Colin Goddard felt a call to action as he watched another shooting unfold on his television screen.
A survivor of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 that left 32 students and faculty members dead, Goddard now works as a legislative director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and is traveling across the country to promote a recent documentary advocating sensible gun laws.
Goddard and Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke were joined by GW students and faculty – as well as a number of Virginia Tech alumni – Tuesday night for a screening of the documentary and a discussion on gun laws and practices in the United States.
“Living for 32,” which opened 3 weeks ago at the Sundance Film Festival and is one of eight documentaries that’s been shortlisted for an Oscar, tells the story of April 16, 2007 – the day of the shooting – and Goddard’s journey from recovery to gun shows to Capitol Hill.
“It started as a 5-minute PSA in support of the Brady Campaign,” Goddard said.
The crew eventually expanded the interview into a 40-minute documentary.
“It grew naturally,” he said.
Goddard said speaking in front of students and communities has proven to be “part of [his] healing process.” Out of the 17 students in his French classroom at the time of the shooting, Goddard was one of only seven who survived.
Though Goddard and Helmke focused primarily on gun laws and a campaign to keep guns off college campuses, Goddard said mental health is also an important aspect of why shootings occur.
“Any instance where there’s a school shooting, there’s always someone who knows. Happy, stable people don’t do this,” Goddard said.
Goddard and the Brady Campaign are working to gather support for a bill that would close the gun-show loophole by making background checks a requirement for all gun purchases, as well as another bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines. Goddard hopes to bring the bill before the House of Representatives.
“I don’t like the idea of combating violence with violence,” Helmke said in regards to students carrying weapons to class on the off-chance that a university would be faced with a shooter. “In 2011 we should have better ways to deal with that than just, ‘I’ll shoot them before he shoots me,’ ” he said.
