals

appropriately

and would go after them appropriately...

In other words, what you do to a man

who's just stolen a lady's purse with $85 to it,

then you need to do an appropriate response

to a man who's just stolen $85 million

from indigent people,

then, boy, we're gonna be out there filming that.

But when police go after the guy

who's just stolen $85 million,

they treat him like he was a member

of the city council, as he may or may not be,

and it's not exciting television.

If you could get that guy to take his shirt off

and throw his cellular phone at the police

as they come through the door,

try to jump out that window,

then we'd have a show.

You watch violence on TV

in a place like Canada

and you know it's not happening next door.

You watch it here,

and you know it is happening next door.

Right.

I think that that's... I don't know what

the difference is, but there's a big difference.

Yeah, but why isn't it happening in Canada?

Why aren't there, you know,

10,000 murders a year?

I don't know, but I wanna go to Canada to retire,

or something,

cos it sounds like where we wanna be.

I'd like to find out what that difference is,

wouldn't you?

Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to find out.

Where are you supposed to be right now?

School. School.

School.

- Don't you worry about not learning?

- I'm mostly helping everybody else in class.

I barely get to do my work, period.

How about you?

- Not worried about your education?

- I've got the textbook.

Why do you think we have

so many gun murders in America?

Er... I have no idea. People must

hate each other there, or something.

Oh, Canadians don't hate each other?

Well, we do, but we don't go to the point

of shooting somebody just to get revenge.

What do you do?

I don't know. Tease them, maybe.

Make fun of them. Ridicule them.

- Throw eggs at them.

- Eggs?

How many gun murders in Samia this year?

None.

Last year?

I believe we had one at the time.

Year before that?

I can't recall what we had in the way of er...

- Maybe one in the last three years?

- Probably. Yes.

- Mm-hm.

- Very low. Very low for this city.

Well, of course there's no murders here,

because there's only 70,000 people

and it's the kissing capital of the world.

So I went down the river

to another Canadian city

five times as large as Samia.

Windsor, Ontario,

lust across the river from Detroit.

I was sure there'd be more murders in Windsor.

Ever hear of anyone being shot by a gun

in Windsor?

No. No.

You remember any murders here?

Er... there was one a long time ago, probably...

- How long ago?

- Oh...

In your lifetime?

In my lifetime. Probably about 15, 20 years ago,

there was one murder.

In fact, this Windsor policeman told me

that the only gun murder in Windsor

in the last three years

was committed by a guy from Detroit

who had a stolen gun from Minnesota.

With nearly 400,000 people

in the Windsor area,

there were simply no Canadians

shooting other Canadians.

I thought it might be time

for some fun facts about Canada.

I hit the streets of New York

to find out what the average American thought

about our friendly neighbor.

Canadians don't watch as much... violent movies

as Americans do.

That's wrong.

Hordes of young boys all throughout Canada

eagerly await the next Hollywood bloodbath.

And then the guy gets his leg taken off.

- And there was a lot of girls.

- Showing cleavage.

- And naked. They were naked at one point.

- I like that stuff.

What movie did you guys see tonight?

Sixth Day.

- Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger?

- Yeah.

Did it make you wanna come out here

and play this shoot-'em-up game?

Yeah.

There's no poverty in Canada

like there is here, in the States.

Wrong again.

Actually, we've also had a much higher

unemployment rate.

When Michigan was running at 4%,

we were still running at 8% or 9%.

We had

almost an institutional unemployment rate.

I think there'd mostly be white people

in Canada.

Hm, that's strange. Because when I'm

in Canada, I see black people everywhere.

And yellow people and brown people,

and 13% of the country is non-white.

So the Canadians are pretty much just like us,

and the reason they have so few murders

has to be because they've got so few guns.

- What kind of guns do you own?

- Er... I hunt.

I own rifles and shotguns, I own pistols.

So how many guns, total?

- Erm... probably about seven.

- Seven guns?

- Do you have a gun?

- I have a few guns.

- Really? How many guns do you have?

- Half a dozen.

You could name how many people right now

that own guns, that you know?

- Two? Three? A dozen?

- More than that.

There's a huge amount of gun ownership,

being a large country geographically.

We grew up with hunting and fishing

being a tradition.

In Canada, with a population of around about

30 million, there's about 10 million families.

The best estimate is somewhere

in the region of 7 million guns.

Wow!

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