Powerful film premieres at Nashville Film Festival

The Tennessee 11, directed by Rod Blackhurst, follows eleven Tennesseans who came together to find solutions to the problem of gun violence. The eleven are Tim Carroll, Arriell Gipson Martin, William Green, Jaila Hampton, Ron Johnson, Brandi Kellett, Mariah Levison, Adam Luke, Alyssa Pearman, Ashley Phillips, Mark Proctor, Kevin Shrum, Kelly Wilder and Jay Zimmerman. Their discussions toward that goal are chronicled in the documentary The Tennessee 11. It will be screened at the Nashville Film Festival on September 21 and September 24.^t.

The opening of the video, which uses body-worn camera footage from officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, was a compelling account of the officers’ response to a school shooting call at 33 Burton Boulevard at Covenant Christian School in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood on March 7, 2023. On March 27, 2023, 28-year-old Aiden Hale (born Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a transgender man and former Presbyterian Church elementary school student, killed three nine-year-old children and three adults before being shot dead by brave and efficient officers. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in Tennessee history.

The tempo of the music and the credits at the beginning of the film were fascinating. I could only pray that the first 22 minutes would accurately reflect the tempo and intensity of the rest of the 79-minute film. But the suppression of the gunfire proved more interesting than watching eleven people politely disagree for an hour, although the exploration of different points of view was more intellectually engaging.

TENNESSEE GUN LAWS NOW

Carrying a handgun without a license became legal on July 1, 2021, for handguns in Tennessee. Tennessee does not require a permit to carry a handgun in public and explicitly allows the carrying of any firearm, loaded or unloaded, in a legally owned motor vehicle or boat, unless prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Many Tennesseans are upset about this. They are demonstrating to express their displeasure with such lax firearm oversight.

The 11-person group was formed to try to reach a consensus on realistic solutions to the problem of gun violence in the United States. This was no small feat, given the vast differences in perspectives among the Tennessee Eleven. The statement about the “transformative power of conversation” seemed to fall apart upon closer examination. Much more to the point was the observation: “What good is awareness without action?”

GROUP: JAY ZIMMERMAN, VETERAN

Veteran Jay Zimmerman, a member of Tennessee 11 who helps counsel other veterans with PTSD, said his work included suicide prevention. He was one of the group members who insisted that his need for a gun was “a love instilled in me by my grandfather.” Jay also mentioned that “hunting for food” was essential. He was a veteran and referenced his own failed suicide attempt. Jay was quite vocal about his “Constitutional right” to own a gun and was shown walking through a wooded area with a rifle.

Zimmerman revealed that he had a best friend (Vic from Fort Bragg) he spoke to on February 16, 2016, the night Vic took the gun and committed suicide. The last person to talk to him was a suicide prevention specialist and his best friend. The next day, Vic’s wife called, wanting to know what Vic’s last words were. Jay seemed

there’s no convincing that guns kill people, and allowing them to be so easily obtained might not be in the best interests of the veterans he counsels, himself, or the people of Tennessean. But he was very much a supporter of Second Amendment freedoms and seemed unconcerned about the backlash against allowing every Tom, Dick, or Jay to have a gun they liked to shoot just for fun, as he said.

MARK PROCTOR, CAPTAIN OF THE TRAFFIC POLICE

Then there was Highway Patrol Capt. Mark Proctor, who, as an officer of the law, wanted to know if there were any gun laws that could help him make sure he could get home safely at the end of the day. Proctor was one of the better voices for sensible permit laws, but he was immediately opposed by firearms instructor Tim Carroll, saying, “You start to undermine the essence of freedom when you start to restrict people.”

Tim felt that the idea of ​​having a permit to carry a firearm was an infringement on his freedom. He shared that if he had supported one of the more creative permit solutions in Tennessee, his career as a firearms instructor would have been over. Mark and Tim seemed not to be on the same page, or even reading from the same book. I sensed a lot of discord between the lawman (Mark) and the firearms instructor (Tim), because the veteran on Tim’s side (Jay) and Mark had only a college professor to count on. When Mark said that “my deputy might be 30 minutes away” and had some sensible rules about whether people could buy and carry firearms, Tim said, “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”

Ron Johnson — the only black man on the panel — was a former gang member who reformed and became the Nashville security director for Gov. Bill Lee. He contributed very little useful information. At one point, someone said, “We can’t trust this man.” I don’t think it was intentionally directed at Ron, but he was The Man.. The claim that we should all have the right to own a gun to protect ourselves was taken out of context. Typically, the person using a gun to defend themselves was portrayed as an 80-year-old.

FROM THE GROUP

The group members made several creative suggestions. I especially liked the idea of ​​the gentleman who spoke to the legislator at the end of the film, which contributed to the idea of ​​making firearms training a deductible amount of money that could be deducted from taxes. He made it clear that the deduction would be “an incentive, not a mandate.” At that point, the conversation disintegrated into a semantic exercise involving the term “incentive” versus the term “mandatory.” There was some creative use of acronyms to summarize the range of issues represented by ACES, (which meant Adverse Childhood Experiences and/or Adverse Social Environment. It can also mean: All consensus is eluding.)

Most of the women in the group either remained silent or made tearful, sensitive statements about how gun violence had affected them personally. College professor Brandi Kellett contributed to this statement: “The laws were only meant to serve the needs of gun owners.” Young Jalia Hampton, a 16-year-old black student activist from Memphis, was also eloquent, mourning the loss of her best friend, Braylon Murray, who was killed at age 17. She spoke about the violence in Memphis and how dramatically it had escalated. At one point, she was shown visiting Braylon’s crypt, which briefly took us out of the room.

Teacher Alyssa Pearman was brought to tears as she spoke about surviving the shooting death of her 16-year-old student on April 29, 2022, saying, “It’s one thing to see it on the news, and another thing to experience it.” On February 10, Alyssa lost her second student^t. She said, “I can’t seem to separate myself from it because it keeps happening.” Another good series of comments was about the impact of gun violence on mental health. As one woman in the group said, “A child who doesn’t feel the love of a village will burn the village down.”

BADLY

The film slowed down after a very promising start, but still had a relatively positive ending when the legislature – which had previously stagnated – passed something that reflected the 5 points proposed by Tennessee Eleven (and where 30,000 Tennesseans expressed their opinions online).

It’s a start, but coming from Texas, where I live 8 months of the year, I would say without fear of denial that Tennessee still has a long way to go (and Texas) legislative body(ies).