America has more gun stores than it does McDonald's and Starbucks combined.
No amount of Big Macs and mocha frapps should give you more heartburn than that statistic does. It's one of many damning stats in the new documentary "Under the Gun," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and screened in New York on Thursday night ahead of airing on Epix this Sunday. Another piece of data that should stun you: By the time you finish watching the movie, 22 Americans will be shot. Six of them will die.
Across the movie's 110-minute running time, such facts and figures are relentless. And yet, are any of them surprising to the NRA skeptics who will inevitably form the bulk of the documentary's audience? Michael Moore brazenly tackled gun violence in 2002's "Bowling for Columbine," and countless docs and news specials have followed suit in the wake of the Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Lafayette shootings, among others. But "Under the Gun" is the most direct in advocating that viewers not forget their anger after the end credits roll.
That's partly the work of Katie Couric, who produced the movie and has become its public face. Along with the 2014 obesity doc "Fed Up," "Under the Gun" is Couric's second project with director Stephanie Soechtig, who also made the 2009 bottled-water exposé "Tapped." (Soechtig is a big fan of punny titles.)
Of course, there's no way gun-violence prevention advocates wouldn't slant their documentary toward a particular bias. This is, for better or worse, another preaching-to-the-choir endeavor. But "Under the Gun" is effective in the way it frames NRA members and other firearm owners who appear in the film. As far as the movie lets us see, Couric is merely posing questions. She isn't trying to persuade or ambush anyone the way Moore did in "Columbine." So when most of the NRA members featured reveal they are unaware that people on the country's terror watch list can legally own guns, Soechtig doesn't need gimmicks or rhetorical devices to point out their ignorance.
Soechtig said during a panel after the New York screening that the movie is not meant to advocate for anything but a "conversation." It's not quite open-ended enough for her statement to resonate, but it is true that "Under the Gun" treats its gun owners with the same dignity they've merited. (A scene where a man accidentally shoots himself in the leg, on the other hand, speaks for itself.) At the same time, it would be nice to hear from gun owners who view the NRA as a bunch of loonies. Surely there are some out there, right?
The doc instead places most of the onus on lawmakers and activists. The most eye-opening segment is a quick outline of the NRA's 145-year history. Did you know the organization was created to promote firearm safety and marksmanship improvement? It wasn't until decades later that it morphed into a mighty lobbying enterprise that stopped the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from computerizing gun-ownership records and boycotted Smith & Wesson when the retailer attempted to make smarter weapons. Soechtig knows when to appeal to the human side of this debate, and she knows when to channel data that requires little commentary.
Coupled with remarkable footage of Gabby Gifford's recovery, as well as insight into families that have lost their loved ones to accidents and mass shootings, "Under the Gun" is a call to action. Now the question becomes: How do we get naysayers to watch it?
"Under the Gun" premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on Epix.
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