Episode 19: Aaron Davidman; A Director Explains Why American Solitaire Is About Community Over Fear

A gun store in Alaska. A filmmaker from Berkeley. A quiet movie about a noisy country. We talk with director writer producer Aaron Davidman about American Solitaire and the long road from early theater mentors to a feature film built for real conversations, not talking points.

We get into what shaped Aaron’s craft from intense conservatory training to learning how to direct, fund raise, market, and keep going when the first edit feels like a catastrophe. He shares how research trips and interviews about firearms and gun violence led him to a veteran-centered story focused on reintegration, moral weight, and the moments people hide behind a “fine” exterior. We also unpack why language matters in suicide prevention, including the shift toward saying “die by suicide,” and how loneliness can quietly push people toward harm.

Then we go straight into the hard stuff: firearm safety, safe storage, training, background checks, straw purchases, and the trust gap that makes “common sense gun reform” so difficult. From the perspective of a working gun store owner, we talk about what can realistically happen at the counter, when to slow a transaction down, and why community screenings and post-film discussions can change behavior the way designated drivers changed drunk driving norms.

Subscribe for more grounded conversations, share this with someone who wants nuance over noise, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Welcome And Where To Listen

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thanks for joining us for this episode of Don't Ask Questions. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe. We're available if you want to watch us on uh YouTube or if you just want to listen to the podcast version on Apple Podcast and Spotify, and each episode goes live on Thursday morning. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and we're happy to have you here listening. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Doug Cast Questions. Today my guest is Aaron Davidman, uh director, writer, producer. What what other titles am I missing there? Uh uh Seasonal Haynes Resident. Seasonal Haynes Resident. That's that's what the topic's most important there, I think. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Doug. Thanks for having me. So thanks for having a show. Well, thank you. And thanks for joining us. And we're we're gonna get into your new movie that you wrote in direct American Solitaire. But before we get to that, I watched it uh that you had it Wednesday night here at the in Haynes. I really appreciated watching it. Um, we'll get into that a little bit further, but let's start early childhood life for Aaron.

Growing Up In 1970s Berkeley

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Where did you grow up? Berkeley, California.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Berkeley, California.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

What was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Well a little bit different than Haynes. It was a little bit different than Haynes. Yeah. Uh you know, it was the 70s in um the 70s in Berkeley were were interesting, interesting time for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah. Is it and what at what point in your life did this desire, this passion for being creative with your words, with directing, things like where did that where do you think that started to take it away?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I started performing in junior high school in in seventh grade in a production of uh Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Alright. Great. At King Junior High School. Yeah. And what was your role? I think I was the narrator. Okay. Because it was a narrative, that was the the construct was there was a narrative narrative structure to it. And me and a bunch of my kind of boy and girl friends all fell in love with performing arts, and we had this wonderfully passionate drama teacher, Pat Washburn, who was very enthusiastic and who was very um just very one of those teachers you remember, and that's that's what kind of lit the fire, and we did a play and then a play the next year, and and I was so taken with it, and I guess I had some exhibited some kind of maturity because she gave me the keys to the theater. Nice. And so I kind of had and I was like doing some lighting, and I was I I was um I just was lit up young and had a kind of directive and passion for it. And um that then translated to high school where me and this this kind of some of the same cohort went and kind of moved into the theater department, and all the upperclassmen were furious with us because we kind of took over, got all the leads and all the plays and just sort of took over. And um, that's when my my mentor Carl Brusch, who I'm still uh friends with, he was at the Oakland premiere of the film in the fall. We've been in touch over the years. Carl Brush ran the Berkeley High School performing arts department, and we did some really adventurous productions, and he was also very passionate and very um, very, he was just a different kind of teacher. Like he was an artist, he was a director and a writer, and he saw us as art as fellow artists more even than students. Like, yes, he was our teacher, and he had to kind of keep us in line because you know you're in high school and you're acting out all the time and joking around and everything, but but I remember feeling like he respects me as an artist as I'm learning this craft, and he took it seriously, and we took it really seriously. Um and that's what really laid the kind of the bedrock for my for my career, my adult life. I mean, me and a whole bunch and a whole cohort. And Berkeley High, I should say, during that time, the jazz department, like the performing arts at Berkeley High was was like very, very high. There was a there was an amazing music program in the Berkeley public schools. It started when kids were in grade school and they gave everybody instruments and stuff. So but by the time the musicians that stuck with it got to Berkeley High, they were very high-level winning national jazz competitions, um, and a number of pretty famous jazz musicians of that era came out of Berkeley High, and a number of theater people went on to make careers in theater and film and stuff like that. So it was a I don't know what it was. There was a, I think, well, funding for the arts was a much higher priority in public schools at the time. And um it was a I it was an amazing, yeah, it was an amazing period of my life for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I've always been struck by the number of people that based on their career, whether it's performing arts, what have you, that there's usually a spot that they're running across the right teacher, mentor at a part in their life where they're like, this might be cool, and that person just kind of fans those flames a little bit and and carries that forward. And then you meet the next so that was junior high. Then you have the next mentor in high school that kind of keeps that fire going. Yeah, and most of the people that I've met have, even if you talk to them, they have an arc like that where it was these people throughout your lives that really stoked this passion.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Which kind of reminds us as adults now that we could have influence. How do we when we run across kids that may have a spark that don't they don't know what to do with it or whatever?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

So how do we help how do we help them along that same journey? Yeah, yeah. So definitely.

Teachers Who Sparked The Arts

SPEAKER_01 6:01

So through high school, you're mainly doing theater productions at the school?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Theater, yeah, plays and and musicals at Berkeley High School. Well, my senior year we did we did the three penny opera, which is this Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weil um musical opera form, you know, um kind of genre-bending piece. Uh and I played MacKeith Mac the Knife. You probably heard the song Mac the Knife. And so that that was just for a high school to take on such a intense and interesting bre you know, Brechttian theaters, uh, a whole kind of style. Um, that that was really ambitious uh and and super super fun. Yeah. And very, you know, very artistic. I mean, we were again, we were like serious artists doing Brecht high school.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I mean, it was very So besides the role, were you also involved in some of the production of that as well? No, just acting at that.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, but I mean the the the the comp the the again the performing arts department had a shop class, a theater design class, lighting design class, like all the whatever route you wanted to go on, all they had a spot. All the there was yeah, there was probably 60 or 70 students involved in these productions. Okay, you know, um, yeah, and oh, and then the orchestra, so then there's all the musicians, so more maybe a hundred students involved in these productions. Yeah. So it was big was the school? It was 3,500.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

3500.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah, it was there was one school in Berkeley. Okay, and that and but a public school and that high school, and that was the yeah, yeah. 3,500. Yeah, so a lot of talent, a lot of a lot of a lot of talent to draw from. And yeah, that was that that was probably the that was definitely the peak of of my uh high school theater career.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Theater career? Yeah, yeah, good to go out on top as a senior, yeah. Yeah, it was uh it was exciting. You guys have did you have a choice in helping pick what you were gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

We influenced it, yeah. In fact, my my friend Peter Foley, who we lost a couple years ago, my best friend, um, bless his memory, uh, was a really inspired composer, and he turned us all on to Stephen Sondheim, the the incredible uh composer and lyricist, theater maker. Um and so Peter really was whispering into Carl Brush, the you know, director, his ear about about taking on some of these um Sondheim works, and uh and Peter was an amazing piano player, and so he kind of was helped, he wasn't the music director, but he kind of helped. Kind of helped logic. So we we we uh yeah, we we we had some influence. We didn't we didn't get to call the shots, but we had some influence.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Kind of nudged it in certain directions.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Well, and we were ambitious, and I think Carl was really, you know, he I mean he wasn't he didn't want to just do the music man. He kind of wanted to push push things. Now we did we did do the pajama game, one of those years, so we kind of did one of those classics, but we also did um cabaret was our first year, and then we did Company, which was a very ambitious Sondheim musical, very mature, and then um and then we and then we kind of ended ended the our run with uh opera.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

That has to feel pretty good that they that he trusted you enough to take that that he was to take this for four years that okay, let's we can take some risks with these kids. Yeah. That did you feel that at the moment, or was it maybe in the thing? I think well, we were full of ourselves, so we thought we were involved, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

See the Tonies and the Oscar piling up and well, I mean, you know, we we were yeah, you remember being that age, and we were lit up, we were really excited and really into it. Um, and again, took it really seriously. I mean, yes, we wanted the Tonies and everything, but we were um and but film, we weren't all that film wasn't so much our thing. It was like we were like, let's we want to be on Broadway. We want to do, you know, we that that was our craft, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So anybody from your class that you remember, did they did anybody go to New York and Sure, I mean Broadway?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Well, a lot of people went to New York. I mean, Pete Peter lived in New York for many years. He never had a show on Broadway, but he created some incredible works. Um it's more it's more of the some of the kids that I got to know in conser in conservatory where I went after for college, that it was some of those guys that went on to to become bigger than conservatory.

High School Theater And Big Ambition

SPEAKER_00 10:34

So right, so I went to Carnegie Mellon for Acting Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Describe conservatory to people that might not understand.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Sure, sure. Uh well you have your it was a it was a BFA program, so it's a bachelor's in fine arts program, so it's not a liberal arts program where you study all kinds of different, you know, um topics across the liberal arts. It really focused in on a particular craft, which in this case was was acting. Um and Carnegie Mellon was known for its theater program at the time. I think they still have a have a both they now they have a bachelor's and a and a master's program, I believe. There are a lot more um theater conservatory programs around the country now than there were at the time. But it was audition-based, you know, very competitive to get in. It was it was yeah, it it was um it was definitely a victory to get in there and to and to go there. And so the focus was really the craft of acting. I mean, we studied you know, Shakespeare and we studied the classics and the Greeks, and we studied Ibsen and all these Chekhov, um, and then we worked on scene work and worked on building character. I mean, you know, this was and it was super intense. I mean, they stripped you, they they were like stripped you down, whatever your tricks of your trade were. They were burned you to the ground and rebuilt you in the sort of in the in the um kind of in the mold of finding your own um way to present truth from yourself. So you had to kind of really you couldn't just put on a character, you had to like dig. That was that was what that was what conservatory training was all about. And it was very competitive at the time. They cut kids from the class every year.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

So we can't once you got in, you weren't guaranteed your four years or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

It's like brother, we sat there in the first in the auditorium with 50 of our classmates, and the seniors got up there, and there were like 12 of them. And they said, look to your left, look to your right. They're not gonna be not gonna be here in four years. Wow, and so the pressure was on, and I I don't think they do it, they do this anymore. It was it was a bit cruel, it was a bit um, it was a bit edgy because you know, there you are trying to develop character and vulnerability and honesty in performance, while at the same time you're like terrified you're gonna get kicked out if you don't do it right. So it was very kind of antithetical. Yeah, you know, you're sort of up against your own, you know, worst enemy, which is your which is your own kind of competitive nature or whatever. So I I I think it was you know, that was the 80s. They I I don't think they do that anymore. And um I hope they don't do that anymore. That is a brutal way. It was it was brutal, yeah. It was brutal. And um, but I I wasn't too worried about it. I was just doing the work. It didn't it didn't bug me too much because um I felt like I was in my element. I was super into you know the movement class. I had ballet at eight in the morning in like freezing cold winter Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Me in ballet. That would have been a hard work. Three days a week up and go.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Oh my god, that would have been very difficult for me to crawl out of it.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

That was tough. And and I was, of course, in the ballet class with like all the klutz actors who didn't make it to like ballet two, ballet two actually learning how to dance. We were just like, they made you do it, you know. I mean, I enjoyed it. I I I did, I did, I I learned I learned a lot. But um, anyways, that was just that's kind of a funny side note. But we did um, yeah, so it that that that conservatory training was really, and you know we bonded really intensely with all these other actors from all over the country who were all the leads and all the high school show. I mean, you you come in and you like you're not so special anymore.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

You think you're to the top of the heap, and then all of a sudden it's like, wow, there's a there's a everybody else is top of the heap, too.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, and that's and that was part of why they kind of they knock you down a bit to kind of humble you and get you to you know to learn a craft. I mean, like, like any craft. Any craft, but the performing craft, of course, is yourself. So it's not like you're just you know learning to blow glass, you know you have you're the glass.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah, and how you present that, how you're shaping that and yeah, interpreting the written word and everything, the emotion and all of that of that. That's all.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah, and the performance styles. I mean, Shakespeare's a very big, broad, often very big, broad performance style because those those because the language is so um poetic and larger than life, and the characters are larger than life. And then Chekhov is like the opposite. Chekhov is all about subtext. It's actually it's what you're feeling under the line. It's nobody in in Chekhov says what they're actually meaning. There's something else going on. So subtext now you're learning about, and those two extremes are kind of you know, the two extremes of kind of you know, these performant performance styles in a way um that that we learned and got to play in and and then arranged, you know, and then arrange in between. Um Sam Shepherd was really big at the time, and and his plays were really, really you know, I really sunk my teeth into some of those kind of scene work from some of his plays, which was so so while you're there, are you doing are you behind all this work behind the scenes and everything?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Are you guys actually putting on productions at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, I mean the the first couple years you have to be a crew on crew backstage for the for the upper class productions, and then you get to start to do productions as you as you highlight on I think you know in junior year we did they did this thing called junior rep where you did um they did six plays in repertory with the with the whole junior class, one a week. And you did three.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

So it was this like I mean shot out of a cannon, like you know, fast. And um, but uh but there was some yeah, there was some really there was some really fun performances that I that I got to do. Um I play there was this um this comedy called Three Men on a Horse by uh by George Abbott and it was uh it was like if I remember correctly, it was like a horse, you know, horse racing and um you know love story and stuff, but I played uh I can't remember the character's name, but I wore a fat suit. Okay and my parents came out to see the show. And I wore a fat suit and and and dyed my hair black,

Conservatory Training And Pressure

SPEAKER_00 17:31

and I had this pencil thin black mustache, and I kind of made up so my chin, my double chin was kind of really working, and like this fat suit just like worked, like it really worked. And I had this huge, you know, and at um at the end of the first act, we're in this teeny little like 50-seat black box theater. The first act, my parents are like sitting right in the middle turned to my friend Nick, uh one of my other classmates who wasn't in this show, and they said, Is Aaron coming on in the second act? And he said, That was him, that was a big fat guy. So when we did our review, the head of the department at the time, Mel Shapiro, had this kind of very high-pitched New York accent. This is the best line any teacher gave me my entire time at Carnegie Mountain. He said, So I hear your parents didn't recognize you. And I just like that was the valid that was the validation. I mean is that the validation is huge right there.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah, but if your parents your parents can't tell which one is.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

You can tell that it was you, you've really transformed. You've done a great job. Yeah. So that that was so you know, be transformational acting was, you know, I was I was always drawn to the to kind of the tradition of character acting and transformation. I was never really an ingenue type anyway, but um but I embraced that and and and it was really, yeah, I loved that challenge. So what did what did your parents do? My dad was a um commercial artist. He he he was an artist, he went, he went to Brooklyn College to study art, but then he quickly um well just as a young adult turned to making ch hand-drawn charts. This is in the it was like back in the 50s, hand-drawn charts for business presentations. Right? This was this company was called Chartmasters in Chicago, and then and then they the slides came, so then they would photograph the hand-drawn art, and then computers came, and then they were designing for the slides through the computers, and then eventually you know desktop publishing came around. But um, but that was his kind of charts. His business was um wow business presentation. Yeah, he would he would create and design and do the art for business presentations.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

My mom was a homemaker.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah. So you think you got that that sense of artistry from your dad, kind of that desire to get into the performing arts?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yes, I mean, I don't really know. I I don't yeah, I don't know. I don't know where that seed, you know. Any siblings came from? Yeah, uh I had a sister, younger sister, and um my three older siblings from my dad's first marriage. Okay. Yeah, there was a lot of a lot of a lot of family around.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Any of them into the performing arts at all? Is that you the the standard? Sort of off on my own.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah, the red-headed weird kid who joined the circus.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Joined the circus. Yeah. Circus can be fun, I've been told. So after, so you're done with Carnegie Mellon. What was the next step?

Transformation Acting And Family Roots

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Um well, I actually I went, I was, I got kind of tired. I was there for three years and I transferred to the University of Michigan to finish my bachelor's because I kind of got um, I sort of shocked the department. Like, here are all these kids getting cut, and I'm like, after three years leave. But um I just sort of missed, I had a friend that went to the University of Michigan, and I I was um playing all these older roles, but I was 20. And I thought to myself, you know, I need to like go read and write and think and learn some more stuff. So I was I think of it as like I went to graduate school and then I went to back to undergraduate school. So I just went and got my liberal arts degree at Michigan. Okay. Um and out of there, it was interesting, out of there I directed my first uh play, uh production of Alice in Wonderland, a experimental theater production of Alice in Wonderland. And then I um and then I uh and then I graduated and I went to Europe with a touring theater company that toured American plays out of Germany and all over. Germany in Scandinavia. And that was my first, I guess maybe that was my second professional production. And were you as an actor? As an actor? Yeah. So how

Agency Through Producing Your Work

SPEAKER_00 22:09

long were you over there? For six months.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Six months?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Oh, that had to be cool. It was great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

That was really great. Yeah, you're getting paid to tour Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And um, and then yeah, then my you know, then I was kind of launched.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Kind of got the bug and decided to so how uh how long did you stick in the acting lane or did you very quickly decide, you know, I want to be writing and well I started I started my own theater company in Berkeley called Berkeley Theatre Project in the 90s when I was really interested in trying to have more agency in my own work.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

So that the problem with the career of acting is you're just you have no power. You just audition and hope for the best. And that just that that was never gonna cut it for me. I wasn't interested in giving all my power up and all my creative possibility to other people. That just seemed crazy to me. So I created uh started a theater company with some friends and um that I started directing and we yeah, we launched with a production of Waiting for Godot, which I directed in um in Berkeley, and then we we were around for about for about three years, and this is the beginnings of the producing too, because I was fundraising and putting, you know, getting it together, you know, doing all the stuff, and I'm you know, it's funny, I'm here all these years later with a film, a feature film, and I'm you know, at a whole other level, but I'm still doing the same stuff. I mean, I'm fundraising and I'm working with on marketing and design and community building and audience building and you know, public conversation. I mean, all the stuff that I was like doing in my 20s, not really knowing what I was doing, I'm now I'm now doing all over the country.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Is it gotten easier? Well, I suppose basically have you it's have you learned some tricks of the trade. It's economy of scale.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It's economy of scale, I guess. It's not really easy. It's not easy. I mean it's rewarding, um, but getting people's attention has actually become harder because of the whole attention economy now. So I don't know. I don't know if it's easier. I think I'm wiser. Um but that's an interesting question. Yeah, I'm not sure it's easier.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

I didn't I didn't know if over the years, because now starting off, you're like, I'm starting this theater group and stuff like that, but now you've got a track record that you can kind of point to. It's like, okay, listen, I've been doing this for 20 plus years, whatever number of years. This is the success ratio I've had. I didn't know if that or if it's on a project by project, they're like, Yeah, that was good, but we don't know about this.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

I suppose the question, yeah, like you always have to prove yourself again. Yeah, for sure. You always have to prove yourself again, but I think I think sort of is it easier? It's like, what's the it? Do you know what I mean? Um I think I'm I'm you know more skilled in all the areas than I had been, and I have more wisdom than I had. And I also have built more relate, I've built relationships over the course across decades. Um and I'm reaching many more people now, and there's a lot more um there's a lot more action, but nobody's nobody's come down with like a you know um a wand to make it magically, you know. Like I can't just pop in a limo and head off to the premiere. Do you know what I mean? That's I'm a working, I'm a working artist and everything comes through work. Like there's no I think there's a there's a kind of a mythology around um you know the performer the the arts or I suppose. And um certainly once you start getting into film. Um and I think those folks at the top level who hit it early or who or who are um you know in the in the upper echelons of this business, sure, they can they can hop in a limo and and get to work. But I think they work really hard too. But I think people just work really hard to get anywhere or make anything of consequence. I think that's you know, so in a way, maybe maybe the the response to your question is it easier? Is that it's not easier, it's actually what it is is I now know that it's only through really hard focused work that you can make anything of consequence and reach anyone.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

But I and I guess the reason I was asking is I've the different stories I can't recite. I'm not gonna recite them because I can't recite them all. That you hear about different people, whether it's actors or directors, that there've been these blockbuster films, but they had to basically self-finance them because nobody wanted to give them money for it. Right. Like Dances with Wolves is one of them. You know, Kevin Coster, he's got this buddy that there's a long backstory, but he's like, Hey, I've got this that I want you to take a look at. And he's like, Yeah, and they shop around, shop around, nobody wants to do it. And he's like, Hey, I think this is gonna be great. And everybody's like, Yeah, that's nobody wants to do Westerns anymore, nobody wants to list Westerns. And right, I mean, how many academy orders, how many millions of dollars did that thing make at the box office?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

It was basically lost funding for Malcolm X like three-quarters of the way through, and he had to like call in LeBron James and Oprah, he had to call in like all the black celebrities to finance the movie to finish it.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yep. That that and so that that's that I mean there's challenges to every business, but that part of it is is it taking too long to film? Are there are there hiccups with it? And the people that are financing are like, yeah, we think we thought it was gonna be good. We've been watching some of the early clips and stuff, not quite what we expected. See ya, we're backing out.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

That's just I'm really the fail, the the you know, the failure of imagination, of course, in the suits is sort of the classic story where you know they think they have the ingredients put together with the creative team, and then somehow it's going in a direction that they couldn't see, but maybe the director really you know knows what they're doing. I mean, look at Apocalypse Now. I mean, that's the great story of of the sort of 20th century of a film that was totally off its rails. No, everybody thought it was you know gonna be a disaster, and then it goes on to become this, you know, this masterpiece. So I guess there's this question of like yeah, risk. Because you don't, I think you don't.

Why American Solitaire Became A Film

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I mean, just I mean, I had plenty of struggles trying to find my footing with American Solitaire. You know, my first film is a cinema director. Um the shoot went really well, the edit was really hard. I took me a long time to kind of find the rhythm and find what was working. I cut I cut a lot. I mean, the first I think the first assembled edit was like two and a half hours, which was based on the on the screenplay itself. Complete catastrophe, total disaster, absolutely unwatchable, crestfallen, heartbroken, I've ruined it, I've wasted the money. This is gonna be a complete, you know, failure, face plant, like I'm I that you know, I've ruined my one chance to make a movie.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

And um, and a year later, I found it. I had a movie. And it was 95 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Did you so on that with that first one, did you just like, okay, this is done, I'm putting this on the shelf for a while, or were you for that year, did you just keep running and on it? No, now no.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

I rolled up my sleeves and then I mean as planned. The the first assemblage is really the editor takes all the footage and the screenplay and gives a gives an it's an assemblage, really. I mean, if there's not there's no there's not a lot of finesse to it. I mean, there's some. I mean, there's there's she she was trying to make it trying to make it work. But then I went in and for three months worked, you know, every week with this editor to try to get uh something that was that was workable. And that's painstaking, slow process, cut by cut by cut by cut. Uh death by a thousand cuts, perhaps. So when you're when you're because you were you were talking eight years from when you kind of had the first idea to the first yeah, when I first first started doing research when I did that tour traveling around the country talking to people about guns, yeah, I realized that was yeah, that was eight years, that was in 2018.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

So at what point you've been doing the research, you've traveled around the country. At what point do you decide I'm gonna I'm not gonna do a play, I'm not gonna do, I'm I'm gonna do a film.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

It was that it was that summer, it was that summer that we when we talked, and that summer that I did that reading here in Haynes, and I got a call from a a supporter of mine um with a pretty significant contribution towards this project, and it changed the whole game. I was like, okay, well, we can make a film then. I don't I'm I if I'm if I have that kind of resource, I wanna I want to have reach. You know, she said, We want to I want to move the needle on this conversation. So I said, okay, let me come back to you with a with a idea for this project as a film. And then that that turned everything and then I took the next six months writing this taking that um story of Slinger and writing it into a screenplay. And um and then it was another I think two years after that, maybe that when we were started production.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

So I've never interviewed a director or anything before. So part of it is how much am I supposed to not ask about certain things because you have on the characters and everything like that? So I don't want to give it away to people that on part of our parts of the movie.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

So right, let's not the only thing I would say is let's not talk about the end. Okay, right? Because you want to because people don't see that coming necessarily, so let's not talk about that. Okay, but I think almost everything else is fair game.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Okay.

Editing Failure And Finding The Movie

SPEAKER_01 32:11

So as you're developing these characters, Slinger Special Forces, X Special Forces, how did you interview a lot of people in the special forces community for this?

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Or it wasn't specifically special forces. I think I just I I gave him that assignment uh on my own. But the seed for this character came from uh a former captain um from the army uh this guy I interviewed in Tennessee, who I spent a few days with and who just impressed me with his subtlety and his moral morality and his um sort of his stand in the world, his relationship to firearms, his relationship to his experience as a veteran, his journey to reintegration, just what he went through. Like the whole package was like not a cookie cutter, you know, blockbuster movie story. It was very and what I mean by that is just it wasn't it, it was there were some conflicting comp what you would think would be like conflicting, competing pieces to it. And I just thought, okay, now I'm starting to really learn something much more realistic about what it's like for a veteran to come home, who's really served, who's seen you know, some very hard things, with lost people. And um and then I I thought this is this this guy's journey is really worth exploring further and dramatizing in such a way that we could also thread some of these issues around gun violence in our country and our culture, like through his through his through his um through his eyes. Yeah. And I just thought I thought that would be really rich because I feel like nobody understands um safety around firearms better than a firearms instructor in the army.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Did you have somebody like that on the set while you were filming this?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

We are yeah, yeah, we have a we have a um because I was I was I was surprised at a couple things in the movie. Oh yeah? Yeah. When they're at the range, yeah, shooting, yeah, the major has got the scope right up against the right up against his eye. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that ain't yeah, there's no major in the military or anybody that shot a gun more than once a little close that's gonna have that's a fair critique right up there. Yeah. And then I also thought, because they were talking with the other people there about not having safe gun handling, but when he was in the shop, when he was in the gun store, yeah, well, there were some there were some hard things watching there with muzzle control and stuff. And and the reason I asked about the special forces is the people that I know of that have reached that level and the people that are around firearms a lot, yeah, have a very distinct way of handling firearms. And that didn't that was that was my and so the the the reason I'm bringing this up is I really the the topic that you're talking about with veterans coming back, with firearms violence and stuff, yeah. It's we we definitely need to have those conversations. And and my worry is that some people that need to hear that message could see some small inaccuracies like that, yeah and not trust the message. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see. I hope not. Yeah, but that was one of the things is like if you've got military guys that are looking at this, which is one of, I think one of your intended audiences, yeah, for sure. And the things that they know about, they're like, Well, what isn't quite right?

SPEAKER_00 35:56

What I'm learning from those guys is that it's more about the emotional narrative.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

That move nailed. And I think that was spot on. I would agree with that one. I think they're for I think they're more forgiving. Forgiving us. Maybe a little, maybe we missed a little beat cinematically. Do you know what I mean? Or or real realistically, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Yeah. Yeah. I hope so, because that was that was as I was watching it, that was the uh the the discussion about it. And I thought the correct me if I'm wrong, but when he's at the beginning, when they're cleaning the M16 with his dad, and that at the end, it's that same M16. You're looking for that arc between childhood and adult. Because when I was looking at towards the end, I was like, that's not the type of rifle they're using now. Right. Right. That's but that's from the collection. Yeah. That's from the collection. That was from his from his dad and everything. That was from the collection. That's right. Yep. So that track. At first, I was like, wait, but that's like, no, he's carrying that forward because that's the same gun that he was cleaning at the beginning of it. His dad was teaching him how to clean the rifle. That's right. And then they're carrying that through to the end of it. Yeah, that's right. So that's right.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

But I for sure but and Augie has a specific rifle that's just his like personal pet rifle, which is the same. It's either an AK or SK.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

It is an AK. It's either AK or SKS. I can tell with a brief part of it. And yeah, and you can I understand that tracks. People people are gonna understand when they watch it why that one tracks that way. I wish the because I was wondering about that when that came up. I was like, that's kind of an odd one to put in there. Totally. But when I at the end of it, you could see why.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Yeah, Adam, this armorer um worked with us who's like the armorer in LA. And he we talked a lot about it, and he suggested the 8K because I wanted his name on it. Like I really wanted his name on it. And he said, Well, let's let's try this. This is something would be personal, he would put it together on his own. It's kind of his own, you put a scope on it, which you normally wouldn't, but he could. And he sort of talked me through, like, yeah, this is kind of a specialized thing that that could could work, you know, for this for this situation. So we decided to go with that. I I'm glad you brought up the um the eyepiece too close, the eye too close to the scope, because that's bugged me and nobody's picked up on it yet. And of course now we're broadcasting it. But um, but I was surprised later that the armor didn't catch that, because that's their job.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

And that's that's what I was surprised too.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Then when you said that there was an armor there, I know, because there I am with my head in 20 different places. That's not your job to figure that out. That's why you have somebody else there because they didn't catch that, which which was sort of which is shocking to me.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

But you know, I

Building Real Veterans And Firearms Details

SPEAKER_01 38:51

thought it was because it the first time it shows up and then it kind of cuts away and you hear the shot. Yeah, and I was like, I'm I think it's quick. I missed that. But then it comes around and you on the second time it's like, okay, no, I didn't miss that because he's doing the same thing again. Yeah, but yeah, sorry to be. I think at least he has eye protection. He had eye protection, they had eyes and ears. Yeah, no, they had their eyes and you know, and just just so you know, when I was watching the movie Les Miz, there's a scene in there where there's like it goes from six to four panes in the window or something behind it. Oh, sure. And I was watching that. I was like, I was like, how come they change the number of panes of glass? My girlfriend at the time is like, what are you talking about? Seriously, yeah. That's the stuff you're picking out of the movie. It's like apparently so. That's the kind of stuff that I come up with.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Continuity, especially you know, in a low-budget film like this, but it even in big budget films, like things get missed. There's so much going on on set, and then you're just stuck with it. And you you try to cut around it, or you try to cut it out, or some things you can't use. And we were talking last night about a scene with a bottle that starts in this hand and winds up in this hand, and I'm like, I can't cut that together. I've got to figure some work around, or it's just obvious and insane, and that's somebody's job to do that, and they missed it. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, and if there's anything out there that's perfect, I mean there's not. Yeah. So yeah, and but but like I said, I mean, what the reason I wanted to bring it up with you, not to not to critique that this got missed. Like I'd said earlier, is I'm hoping that veterans are the people that look past that and get the message underneath it.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Well, no, since you're the first person that's said anything about it, what I'm hoping and the veterans that I've talked to have come to me sort of in tears and in like a much more emotional state, like the film got to them. So um, yeah, I mean we'll we'll we we could talk again after the GI Film Festival and sort of see what that whole community is gonna have to say about the film. Hopefully they'll they'll forgive a little bit of a question.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Because I think Aggie's comments about not having anybody to go talk to is much more important than how close his eye was to the scope when he's firing a rifle. Yeah, and so I'm hoping that's what they take out of it going forward. Yeah, because that that is a problem within the military. And that

Suicide Language And Veteran Reintegration

SPEAKER_01 41:06

was with you and Kyle talking about it post after the movie with the QA the other night is do you come back and do you say, listen, I'm really struggling with this and potentially risk chances for promotion?

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

And so if you're if you're totally honest, the chances your level of promotion is gonna decline is pretty high. But if you hide it, you can still get promoted. But are you gonna be in the best frame of mind when you get deployed again around your family, long-term benefits? That's it's a bit of a catch-22. That's a huge catch-22.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Yeah, yeah, that's really tough. Yeah. And we don't, and we don't seem to have a we don't seem to have a good solution for that except to encourage guys to get help anyway. Let that take take your prioritize your mental health over over over anything else.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

One of the things that I've been hearing more from different podcasts and stuff that I listen to, talking to, mainly it's your tier one operators and stuff, that a lot of them are um finding a lot of help with uh psychedelics. Right. Under doctor supervision, a lot of it's it's they're going out of the country because we don't allow it here. Yeah, yeah. And that that's a frustrating thing for me with a lot of um narcotics and drugs and psychedelics or whatever, that they're at a level where you you can't do research. And so it's like, well, they're under certain ways, the stuff can be very helpful for certain people. Why don't we have it in such a way that we can do that research here and find out the way to help people with it?

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Totally, totally. Yeah, there's a lot of safe ways to to do that. There's a there's a documentary film called Of Waves and War. I met the watchers, you know about that?

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly about that with Navy SEALs who who are who are using psychedelics for therapeutic uh and and most of them they've got a from I'm not an expert on this by any ways, but it seems like there's a very high success ratio with that as well. Yeah, with the ones that are going through it. Yeah. And yeah, anything like that that we're if we're sending these young men and women around the world to do what we're asking them to do, right, and we're not providing the support and the ways to help them through that and reintegrate when they get back.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

And like you were saying at the at the deal, then it's a big number that's thrown around 22 a day.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Dying by suicide.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yeah, yeah. That's huge. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

And that was part I I uh appreciate it as well when they're talking about you're not committing suicide, you die by suicide.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

That I'm hoping that becomes more of a lexicon as we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Uh just people taking suicide and having that conversation. Yeah. That I think what I is is it slanger saying you don't commit suicide because that's a crime. Yeah, suicide's not a crime.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Suicide's not a crime.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Suicide's not a crime. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Yeah, the f the folks in this in this in the kind of suicide prevention world um like to say die by suicide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And it's hard to get it's hard to get people to change. Because we've been saying it the other way for so long. Or a lot of people have been saying that's kind of your first that's the first way that they're going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Well this is so I mean this is an interesting example of sort of of of

Culture Change Through Movies And Safety

SPEAKER_00 44:26

cultural sort of the way culture can help shift behavior, which I think is what I hope the film can can be a part of. You know, different kind different different kinds of behaviors. Um they talk about the great story of the whole idea of the designated driver. You know, about this? That designated driver was an invention that wasn't a thing until 1980, whatever it was. Like there wasn't such a thing as a designated driver, and they they came up with this idea of a designated driver, and then they started putting in commercials and on TV.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Was that started by MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers? Were they kind of the first driver? I can't I don't remember exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

We could we could look that up, but but it the point was that then they started modeling it on TV, and then they s you know it showed up in some maybe some television shows or something, and then little by little, like people start becoming designated drivers, and we've we've created a um behavioral change in our entire culture. Now, someone will be the designated driver for the night, they won't drink, and we're saving lives on the on the highways. So that's a super interesting concept about how to create behavioral change on a um kind of a wide, you know, in a wide, in a wide way or cross-culture. That's fascinating to me. So, like, could we do that with firearms safety? You know, could we do that with safe storage? Um there's a um Brady United has a program called Showgun Safety. And so we started working with them. And what they do, they've got this lady in LA and they've they're meeting, and she um I'm not I'm not remembering her name, but she um she's the director of this program and I think the founder of this program, and they're meeting with film and television studio uh uh productions asking them whenever you show a gun in your show, can you do one of the following things to help promote safe gun use? Can you show it being stored properly in a safe? Can you, you know, show it being handled, you know, handled properly with the four safety protocols? Can you not have children using weapons? Can you, you know, all these different ways that they're sort of trying to say at the script development level, can you bake this stuff in so we can start seeing it as normalized? And then that begins to translate into behavioral changes, you know, amongst amongst some gun owners. So I think that's a super interesting, ambitious um uh vision. And I asked her, she so she moderated the conversation for our Los Angeles premiere, and I asked her, so how did we do? How'd our film do on your checklist? And she said, to be honest, you hit every single mark. She said, I've never seen a film cover all of it.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yeah, when he's gonna be a good one. When he gets to the house, if you got any guns, they gotta be safely stored in the garage. Right. You know, they're talking about muzzle, where your muzzle is and stuff like that. Yeah, the gun lesson. The actual lesson. The actual lesson, they got it stored in a safe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One one other thing when Elliot's got the handgun.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Emmett.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Emmett, yeah. Sorry, not Elliot. Emmett. Yeah. When Emmett's got the handgun. Yeah, I would have liked a little bit more interrogation of him. He let him off too easy on that. You've got a he's what, 13, 14? Yeah. You can't have a handgun until you're 21. Yeah, how'd he get it? And it's like, how in the how in the heck? Yeah. Did you get this? And I like the fact that that was the one where I the the the way that they handle the gun, you know, he dropped the magazine, he took the round out, kept those separate. Yeah. That was, I was like, okay, yeah, whoever's doing the armory part of it got it on that one. He knew what he was doing on that one. Yeah, for sure. But uh, yeah, I was I have to tell you, I was shocked. I would have thought that Slinger, can I, can I say who who dies by suicide?

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

I was I'm I'm I'm surprised it wasn't Slinger. Yeah. That his arc through the movie, where he started at, yeah, when you saw him and then you see him at the end, it shows that under the right environment and with the right things, you know, he went he went through a lot, but the person he was at the end of the movie was it it's it, and I hope this is what you're getting across, was in a in a much better frame of mind, much calmer, much better version of himself. And I like when he was telling his son, I'm working to get to be the person I want to be, kind of thing, that he was going through that that phase, and you can see him develop throughout that. Um, that was that shocked me. I thought that's great. I would have thought it was gonna be him that would have done that. That's what we want. We want surprise. And so when it was when it was somebody else, it's like that was not what I anticipated on that. But it because it was the person, a lot of a lot of times the person's gonna be the hardest hit. Because a major, he's got a nephew there, they're planting a garden, they're doing all the stuff. Seems like his life is sunshine and roses. And I think that's a problem that a lot or the the mistake a lot of us make when we're looking at other people, regardless if they're in the military or not, the outward appearance doesn't always reflect the turmoil going within.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Totally. No, that's that's the whole thing. That's what he said.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

You can't you can't see it, it's in there you can't see it, it's in there. Yep. And so I thought that was that was a great reflection of that. And I hope that's something that people carry forward as well, just in the the everyday. You know, I'm sitting here with Aaron Davidman, we're having a great conversation, but there might have been something that happened to you this morning or last week that you're still carrying deep inside. Yeah, you've got to smile, we're having a great conversation, but could be totally or likewise with me, and just because we're having we're doesn't mean there's not something going on in the background.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

No, and I and I think I think that the whole idea around the issue of loneliness that I mentioned the other night is that in our culture, we're sort of trained to solve those problems by ourselves. Like that's your keep it in there, figure it out, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, you know what I mean. And I think that's that's a failed bankrupt concept that we need each other. We need, you know, we're we're a we're a social species, we're communal species, we actually need each other. And this idea that I think this idea of the rugged individualism, the sort of western, like John Wayne, solo freedom fighter, do it, you know, do it on your own thing, has really sold a lot of us, you know, a a bad, a bad bag of goods. Like it's it's not um, it doesn't work. It doesn't work for us. It's much better to um be a little more open, share where you're coming from, ask for help, be in relationship to other human beings. Like that's where we have a chance to heal. That's where we have a chance to be our be our better selves, both individually and and as community. And I think that's what the film, I mean, in a way, that's what the film, that's the kind of inner, inner arc of the film, is his um, you know, his father's way, the old way. And look at what type of character that is bitter, hard, cut off, blind, and um, and a new way. Or maybe a just a more organic internal way of um communion, kinship, fellowship, you know. You don't have to go it alone. We need you know, we need each other.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

And I think this is where um you and I have had conversations a lot, or we did four years ago when we first started talking about this about gun ownership, gun use, gun violence, and everything.

Gun Fear Versus Guns As Tools

SPEAKER_01 52:47

And and at that point, I think the cop the conversation I think from my side of it was that it's more a sus, it's not necessarily a gun issue, it's a societal issue. Um and I I still kind of I still stand by that because I I look at a gun as a tool just based on my history and the we're sitting here in your we're sitting here and we're looking at the gun stores. We're sitting in the gun store. That's gonna be, I'm gonna have a different viewpoint than I'm an Alaskan that grow grew up in a gun store, and somebody that grew up in Berkeley, California can have different, but that's all right, we can have different opinions. Usually, conversations about this.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

I think it's a the point that you brought up just now that we're in Alaska, you grew up in Alaska and we're in a gun store, and I grew up in Berkeley, California. The gun as a tool here in Haynes in Alaska is a very different tool than it is in Berkeley, California.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Yes and also no. Tell me. So my the where I look at this in the big perspective is usually when somebody in Berkeley is wanting to get a firearm here, you're going to get food with it, bear protection, whatever. Right. Usually when a person is looking for a firearm for self-defense, is there's fear involved. And if we're not, if we don't feel safe in our homes, if we don't feel safe on the streets, over time, a firearm is one of the great equalizers as far as protecting ourselves or engaging in some kind of a conflict with another person. If you don't have to engage in conflict, you don't have to worry about that. But like you're saying, the John Wayne movies, you know, they they say Samuel Colt did more to equalize man than anybody else by you know your Colt revolver.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

And so I mean, so so so believes and so says the Colt manufacturers. The Colt Manufacturers, yes, that's that's their job. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

But I I think the the problem that we have, and it's gotten worse over the years, is what you are alluding to with kind of being taught this certain way from Slinger's dad to him. You also have a large number of people that are growing up in a single family household where you don't either have a dad or you don't have a mom there, you don't have that same um structure being built, and so there's some un there can be some uncertainty, not to say that single parents don't do a good job. There's a lot of great ones out there, but there's a lot of studies that say two parents generally do better than a single parent in most instances. And you have people that through different government decisions and programs don't really have a chance to get out of poverty, and they're looking around them and they've got drug deals going on, there's the the streets are a mess, there's hardly any police out there, and they can look they look at it either in one of two ways. I can join a gang, I can get a gun, and I can go steal and sell drugs or whatever, and get these nice things that the guys higher up the chain can have, or I get that. So when if they come at my house, I've got a way to protect myself. And it doesn't if you take the guns out of that situation, I don't think it solves the inner problem of people that just don't have any hope. There's a lot of people in this country that don't really have hope or see this is this is my feeling. Look at different places. I've I've traveled a little bit, not extensively, but you just see these stories, you see some of these people, it just doesn't seem like they have any hope of what tomorrow's gonna be able to bring.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Well, I mean, I you know, I interviewed the I was at Grady Hospital in Atlanta when and I spoke with the chief surgeon there who pulls bullets out of out of bodies every single day, and she'd been there for four years, and there hadn't been a single day at work where she hadn't had a gunshot victim.

SPEAKER_03 56:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

So, you know, what you're talking about is real. The other side to that, however, from a statistics point of view, is the CDC study that shows that you're four times as likely to be shot by a firearm if it's in the home. By the firearm that's in the home. So statistically, a firearm in the home is more dangerous than not having a firearm in the home. That's just the data. So the story, yes, around feeling more secure and feeling more safe is one thing, but the data shows something different, and I think that's worth trying to understand better.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Well, absolutely. Every I every question out there for me is worth trying to understand better.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

Well, the firearms industry, of course, wants us to be afraid and to buy weapons to protect ourselves because, and you know, um, that's how they stay in business.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

I buy them because they're fun.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

So then then there's that. Then there's that. Yeah. I mean, you buy them because they're fun, target practice is fun. I learned to shoot during this whole process with my father-in-law, who's super into firearms. Uh, I've been to a number of different ranges. Maybe we maybe we can go out on a range one of these two. When you come back this summer, let's go. Let's do it. It's super fun. Yep. You know, firing a hunting rifle at the range here in Haynes, you know, is one thing. Um, but the rhetoric, I don't know if you've ever been to an NRA convention, but I went to the NRA convention in Dallas, and the rhetoric around the kind of fear-based sales pitch, it's it's um, you know, it's a bummer. Like, there's a lot of good reasons to buy a weapon, and there's a lot of good reasons to actually, you know, I met some of these uh handmade craftspeople, multi-generation.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

Oh, there's no there's some beautiful stuff out there. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

It's just total works of art. Yeah, totally, totally. So, uh, but I feel like I feel like the firearms industry has driven a wedge in this conversation that that that forces you to either be you know pro or against. And I think this is one of the reasons that I wanted to make the film was to try to like get away from that dialectic and look at some of the underlying considerations. And I mean, I didn't make a political movie, and I think you would agree it's not a political movie.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

I didn't take it as a political movie, though.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

No, no, but there are some politics to talk about, you know, that are that are sort of underneath it. Um and you know, this this this veteran who I interviewed in Tennessee that I mentioned was sort of the inspiration. I wouldn't say Slinger is based on him at all, but it's you know, it's inspired. It's a season the seed. Um, you know, his whole thing was that the this kind of AR-15 fad was a firearms industry invention to get guys to like take on military, you know, take on the like military ethos and style. And he was like so upset about this. He basically said, Look, if you want military ethos and style in your life, join the military.

Common Sense Reforms And Trust Gaps

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

That's what I did. And within that path, there's a very serious structure around how you approach, revere, and respect that firearm. And the reason that I have a scene in this movie where the guys go to Walmart and buy a AR-15 and head straight out to the range without knowing how to use it is because that's a problem in our culture. That that can happen. That's a big problem, you know? And you've got guys who can appreciate target practice both to um for fun, but also to calm their nerves, right? I mean, that's it's a huge stress reliever. It's like a stress reliever, it's something you can control if you're really good at it. You can kind of and the breath work that Slinger does before he fires, like that's all very deliberately in there. And then you've got these two kids who have no idea what they're doing. You know, um, we're not we don't talk about that enough. That's that's not so here that's not a foregone conclusion that that that that problem exists. That problem can be solved.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

So here's here's my take on that. It's two ways, and it's pretty much any predominant political discussion we're having in this country right now is you've got people on a side and they can make money off of their side pushing an agenda. So you have several anti-gun groups that want to that come up with a bunch of proposals. Some of them make sense, some of them is like that. Is the most asinine thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

Well, how are they making money on it though? That's not they're they're not into in it to make money.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

They're they're getting people that we're gonna push this through, and they send out we need money for this. They're a nonprofit, but the people at the head of it making five, six hundred thousand dollars a year. You've got lobbying groups and stuff, lobbyists are making money of this on both sides. Any major I see what you're saying, but I'm I I'm just calling um the gun manufacturers are making much more money off of it than there's no comparison. There's no comparison. But what drives it? But but the people that are it it ends up being a lack of trust. Because if you come forward and you're like, okay, we're gonna have, and this is something that I talked to one of my college roommates about several years ago, the state of Washington was going to have a law passed that if um you owned a gun and it was stolen from you and used in a crime, you are gonna be held accountable for that unless it was secured safely. And I asked him, I said, what is your def what is the definition of secured safely? Yeah, I said, I'm the only person that's in my house, everything's locked. I would consider that if I have a gun on the counter, that's safe. Because I'm the only one that's going in there. If the doors are locked, somebody had to break the law to get that lock, to get that gun. But as a responsible gun owner, I go beyond that. So let's say I have it in a I have a trigger lock on it. I have it in the closet, have a trigger lock on it. You can drill the trigger lock if it's a cable one, you can cut that. How do I prove that I'm not sure? Sure, sure. I totally get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

You're and so it's one of those that, unless you trust the other side to adjudicate it fairly.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

Totally, but I'm not I'm not even gonna get into the weeds of this with you because there's too many law proposals that are ridiculous. There's too much red tape, there's all that kind of stuff. But I'm just sort of at a basic, the basic question of allowing someone to purchase and handle a military-grade weapon that's that's was designed to kill other people in combat, that that should just be a civilian uh available to civilians with no training and no um no permitting or training seems to me insane. I mean, we you know it it's all we always bring up the you know the automobile. You have to take a driver's class and you have to, you know, do your driver's training, and you have to get a license, and you have to renew that license periodically, and you have to take a test periodically to show that everyone in the community who shares the roads could trust you to keep driving safely. And yet we don't have that kind of protocol for firearms, which is insane to me because they're deadly weapons. There's probably most firearms owners take protocols seriously, take safety seriously. Just about every firearms owner that I've spoken with takes it very seriously. Um but I feel like we citizens have the right to ask firearms owners to keep to be properly trained, to keep a you know, permit up up uh, you know, in in good standing, just just like an automobile. It doesn't seem to me to be um asking too much. And uh and I think that um I mean in some countries, I believe private firearms ownership, at least it used to be the case in Israel, um, was super rigorous. Even though all all the entire culture has served in the army and was and was trained to own a firearms in to own a firearm in civilian life, you would only get a certain number of bullets each year and you have to like pass a test every couple years or something like that. I'd have to look it up to get the detail on it. But it seems to me like it's not it's not asking too much to have um a a safety protocol that we all could agree on. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:59

Depends on. details sure and and it comes down to trust but just just cons but just as a as a concept because we don't have it and again at all and again it comes down to trust because most of what you said there about having when we were in junior high all of us pretty much everybody went through hunter safety class right where we went through the gym you're talking about when you get to a fence you lean the gun over you hand it to your friend you don't climb all the we went we went through all of that as part of the junior high programs of uh NRA safe hunter program or something or whatever I still got my card somewhere at home from that yeah and that was all that was back when you could keep a rifle in your locker at school too probably we couldn't keep them in the locker but we could bring them in and give them to the at the principal and then then at lunchtime whatever he wanted to go duck hunting they'd give them back to you and you go get duck hunting and stuff. Can you imagine that now? Well and we uh we were shooting in the gym right in the old junior high gym you'd go in in the morning and you'd have they underneath the stage they had the uh gun traps or bullet traps and you'd sit there and you'd got the 22s and you go in and you shoot in the gym.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

Before Columbine. This is all before Columbine.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:03

Yeah yep so but those days are long gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

And and so the the as somebody that's that sells guns there's a lot of issues with the way they do background checks right now that do not does not be better.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

I'm sure I I mean I I I can't I I'm not even gonna argue with you I don't I don't even want to get into like the details of how the laws are like you know um how they work or don't work or or or fall apart. I just but I I just I feel like on a on a principle basis one of the one of the things we keep hearing from the NRA is that um the we want zero rec regulation because of the slippery slope right that one thing leads to another to another and then suddenly they're taking away all your guns and I feel like this this is really um this is one of the things that's just kept us from getting anywhere. And it's just not true. We're not there's 450 million guns owned by civilians in this country which you know we're not no they're always coming to take these guns away it's a fallacy it's not gonna happen and

What A Gun Store Can Do

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

and you know and yet we have a lot of people in this country who don't feel safe because of these weapons so how do we how do we deal with that well it's what I was gonna what I was going to get to is talking about there's there's there's issues that could if they enforced the laws that are already in the books.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

Okay like which one uh um straw purchases so somebody comes in I'm not allowed to buy a gun Aaron can you go buy that for me sell it there they're stating on the form that it is a they're buying the threat of perjury and everything like that. And then they go around the corner and sell somebody right they get people like that there's I forget how many thousands of those every year nobody gets prosecuted for it. Oh it's even worse because guess where all those guns are going now a lot of them going to Mexico they're going to Mexico there's a whole it's a whole push that none of that gets prosecuted right when the Brady bill was passed in 94 um shortly after that and that was 10 round magazines handguns there's a lot of if and part of it was supposed to be that if you committed a criminal act with a weapon or a handgun that was supposed to be mandatory 10 years we had somebody break into the store stole some handguns caught him he got off with a slap on the wrist he had basically his time served and paid a like a thousand dollar fine why do you why why do you think that was the case? Because they that's what I asked they said wait a second this was just we have the Brady bill any gun with the crime they said yeah that's federal we don't really have time for that or we don't have the money to do that. It's like why'd you pay why'd you pass a law that you're not going to enforce who was the they this is the state of the state of Alaska and as in the Well they they probably don't the state of Alaska right doesn't really believe in that bill uh that law that was 30 years ago so I don't remember who was but that could have played a part in it but you can see that even states across the country that there's a lot of this stuff that's just not getting prosecuted but then it gets to the point too that we have the highest criminal population in the world in the United States and so looking at it's like do we just throw everybody in jail that's doing this? Because that creates a problem because a lot of them coming out are worse than the when they went in because the stuff they're learning in jail. Totally and our jails are overcome so it's it it's a conundrum of trying how to move forward with this when you when you see the inefficiencies and the issues that are not being addressed.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

I think you'll appreciate this I interviewed the head of the gun unit at the LAPD in downtown Los Angeles and his biggest and and he had a his I mean this is an amazing conversation we had but he um his biggest issue is ghost guns. Yeah for them because you know because their his whole their whole department they had a department of 10 people which is like 10 people for all of LA all of LA County and he said all the guns are coming over from Nevada. Yeah they just come over all because you can buy you know the the laws are lax in Nevada but in California they're strict and so they just come over from Nevada and ghost guns was the biggest issue for him but the the reason I'm bringing him up is that he also you know here's a guy who whose job is to enforce law that they pass in Sacramento. And to him sort of like what you're saying help us enforce the laws we're we're not you know um help us kind of simplify some of the laws that are here and don't pass more laws that then we have to change and try to like just keeping up with the laws was but I feel Doug I feel like there's there's getting like I mentioned earlier I don't want to get into the weeds with you because I feel like the weeds be winds up being this like minutia nitpicky thing and we lose track of of the of the meta problem which is that there's there's like these two different cultures and we can't agree on just a couple common sense principles because there's so much fear and mistrust.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:26

Exactly that's why I was bringing up the weeds yeah to show that that that's why there's this fear and mistrust because of these weeds and I think there is a solution in the middle of that but with the distrust how how do you what group is it that's gonna bring and this is not just guns this is I see this on so many issues what group is going to one of the things I told everybody I'm gonna backtrack here a little bit and I'll finish my point. Okay one of the things I told everybody when I was mayor at the assembly or at the either assembly members or people in the in the staff I said there's gonna regardless of what we're gonna do there's gonna be people on this side and there's gonna be people on this side that hate our outcome right but the majority of the people in the middle if they can trust the if they look at it and say that was a fair process everybody we feel that people's the different viewpoints were heard and we came that it was a fair process different things were considered we might not fully agree with it but we think that probably we can understand that that would represent the community at large as then I think we've got a way to win it's not catering to this side or this side I were true to your your I think you were true when I thought you did a beautiful job in the way our political system works right now who's the group that's going to be in the middle to say listen this is what makes sense because the politicians on the right they're getting money from this side the politicians on the left are getting money from this side and they keep funding them to get in primaries and stuff to get more and more hardcore towards their point of view where is that group that's in the middle yeah that represents the majority of the people that's like this is a as you were saying a common sense way to move forward. Yeah and until you figure out a way to get that into our political structure we're gonna sit we're gonna keep talking about stuff in the weeds and that's that's the frustrating part I think for both of us I enjoy having firearms because like you were saying going out to the range I I enjoy going hunting. I think that's the the best food out there is wild game. I get it anytime I can get it but going to the range it just I'm so focused on like you were saying breathing sight picture the safety aspect of it and and you just kind of immerse yourself in that it gives me a moment of just calm that I'm not and a lot of people think well that's kind of a violent way to be calm but you're thinking about so many other things that the other crap just kind of fades away I mean we've been shooting bow and arrow at target for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:09

I mean target throwing rocks at a tree I mean you know we want to hit something I mean this is you know this is a game that we've been doing for 100,000 years or however long I don't know you know because it's always about becoming more proficient because the most proficient the hunter gatherer in us that's right you know the most proficient hunter had that elevated status yeah in the community. Yeah I don't think that's the issue and and I think um you know I also I also think the Second Amendment was not crafted with the idea of you know with the the technology of semi-automatic weapons either you know so like we're we're um I think we're we're caught by the extremes like you just said and part of one of the things that drives those extremes is this is the is the drama around them is the like fear fear fear driving or the sort of bombastic posturing. And I I mean one of the reasons that I made a film that's a that's a qu it's a quiet film. You know it's a contemplative it's a quiet film. I like to say it's a quiet film but for a noisy world and it it invites us to go on this 90 minute journey it's a little more contemplative a little more meditative and it allows you to kind of um spend time with this character on his journey and think about some of these deeper some of these deeper issues that that um I mean I I hope well they can lead to conversations like this which are dynamic and nuanced and not um extreme you know extreme and positional even though we have some different positions you know we

Loneliness And Why Screenings Matter

SPEAKER_00 1:16:52

have some different positions but but I think we but every time we've talked about them we've been able to have a good conversation and the next time we see each other we're like hey Aaron hey Doug and you know it's never it's never so that's that's one of the things I enjoy having conversations with you is we can disagree about a but I think we can disagree about the weeds yeah but the basic the basic idea I think we're pretty similar on we well I I also believe Doug and I appreciate that about you of course but I also believe that most gun owners are more reasonable than um than those who are afraid of guns and gun owners sort of paint them out to be um my experience like I said is that um gun owners are very serious about safety protocols mostly mostly and that's why I wish we could um I mean I wish I I wish more gun owners would step up for more rigor on safety and safety protocols for um just sort of uniformly because I feel like gun you know gun owners instead of being afraid that they're gonna come take away our guns um we should be afraid that people who don't know how to use weapons are gonna get weapons and we should be spending time figuring out how to make sure that anybody who gets a weapon or owns a weapon really knows how to use it. You know that that in and of itself I mean I think um and that and that like we said there's safe storage. I think there's a there's a statistic around five kids a day or something like that are injured or or killed um because of unsafe storage in the home. So that number should be zero we could we could just talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:40

Yeah that should be zero so let's let's I've I've no I have I have no compassion for somebody that leaves a firearm in a manner that a kid's gonna pick it up and hurt somebody with it. It's just and and I think part of that is and and that's why I kind of it wrapping around some of this stuff is hard for me because the the way that I was from my dad had a gun store my whole life so the way that the way that I was taught from a very young age about the respect for the gun I mean when I got my first BB gun got it for Christmas and he'd made a little plywood backstop thing trap with some sand in it and stuff the drill so we could shoot into the fireplace at Christmas and in the living room but there's these are the rules you can only use this when I'm home and then after a certain time you can take it outside and that but anytime something was broken all of a sudden that if I didn't do everything right all of a sudden that was gone.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:32

And then consequences then it would appear again and then we'd have another conversation and then when we ramped up to 22s and it was like these are it was very serious the whole time on each little step as we went along and so a lot of that and then the hunter safety and and the people that I go shooting with are all very serious about it as well. And so taking that mindset and the few times when I'm out at the range and I see somebody that's acting inappropriate it's like wait hang on no right and if they don't because I don't have any I don't have any way of saying no you pick my stuff up and leave.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:08

So I'm like I'm not gonna be unless you're doing it right I'm not gonna be around you this have no desire for this armorer who who you know who was overseeing our our our shoot and by the way he was never on set with us he was the he was like the head armorer okay I have a feeling if he had been on set with us we we would have caught that issue. But he um he he told you know after reading the script he talked about that scene with those guys at the range and he said how realistic it was he's like I've been I you know I've been on ranges you know where I just walk away I don't even want you know I'm not even gonna get involved with these people you know and and and the times you'll see people out with a gun and they got a can of beer with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:52

It's like that does not alcohol and firearms does not mix at any point. Yeah any point at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:59

Yeah so I I guess I just feel like on the on the broad strokes level which I think is what we we we we should be talking about broad strokes instead of the weeds because broad strokes could maybe get us closer together you know and I feel like broad strokes um I want gun owners to stand up for safety protocols and speak about them you know and have zero tolerance zero tolerance for behaviors that are antithetical to the to those say to to some of those and and maybe many gun owners like you just like you said you were trained so well as a kid you just take it for granted but I think if that were the case we wouldn't have as much um oh there there's a ton of people that have no no background in firearm as all I try to recommend if somebody if you you can usually tell if somebody's new to firearms it it's pretty glaring if somebody hasn't been around firearms.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

And I try and recommend um they take a class with Cheryl Stickler. She's got the Haynes Gals Shooting Club and she's been highly trained the you know concealed carry class is just she is if you want to know how to operate especially handguns and everything in a safe manner she does a great job teaching people and that I try and recommend to people is like listen you're gonna this gonna this instrument this tool that you're buying is going to be a lot more effective for you if you get somebody to teach you how to do it and recommend her for a class.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:33

It reminds me that I I meant to ask you to invite her to the movie but maybe if we screen it again you'd invite her to the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:39

I will invite her to the movie next time let me know. Yeah I'll just gotta I was it was one of those I brought my mom my mom came with me okay it was my date night with my mom what was her what was her reaction I think it was similar to mine. She didn't catch the scope thing I mentioned it to her. Not many people are talking about your attention to detail so but um yeah no I think we both came away with it and like before we started recording I told you I can't say that I enjoyed the movie but it's not that it it wasn't a good movie but it's just the subject matter it's hard to use the word enjoy but I appreciated the movie and I appreciated the context of talking about suicide talking about the the the veteran experience and how the the struggles that they have on how and I think it was the female character that how they're trained to ramp up to be this but not to ramp down once they get home and once get back out that that's a that's a constant struggle there's a lot of that that we need to we need to work on um gun safety I agree that's something that we need to work on trying to figure out how to do that is something that's gonna be a challenge. Yeah but uh um it's got while we've been sitting here I'm thinking how how can I do that more as a business what can we do more to advocate that when we are selling a firearm to somebody and I've got some thoughts that we'll we'll work on a little bit more try we you try and do it as safe as possible. Yeah but that keep what what's safe now it keeps evolving you've got different you've got a different customer mix you know the guys that were coming and buying for guns from my dad's in the 70s and 80s are different than the people that are buying firearms from us now.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:20

And so trying to figure out how do we how do we keep evolving as a business so we're doing something we're not just giving them or selling them an item but making sure that they're gonna be safe with that and it's gonna be in a good it's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:34

I mean I took a I took a concealed carry class in Florida just as part of my research I was just curious I spent a whole day in lecture and video and then the guy gave a talk and then at the end they said okay um you're gonna you know you're gonna go in and you're gonna fire six rounds into the target you know with a 22 handgun and then fill out this paperwork and mail it in and then we'll send you your permit and I went over the I went over to the desk the guy handed me a 22 and six bullets and told me to go in there and fire it. Seriously? Yeah he didn't ask me if I'd ever held one before he didn't ask me if I knew even anything about that weapon just boggles my mind so I love the idea that you could be standing behind your counter here and sell a young man or woman a weapon and say something to them like you know what's your experience with firearms or have you ever been through a trainer? I mean I I'm not sure what legally you can ask somebody if it's too personal or not personal but like I think that's a really interesting consideration for a gun store owner to take an interest in the safety and training of of their clients of their of their customers.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:54

I think that's usually over over the years especially with parents that are buying their kids their first hunting rifle or first shotgun or something when they'll bring them in try and give some of that stuff to the kid as they're as they're picking it it's like nope that's not the way you hold us you want to hold it this way you want to do and don't point that barrel at me point that you know that's not the safe way. And so trying to trying to keep going with that and that's because it's gonna sound bad with this um a lot of times you're in a hurry because you have other customers in the store and so trying to make sure that everything that you've thought of before and this goes for many products in the store that somebody like crap I should have told them about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:44

That was probably something that I should have done a better job as um but it is it's trying to figure out how to I mean it's interesting you're talking about speed I mean in a way we're back to the the speed of our culture the speed of our lives and what are what are the costs of that speed and it's not necessarily with the transaction but a lot of times I've only it's only me or it's somebody here by themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:04

And so you're trying to spend time with somebody on a firearms transaction and you got three people looking for fishing licenses up front yeah and trying to trying to blend that in it'd be great to have somebody at the gun counter all the time but I don't sell nearly enough guns to afford to have somebody there all the time to do that. And so but yeah like I said this conversation has me thinking about ways that we can we can do a better job for our customers when they are buying a farm to dial that in a little bit better than we have in the past.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:36

I would imagine growing up around it so much becoming so second nature your dad sold weapons you sell weapons you fire we were looking at all these weapons right here most most of them are hunting rifles it looks like to me yeah and um it could become easy to s sort of forget that these are lethal The little instruments.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:02

I guess it could, but that was so ingrained with me as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:07

Even with the BB gun, my dad's like, you have to remember that anything you shoot that you you're gonna cause harm, anything that you shoot with as I guess I'm just saying when you when you when you s pass that and the ammunition over the counter for as a sale and off they go, and then you run over to deal with the fishing license, like it becomes just it's like another transaction in a store.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:32

On the ammo, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:34

It's and a lot of times it's like, oh, you're going to the range today? Because you can kind of tell with the ammo that they're buying. It the conversation is either you're gonna go to the range or oh, do you have a hunt coming up? Right. And then you can you get the the story of oh, I'm going deer hunting, I'm going black bear hunting, I'm going moose hunting, whatever, and you kind of get that connection with the customer talking about what they're gonna be hunting.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:56

Yeah, I mean, this is interesting. This is important in a small community like this. It's it's you're in an interesting position because if most if someone's gonna do some some sort of harm, you might you might pick up on it in just knowing your community and what they're what they're up to. You're in a you know, you're in a particularly interesting position.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:17

We've so the ATF that even if they pass the background check, we have the ability to decline a sale. Just because somebody comes in and fills out and passes a background check, I do not have to sell them that gun.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:30

And there's times that I have not sold a gun to people just because of the characteristics they were demonstrating, the way that they're acting, what have you. Sometimes it's just man, if they really smell like alcohol or marijuana or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:44

Do you give them a re have you given them a reason in those moments? Or do you say, oh, the dread cash register is broken, you gotta come back, or I can't do this, or what do you you usually do?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:53

I don't know if I want to say fair enough. There's there's more than one way that I handle it. Okay, but I don't I'll tell you off camera, but I won't just that's fair. But yeah, it's just you you kind of move on. I appreciate that, but you can have a sale, but you just look at the the the way the person's acting, and and there's a couple times that I've called the police department and talked to the chief. Yeah, it's like listen, I've got this person that's here, and um it's nice now because it used to be that you just fell at the foreman, but now with the background check, it's got to go through the FBI, and sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it's delayed, and so I can I can tell them it's it's delayed. You can slow it down. I can slow it down. I can call the police department. Can't say anything about somebody's criminal history or anything, right? But I can ask them, and it's usually the chief or the longest serving officer in town. I'll kind of get in touch with them and say, listen, here's the situation, this is what I'm going on, um, this is the person's name, and they'll just go, You've got good instincts, or something like that, or boy, I've I wouldn't think of that, or something. So I it's like, okay, that feels safe getting this to the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:05

So Doug, so Doug, this is great though, because what you're saying is the background check is working to slow down a transaction in that instance.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:14

One of the problems I have with the background check, one of the things that asks, have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective? There is no way to check that. When you go through the background check, if somebody has major mental health because of HIPAA, they can't pr they can't put that into the system. Right. The doctors aren't putting somebody has suicide.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:36

That's a detail that you can't get into. But what I'm saying is that from a again, a but a broad from a broad but a broad, there are flaws in the weeds, is what I'm saying. But from a broad perspective, where you hear the NRS saying, you know, we don't want background checks because we don't want the government to know who's buying weapons, this conspiracy theory business. What you're telling me is actually, in in some instances, just the fact that the background check is slowing the process down a little bit is in your favor in an instance where you have somebody who's maybe not so stable or who you can you don't really trust selling them a weapon. And that that it kind of jives with this vet um center uh example I gave the other night at the screening where the social worker says who's a vet, if he's dealing with veterans who have some mental health issues, he his job is to slow down reactivity, right? Slow down the process of how quickly you reach for a weapon. And um that lag time often allows things to cool and can lead to more favorable outcomes than not. So I feel like that is such a sensible way to deal with the fact that we have so many firearms in civilian hands, if we can slow processes down, like there's no rush here. If you know, if you take your time to learn how to use a weapon, and you take your time to drive out to the range, and you do your deep breathing, and you load it properly, handle it properly, like it's all safe. When things get going fast and people are impatient and emotions flare and people are quick to react, more often than not, that's what leads to bad outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:29

So, and a lot of that ability is there now. Great. If the people, but so many places, like everything else, people are looking at how much money I can make off of this. Sure. And so they're not sure, they're in a store like the ones that are you gotta move, you gotta move them through fast. There's a lot of places that there's a lot of guns for that are straw purchases that are going south and everything like that. The owners know that crap is going on. Sure. They could stop it, of course, but they don't want to because they're making money on it. So it's a at some point, it's like, where are you are you in?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:06

Doug the business Doug, the arms industry is a big industry. Oh, it's huge. From Boeing and you know, Lockheed Martin to Colt and the and the handmade weapons. So of course I've been to Shot Show.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:22

I know, and that's just a small fraction of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:25

It's huge.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:26

Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, it's big.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:28

Um, but the gun show loophole, of course, is a big issue that could be that could be addressed, right? Where you can just buy, you don't need to run a background check if you're selling a used fire. So here's there's a there's a there's a loophole in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:46

Yeah, yes and no.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:48

So if you're going to a gun show and you're selling guns, yeah, I think there should be a background check. The problem that comes into that is in my in my opinion, there's a lot of people, and you might be one of them that disagree with this, is if I want to give my nephew a gun, I don't think I should have to go through a background check to give my nephew a gun.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:13

If I pass away and my guns are going to my nephew, my niece, whoever it's gonna be, yeah, to have to go through a store and do background checks on those firearms.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:25

Sure. And so it's uh family transfers, sure. I mean, you know, there are ways to you know, there are ways to include those kinds of those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:33

There is, but most of the stuff that's come out hasn't included those. And so that's that's why there's again it comes back to a matter of trust. It's like on what level are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:43

Well, that's that's why these guys talk about common sense reform.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:46

Because we have I have a lot of people in town that when they're gonna they've got a gun, or somebody in the family passed away, they they'll they come and ask me. They said, I want to sell this gun to such and such, or family member passed away, they have a gun, I don't really want to sell it, but I want to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:07

Will you sell it so the person goes through the background check? I was like, absolutely bring it in, we'll put it on the shelf. Or if you had a gun that you wanted to send sell to your buddy Joe, right, you can come in and we'll put it in the case. But I can I could voluntarily give it to a dealer, give it, have it come in. Right. But in the state of Alaska, that's not required. It's not required. But technically, the law, the federal law is that you need to make that you're if you're selling a gun to somebody, you need to know you need to make sure that they are legally entitled to own a firearm.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:43

Sure. So I'm not selling it to someone who's you know an whatever abusive husband or whatever that whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:50

Nobody's you're not gonna get prosecuted if you do. Right. So that's you know, nobody follows that. Right. But there there are a lot of people, and I'm seeing more of it, that they have a gun. You could put a but you you could put a bulletin up anywhere in town and you can sell without a problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:03

But you wouldn't you wouldn't object what I'm hearing, I think, you would not object to a mandatory background check for used firearm sales in this country. That would not. If there was a way to figure out the family, it would it would depend on how it would depend on how it was worded. Right. But I guess I'm saying broad strokes, it's a principle. The principle of this idea makes sense to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:28

Yeah, there's there's I will I will agree 100% there are a lot of people in this country that have firearms that should not have firearms. And there are ways that we can keep those people from getting firearms, right? Yeah, but a lot of the solutions so far are they they don't work. In in my view, as somebody that sells guns, they oftentimes miss the mark. And so to speak. And the way so to speak, yes, they miss the mark. And and I I see the ineffectiveness with a lot of the laws that they have out there, and it's like, okay, you're you're putting another hurdle on people, but you're not solving the problem because are you gonna are you gonna do are you gonna adjudicate this one the same as a dozen others that are on the books that you're not doing anything with right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like I really like the phrase, the concept of common sense gun reform. Because common, because we I like common sense on everything, but it's hard to find these days. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:29

Yeah. And it and it and and yeah, and it'll depend because your idea of common sense gun reform or my idea of common sense gun reform is probably there's probably a couple degrees of difference between them.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:40

Maybe a few degrees, but I feel like I think they'd be fairly close. I feel like we're closer, maybe, and I feel like many many people are closer than the extremes can profit from. Absolutely. And so they're invested in wet driving a wedge, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:59

That's that's the most like I said earlier, that's the most frustrating thing for me. Is on so many levels, is there are people that are invested in a certain outcome, yeah, and they're driving a wedge between us rather than, and how do we get that group on so many different topics that sits down and is like Oh, I know how we get them to come see American Solitaire and then have a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:23

There you go. Where's it gonna be showing next?

Release Plans Plus The Next Script

SPEAKER_01 1:39:25

So this probably isn't gonna share uh air for a couple weeks. So you're looking in April there when you're yeah, well, guess what?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:32

Um our official release date is April 17th. April 17th. Uh, New York City, it's Cinema Village. It's gonna run for a week. Okay. We're gonna have a red carpet premiere and then some community conversations with different themes for a few different nights. People will be able to come um check it out there. Then we're gonna go to LA. It's gonna screen at the Lemmley Theaters in Nohoe and in Glendale for a week there, and then we're gonna do a little tour back around the San Francisco Bay Area for a week after that, and it's gonna fan out to um towns, you know, cities and towns across the country. I'm working I'm working with uh impact agency called Picture Motion, and they're building community conversations and partnerships around these screenings. So each screening is an event is more of an event, albeit many of them for a QA. There'll be other community leaders in conversation. Uh some of the actors will be there for the premiere in New York. Um we're trying to bring people together that that the magic of community storytelling is you gather in a dark room, you you experience something, a journey together, and then you talk about it afterwards. And it's different than sitting on your couch at home, you know, watching a movie on Netflix. And someday this movie will stream. That's gonna be my next thing. Is it gonna stream at some point? At some point it'll be on some streaming service. I mean, like my other film, Wrestling Jerusalem, is up on Apple TV and on, you know, Amazon and such. But eventually we'll get there. But I I feel pretty committed to using the film as the tool to have like this kind of conversation that we're having today, and the kind of conversation we had the other night. That um, you know, one of the one of the considerations I brought up earlier is this loneliness epidemic that the World Health organization brought out officially last fall that one in seven or one in eight people are suffering from a debilitating sense of loneliness, not just feeling lonely from time to time, but like debilitating.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:30

And I feel like it's crushing.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:33

It is for you, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, coming out in community to that was hard to engage in story.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:41

If people have listened to the podcast on different things about stuff, that that was one of the reasons I brought my mom with me. Is because going by myself on things like that is extremely difficult.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:51

That would have been your date.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:52

Sorry, I I figured your wife was here with you. I figured we already had a date.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:55

We could all be a date.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:56

We could all be a team. All right. We could all be a team. I'll remember that next time, but I also enjoyed bringing your team. Yeah, well, I'm glad you brought some.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:01

I'm glad you brought your mom too. And I appreciate you sort of vulnerably telling me that that's an issue. I mean, I because I feel like I'm surrounded by so many people in Haynes that I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:12

Yeah. Right? Yeah. But there's especially in the winter months when you're get home off of work and everything's dark outside, that yeah, it can be it's brutal.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:21

I feel that, brother. I feel that. Yeah. Well, one of the goals, because I and I feel like loneliness can lead to violence or can lead to reactivity or all kinds of stuff. That when we come together in a room, experience a story and then connect afterwards. It's the connecting afterwards part that, like, oh, I was sitting with myself watching this movie, but now afterwards I look around and wow, that person saw that in the movie. That's different than what I thought, and that person saw something that I didn't see, and oh, yeah, that's exactly what I thought that that person thought, and then whatever someone from the stage might be saying, like it it suddenly creates a dynamic community where you're part of the story and you don't feel so alone, and hopefully you feel more hopeful, even though it's uh you know chal challenging film to to to uh experience. I think in the end, uh you know, I want people to leave feeling hopeful about themselves and about and about humanity.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:27

It's funny because I got home and I got a text from Kyle Clayton, who you had up there and had conversations, he said, I was anticipating a tough question from you or something like that. It's like I'm I'm talking to this weekend, I'm saving it for the podcast. That's great. So I figured I'd have plenty of time to discuss it here. But I I did appreciate that at the end of it because there were some things that other people brought up that I was like, okay, I didn't I didn't see that same thing, but then others were bringing up stuff. It's like, yep, I was seeing that. And so it is nice to have that further conversation after it. And and I I hope the the film was a big success for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:04

Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:06

I appreciate you sitting down and talking about this and sharing thoughts and opinions, and maybe we can find common sense at some point.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:12

Same. Yeah, feel the same. Thanks, Doug. Well, your film's American Solitaire and Yeah, our website is Americansolitairefilm.com. Okay. American Solitairefilm.com. And they people can go there and figure out where to do it. Meeting schedule will always be there, ticketing will always be there, the trailers there if you haven't seen it, a little bit of the stories there. I also wrote, you know, I've been keeping a blog. I I I I don't know if I put did I put you on my mailing list? Do you think I haven't gotten anything? So for two years since we since we got into pre-production two years ago, I started writing a periodic newsletter called Notes from Hollywood, and it's about the journey to make this film. And um yeah, it's kind of a it's a it's the director's journal, and I'm still writing it. I'll write a report on this whole trip up here and our conversation, and uh I'll s I'll send I'll send you the link for it, but there's a link on the website to that too, and it's archived all the way back to to two years ago, and anyone can hop in and and check it out, or you could join you can join the mailing mailing list if you wanna if you want to learn more about the journey as we as we go forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:15

One last question.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:17

Have you started thinking about what your next project is?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:20

Yes, I have. Yeah. Um I'm writing a new film that I wanna I want it to be about uh a city. I'll just sort of say quickly that's like a city kid who's just graduating from high school, um, who's kind of addicted to technology, and they uh they make their way up to uh small town in Southeast Alaska and discover who they really are.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:48

All right, cool. So good luck on that journey as well. Thank you. Appreciate it, Eric. Right on, man. Thank you.

Closing Thanks And Subscribe Reminder

SPEAKER_01 1:45:57

Thanks for watching this episode of Doug Cat's Questions. Just a reminder: if you've enjoyed the conversation today, please like, subscribe, and we're available on YouTube if you want to watch us, if you just want to listen. Uh, it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you have new uh episodes being launched every Thursday. So thanks again for watching or listening and following us. We appreciate your support.