What is it really like to shoot someone, or to experience being shot? What are the emotions, the justifications, the psychologies behind gun culture?

A French Foreign Legionnaire talks about the fascination guns hold, and of sniping a renegade comrade who’d taken two hostages. A former RUC officer, paralysed from the chest down by four rounds during an IRA ambush, speaks of his gradual acceptance of what happened.

We meet an arms dealer, distanced from the effects of his wares, and a police officer caught in a deadly stand-off with an armed robber.

And we hear the remarkable story of Margaret Jagger, who lost her partner when they were both shot in their car during an attempted robbery. A 14-year-old boy fired the fatal shot, and was subsequently sentenced to spend his life in prison. Margaret feels no bitterness, expressing only sadness for the circumstances that placed a gun in the hands of a disaffected young man.

Exploring fear, fantasy and forgiveness, this unflinching film dissects the fatal allure and the terrible effects of guns in professional, criminal and personal lives.