This screening will be followed by a panel discussion with director Stephanie Soechtig via Skype and others.

In the past few years, a drastic rise in mass shootings has ripped across the United States, compounding an epidemic of gun violence. Despite a growing body count at the hands of guns, and the outpour of shock and outrage that comes with it, the Obama administration has failed to respond with meaningful action. What is keeping the two sides of this debate — those favouring stricter gun control laws and Second Amendment purists like the NRA — from finding common ground?

Filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig and Katie Couric present a documentary that is scrupulously comprehensive and decidedly fair to both sides of one of the most polarising issues at play in the 2016 elections. Searingly powerful with never-before-seen footage and eye opening analysis of the influence of the NRA, Under the Gun gives a human face to a crisis that is scarring the conscience of a nation.

Directed by: Stephanie Soechtig
Narrated by: Katie Couric
Year: 2016
Runtime: 110′
Website: AtlasFilms.com

Chair:

Paul Adams is a correspondent for the BBC World Affairs Unit, based in London. He previously served as the BBC’s world affairs correspondent in London, before moving to Washington D.C. He regularly reports for BBC News, BBC World News, BBC Radio and the BBC One bulletins from various locations around the world.

Panelists:

Andrew Feinstein is the author of the critically-acclaimed The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade which reveals the corruption and malfeasance at the heart of the global arms business, both formal and illicit. The book is already in its 9th edition across a number of languages. “The Shadow World” was short-listed for the Alan Paton Prize for Non-fiction. A documentary feature film of the book premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April 2016, and was awarded Best Documentary Feature at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He is Executive Director of Corruption Watch – an NGO that details and exposes the impact of bribery and corruption on democracy, governance and development.

Iain Overton is Director of Investigations at the London-based charity Action on Armed Violence and an investigative journalist who has worked in over eighty countries around the world. Reporting from the killing zones of Colombia, Iraq and Somalia, he has made films for the BBC, ITN and Al Jazeera, as well as working with The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Times. He was founding editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and is author of Gun Baby Gun.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri is Director of the Centre on Conflict, Rights and Justice and a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in International Relations at SOAS, University of London. Leslie is also Chair of the International Relations Speaker Series at SOAS. Her research areas include transatlantic relations, US foreign policy, the politics of international intervention, human rights and justice, and UN Security Council Diplomacy. Leslie is currently working on a project on international responses to mass atrocities and violent conflict which, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2015-2016).

Iain Overton

By Will Worley

On Wednesday 22 April 2015, the Frontline Club welcomed investigative journalist and director of policy and investigations at UK charity Action on Armed Violence, Iain Overton for a discussion on his latest book, Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun. The event was chaired by ANC former politician and author Andrew Feinstein, who has written extensively on the global arms trade.

Overton began by reading an extract from Gun Baby Gun, describing the aftermath of a brutal shooting in Brazil. Soon after witnessing this event, he visited a basement gun repository in Sao Paulo, where he found “thousands and thousands of guns across the walls, a bit like a horrific library, where every sort of gun seemed to have a background story.”

This “basement of horrors” led Overton to realise that every single gun present “told this story of disconnected realities.”

The ignorance of arms manufacturers and dealers as to the eventual fate of their guns “made me think how the gun is separated in all of its different segments.”

Overton elaborated on the many aspects of the gun covered by his book: “its dead, its wounded, the suicidal, the killers, the criminals, the police, the military, civilians, hunters, traders, smugglers, lobbyists, manufacturers.” The relationship between gender and the cult of the gun is even explored in a chapter aptly titled ‘Sex Pistols.’

“Every single isolated group around the gun is seen through my eyes as part of a whole.”

Guns are the biggest killer in war – 90% of deaths during conflict are a result of guns. They are also the biggest killer in armed violence – 60% of all violent deaths are by the gun. In the USA, 20,000 people commit suicide every year with a gun. Although the National Rifle Association (NRA) claims that gun deaths in the US have fallen significantly, this is down to significant advancements in trauma care, largely developed as a result of the experiences of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is not often taken into account is the colossal rise in the numbers of those wounded by guns annually.

The ubiquity of guns in some parts of the world and the resulting violence go largely unreported internationally, despite huge numbers of casualties. Central America is a particular case in point, as El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico witness huge levels of violence as a result of the ongoing US-led ‘war on drugs’.

Overton also pointed out that many Central American cartel members have their guns made to order north of the border in the United States.

Great night at the @frontlineclub w/ @iainoverton & @andrewfeinstein on people’s relationships people with guns – pic.twitter.com/f1UyB2iwwW”

— Jenny Marc (@JennyLMarc) April 22, 2015

In many instances of violence globally, the presence of a gun has become an assumption, rather than a newsworthy element of the story. “The gun has just become a background noise in violence.”

Overton went on to highlight the transformative power of the gun. There is a “very physical transformation that occurs in a man when he picks up a gun.” Being in possession of a gun emboldens people to the point of recklessness, he added.

“It transforms power, it transforms situations. And for the people who are in the midst of despair, it doesn’t take a lot to pick up a gun and end your life.”

“I don’t think the book is anti-gun,” concluded Overton, as the discussion drew to a close. “If someone has their life dictated by going out hunting at the weekend, they see the gun as purely a tool to take down a deer.”