Documentaries are, in theory, works of non-fiction. They convey information you’d get in a non-fiction book, hypothetically, only in a video form. I put in the qualifiers because I’ve seen documentaries that were filled with falsehoods. My “favorite” one was something about the secrets of the pyramids, but turned out to be New Age claptrap that couldn’t even get basic facts correct about what some artifacts were made from.
Anyway, I wrote about a then-upcoming documentary about the gun debate last week. What stood out to me was how the filmmaker said he didn’t pick sides.
While the documentary has premiered, it hasn’t really made it to the rest of the country, so I still haven’t gotten a chance to watch it. However, based on this puff piece from People, it sure looks like some of my earlier skepticism was well warranted.
What happens when differing opinions about gun violence and reform are brought together at one table for thoughtful, meaningful dialogue?
The answer lies in the new documentary Louder Than Guns, which follows Old Crow Medicine Show lead singer Ketch Secor, who cowrote Darius Rucker’s 2013 No. 1 country hit “Wagon Wheel,” as he embarks on a journey with his friend, public radio journalist David Greene, to host open conversations about gun rights and gun violence in the United States. The film shares its title with his band’s 2023 song.
After the 2023 mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Secor, 47 — whose children were at another school across town at the time — felt gun violence was hitting too close to home to remain silent any longer. The singer-songwriter, who also penned a New York Times op-ed titled “Country Music Can Lead America Out of Its Obsession with Guns,” says in the documentary that he believes he is uniquely positioned to help initiate these conversations.
“I guess I feel like I’m the man for the job, and I don’t want this job,” Secor says at the beginning of the film. “David calls me, and he’s like, ‘What you’re doing sounds like a movement. It’s a movement toward looking at your front row like a swath of America. Nobody else has that demographic study out there, and they make up the mix that might be able to move the needle on gun violence.’”
Adds Greene, 50, “I think we’re taking what country music offers — your concerts, the fact that you can bring together people even though they have different opinions.”
In other words, this whole thing started not because of a desire to learn what people think and why, but because Secor stepped into the gun debate, still had something of an audience, and I guess country music was a novel aspect to this whole thing.
Look, I’m comfortable with most of the artists I enjoy, thinking I’m a terrible person because of my own politics, especially on guns. Not that I think they know who I am, but you get my point. I’ve had time to get used to it, and since I think most of them are very wrong on things, it’s only fair.
But to say they can bring people together? Seems like a stretch. After all, I’m not open to chatting with people who want me dead simply because we like the same musicians.
Secor jumped straight into the gun debate, echoing the whole “obsession with guns” talking point the media absolutely loves. That alone makes me skeptical as hell.
Again, though, there’s reason to hold onto a little bit of hope here.
The experience even shifted the way Secor and Greene thought about the issue. “Two, three years ago, I would have considered myself someone who was like, ‘Assault weapons ban? One hundred percent, I’m behind it. Do it,’ ” Greene says. “But now, I think I’m afraid of how my family, my own wife, my friends might judge me because I’ve become more open-minded in ways I never, ever expected.”
I don’t think it shifted Secor as much as Greene, because there’s no quote suggesting it has, but as Greene worked for NPR, it’s entirely possible that I’m wrong.
Still, it’s easy to say that you’re now open-minded on something like an assault weapon ban, but actually being open-minded is another matter entirely. As the whole selling point of this documentary is that there aren’t any sides taken–thus opening it up to a broader audience than it might otherwise attract–then marketing requires there to be some platitudes about now hearing the other side of the debate.
I’m still skeptical that this will be remotely even-handed. I just don’t know that I can trust any of the people involved.
Will I give it a watch? Yes, and I’ll be happy to report back to you about just what I find, but until it’s streaming somewhere, I doubt I’ll get a chance to see it.
If it’s what it’s billed as, this is good. It might just open up some minds for a change and, if nothing else, show that we’re not a bunch of violent jackwagons who don’t care about people’s safety. Quite the opposite.
I just can’t trust the film industry to do that.
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