The Tennessee 11
Legislative Office Building
Hartford
Sept. 25, 2025
I don’t often leave discussions about guns and violence feeling hopeful, but yesterday was the closest I’ve come in a very long time.
That’s thanks to Jaila Hampton and Jay Zimmerman, two of the stars of the documentary film The Tennessee 11, which was screened at the Legislative Office Building Thursday afternoon.
Hampton and Zimmerman traveled from Texas and Tennessee, respectively, to join a panel discussion about gun violence after the film. The screening and panel was hosted by the University of Connecticut ARMS Center and the Yale School of Public Health.
The Tennessee 11 takes place in the aftermath of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed by a gunman. A group called Builders brought together a diverse group of Tennesseans for a three-day “solution session” to propose gun control solutions for the state, and the conversations were filmed.
The group is diverse. While the film takes a holistic approach to telling the story of the solution session, it focuses primarily on Hampton and Zimmerman. At the time of the filming, Hampton, an African American woman from Memphis, was a high school student whose best friend had been murdered by gun violence. As a result, she has become an activist for stricter gun control. Zimmerman was a self-described white hillbilly who served multiple combat tours. His best friend from the Army killed himself. Despite his experiences, Zimmerman takes an almost absolutist position on protecting 2nd Amendment rights.
I appreciated the way the film depicted effective facilitation. I’ve been part of several facilitation groups about controversial topics, and it’s very easy to put people in a room and have interesting, yet ultimately fruitless discussions. But the facilitators from Builders and the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution kept the discussion on track and pointed towards tangible outcomes, while creating space for all the participants to share their experiences and perspectives.
Ultimately, the group was able to find consensus on a set of proposals to present to Tennessee’s lawmakers. Given the at-times stridency of the participant’s views, it was nothing short of a miracle that the group produced usable proposals.
Perhaps that’s what the movie is trying to teach us: We think people with varying viewpoints can’t find common ground. Because our media is so awash in talking heads barking at each other, agreement seems like an anomaly. Yet maybe consensus isn’t a miracle, but the natural outcome of putting people together.
Here’s the conundrum though: Talking is simultaneously the most powerful and the most overrated tool in our toolbox to combat this threat. Listening to Zimmerman and Hampton talk about understanding the world from each other’s standpoints was genuinely heartening, as superficially, there might not have been two different people in that room. But they shared the most important similarity: a willingness to listen to each other.
What happens when the remarkable progress that 11 people made over three days runs into the typical buzzsaw of parochial interests and calcified political positions? Of the several proposals that came out of the Tennessee 11, only one eventually made it into law, a proposal to have mandatory gun safety training in Tennessee public schools.
What can words do to people who aren’t ready to listen? How can words deal with more than 300 million guns in our country? Which are the magic words that will somehow stop the mass shootings, the gang violence, the domestic disputes?
Talk is our only hope though. As frustratingly inadequate as it may seem, talking got us into this mess- conversations between people who have limited and stymied almost every attempt at gun control for the last 40 years. Maybe the answer is to take everyone and put them in rooms together, 11 people at a time.
I’m being completely serious. Watching Hampton and Zimmerman talk about each other as colleagues, maybe even friends, makes it clear that people can change. And if people can change, then situations, even ones as grave and daunting as America’s gun problem, can change too.
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Jamil goes to the riverfront to check out Panda Fest.
