The Tennessee 11: A Powerful Film Premieres at Nashville Film Festival

Directed by Rod Blackhurst “The Tennessee 11” focuses on eleven Tennessee citizens who came together to to find solutions to gun violence.  The eleven were:  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. The record of their discussions towards that goal became the documentary “The Tennessee 11.” It will be screened at the Nashville Film Festival on both September 21st and September 24th.

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

The music pacing and credits at the beginning of the film were riveting. I could only pray that the first 22 minutes accurately represented the pace and intensity of the rest of the 79-minute film. But quelling a shooting turned out to be more interesting than watching eleven people disagree politely for an hour, although the study of the differing viewpoints was absorbing in a more cerebral way.

CURRENT TENNESSEE GUN LAW

Permitless carry became legal on July 1, 2021, for handguns in Tennessee. Tennessee does not require a permit to carry an open or concealed handgun in public and also expressly allows a person to carry any firearm, loaded or unloaded, in a lawfully possessed motor vehicle or boat, as long as they are not prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Many Tennessee natives are upset about this. They have been demonstrating in an attempt to convey their unhappiness about such lax supervision of firearms.

This eleven-member group was formed to try to reach a consensus for realistic solutions to the problem of gun violence in the United States. It was quite the task, given the vast differences in perspectives of the Tennessee Eleven. The statement about “the transformative power of conversation” seemed to fall apart upon further scrutiny.  Much more to the point was the remark, “What good is awareness without action?”

THE GROUP: JAY ZIMMERMAN, VETERAN

Veteran Jay Zimmerman, a member of the Tennessee 11 who helps counsel other veterans with PTSD, said his work involved suicide prevention. He was one of the  members of the group who kept insisting that his need to have a gun was “a love instilled in me by my grandfather.” Jay also mentioned “hunting for food” as essential. He was a veteran and referenced his own personal failed suicide attempt. Jay was quite vocal about “the right guaranteed to him in the Constitution” to have guns and was shown strolling about in a wooded area with a rifle.

Zimmerman revealed that he had a best friend (Vic, from Fort Bragg) to whom he spoke on February 16, 2016, the night that Vic took a gun and killed himself. So, the last person to speak to him was a suicide prevention specialist and also his best friend. Vic’s wife called up the next day, wanting to know what Vic’s last words had been.  Jay seemed

impossible to convince that guns kill people and letting them be so easily obtained might not be in the best interests of the veterans he counsels, himself, or the residents of Tennessee. He was very big on his Second Amendment freedoms, however, and seemed to have little concern for the blowback from letting every Tom, Dick or Jay have a gun that they enjoyed shooting just for fun, as he said he did.

MARK PROCTOR, HIGHWAY PATROL CAPTAIN

Then there was the Highway Patrol Captain, Mark Proctor, who, as an officer of the law, wanted to know that there were some gun laws in place that might help assure him that he was going to be able to return home safely at the end of his work day. Proctor was one of the better voices for sensible permitting regulations, but he was immediately opposed by firearm instructor Tim Carroll, saying, “You start to chip away at what freedom is when you start limiting people.”

Tim found the idea of having to have a permit to carry a handgun infringed upon his freedom. He shared that if he endorsed one of the more creative solutions put forth regarding permitting in Tennessee, his career as a firearms instructor would be over. Mark and Tim did not seem to be on the same page or even reading from the same book. I sensed a great deal of disagreement between the lawman (Mark) and the firearms instructor (Tim) with the veteran allied on Tim’s side (Jay) and Mark only able to count on the female college professor. When Mark said that “my backup might be 30 minutes away” and had some sensible rules about whether or not people were allowed, willy-nilly, to buy and carry firearms, Tim said, “When seconds count, police are minutes away.”

Ron Johnson—the only Black man on the panel— was a former gang member who had reformed and become the Director of Safety in Nashville for Governor Bill Lee. He contributed very little useful information. At one point the phrase uttered by someone was, “We can’t trust the man.” I don’t think it was intentionally aimed at Ron, but he was The Man. The contention that we must all be allowed to have guns to protect ourselves was trotted out. Usually, the person using the gun defensively was portrayed as 80 years old.

 FROM THE GROUP

There were some creative suggestions that the members of the group contributed. My favorite was the idea of the gentleman shown addressing the legislature as the film ended, who contributed to the idea of firearms training being a deductible amount of money that you would be able to subtract from your taxes. He was quite clear that the deduction would be “an incentive, not a mandate.” At that point, the conversation disintegrated into an exercise in semantics involving the term “incentive” versus the term “mandate.” There was the creative use of acronyms to sum up an entire  range of issues represented by ACES, (which meant Adverse Childhood Experiences &/or Adverse Community Environments. It could also mean: All Consensus Eludes.)

Most of the female members of the group either remained relatively silent or expressed sensitive tearful statements about how gun violence had affected them, personally. College instructor Brandi Kellett contributed to this statement: “The laws have only served gun owners’ needs.” Young Jalia Hampton, a 16-year-old Black student activist from Memphis was also articulate, mourning the loss of her best friend, Braylon Murray, who was killed at 17. She talked about the violence in Memphis and how it had escalated dramatically. At one point she is shown visiting Braylon’s crypt, which took us out of the same room for a bit.

Alyssa Pearman, a teacher, was reduced to tears as she shared experiencing the shooting of one of her 16-year-old students on April 29, 2022, saying, “It’s one thing to see it on the news, but it’s another to live it.” Alyssa then lost a second female student on February 10th. She said, “I can’t seem to separate from it because it keeps happening.” Another good series of remarks talked about mental health impacting gun violence. As one female member of the group said, “A child who does not feel the love of a village will burn the village down.”

THE BAD

The film slowed down after the very promising opening, but it still contained a semi-positive ending, when the legislature–which had previously been mired in stasis—did pass something that reflected 5 of the points that the Tennessee Eleven had come up with (and on which 30,000 Tennessee citizens had commented, online).

It’s a start, but, coming from Texas where I live 8 months of the year, I’d say without fear of contradiction, that there is much room for improvement on the part of the Tennessee (and Texas) legislature(s).