Even as Connecticut has managed to implement policies to prevent firearm injury and death, local organizations including UConn ARMS say the work is far from over in the Nutmeg State and beyond, and conversations on the often-divisive topic must continue.

“As a country, we have made fairly limited progress on this because we have not come together,” says Jennifer Dineen, UConn ARMS associate director. “Now is the time for this conversation because firearm injury is still the leading cause of death for children. It is still a top cause of death for all Americans. Everyone is at risk of some kind of firearm injury, whether suicide, homicide, or unintentional shooting.”

To spark cooperation on the issue, UConn ARMS, along with the Connecticut Scholars Strategy Network and Yale School of Public Health Firearm Injury Prevention, will host a Sept. 25 screening of the documentary, “The Tennessee 11,” followed by a panel discussion and reception at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

Panelists include state Rep. Renee LaMark Muir from Deep River; Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health; Nelba L. Márquez-Greene; and two members of the Tennessee 11.

“I hope people will walk away thinking that even on a polarized issue like firearms we have more in common than we have differences and that hard conversations and common ground are possible,” Dineen, who’s also an associate professor-in-residence in UConn’s School of Public Policy, says. “If common ground exists in Tennessee, which has a very strong gun culture and fewer restrictive policies, common ground also can exist in Connecticut.”

The multipartisan national nonprofit Builders, known formerly as Starts With Us, works to promote civil discussions on divisive issues like gun rights and safety and convened the so-called Tennessee 11 following the March 2023 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville that killed three students and three educators.

Eleven Tennesseans, selected by Builders to represent a diverse group of individuals with varied experiences with firearms and opinions about them, gathered for three days to try to come to consensus on policies that could be implemented in Tennessee.

“It’s clear that they all start very open to the conversation, but they are also very much wedded to their beliefs on firearms,” says Kerri Raissian, a senior research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health and former director of UConn ARMS. “But as you watch the documentary, you see that they start to appreciate other people’s positions. This, of course, does not mean they always agree with the other person’s perspective, but at least they can see where the person is coming from.”

The group – which included a pastor, veteran, mother, and family therapist, some who were gun owners and others who weren’t – agreed to eight proposals that eventually were shopped to all Tennesseans to solicit wider opinion. Five of their suggestions were received favorably by the 30,000 residents who weighed in.

Of note, Raissian says, is that as the Tennessee 11 did their work behind closed doors, the Tennessee legislature was in special session discussing gun control during a notorious session that devolved into pandemonium.

“It just goes to show that it’s not necessarily the topic of the conversation, it’s how we’re having these conversations,” she says.

Filmmakers, in fleshing out the 85-minute documentary, interviewed firearm research experts, including Raissian, to talk about the Tennessee 11’s proposals, like what the research says and what potential roadblocks might be in the way.

“One of the things ‘The Tennessee 11’ shows us is that people generally are on the side of less firearm injury and death,” Raissian says. “We may just disagree about how to get there.”

The Sept. 25 event is open to anyone – an RSVP is required – committed to civil dialogue, organizers say, and that means policymakers, journalists, advocates, scholars, and members of the public are invited.

“Gun injury affects everybody,” Raissian says. “It’s a topic that we all must learn to have better conversations around. The audience is anybody who wants to learn more about the example of the Tennessee 11 and how we can use that to improve our own policy conversations here in Connecticut.”

Dineen says these conversations should have been had 25 years ago, and with each instance of gun injury and death become more paramount. Further, she adds, policies that were put in place in the 1990s or early 2000s might need revisiting as technology advances and the world changes.

“I don’t know that we ever stop thinking about how best to keep our citizens safe,” Dineen says.

She continues, “We all have similar goals. We all want a better society. We all want to keep our citizens and ourselves safe. We just have very different perspectives on how to best do that. I think you can have a conversation about those perspectives that’s not about taking away someone’s guns, that’s not about being a completely permitless place. The vast majority of people in Connecticut and the country live in the middle.”

“Disarming the Debate: Firearm conversations from diverse perspectives” will be held Thursday, Sept. 25, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. “The Tennessee 11” will be screened at 3 p.m., followed by a panel discussion from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m. and reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Attendees are asked to RSVP.