http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Virginia-Tech-shooting-victim-speaks-at-UB-4031102.php
Virginia Tech shooting victim speaks at UB
Linda Conner Lambeck
Updated 6:43 am, Tuesday, November 13, 2012
- Colin Goddard, survivor of the April 16, 2007 shooting the killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University, discusses the documentary, Living for 32, at the University of Bridgeport on Monday, November 12, 2012. Goddard was shot four times in the incident. Photo: Brian A. Pounds | Buy This Photo
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BRIDGEPORT -- The day he was shot four times in a French class at Virginia Tech was a game changer for Colin Goddard.
That's when he went from college student to gun control advocate.
On Monday, Goddard took that message to the University of Bridgeport, where dozens of hands in the audience shot up when he asked how many knew someone who had been shot.
Many knew Moin Hassan, the graduate student gunned down at a Fairfield Avenue market in September.
Reginee Reese, sitting in the back of the student center, took out her hand to start listing all the gun violence victims she knew: a boyfriend, an uncle and, most recently, a 15-year-old cousin, Keijahnae Robinson, killed while sitting on her front porch.
"I want to know how do you get your voice heard so people listen to you," asked Reese, 18.
Goddard, on a campaign to better regulate the sale of guns, told Reese he decided to stand up and not to be defined by that April 16, 2007, shooting that left 32 dead and 17, himself included, injured. Instead, he decided to focus on change.
The audience saw a screening of "Living for 32," a documentary film about the shooting, and also heard from Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent, a Yale University senior who survived the Aurora Colo., theater massacre in July.
This was Rodriguez-Torrent's first time talking to a large crowd about the event. He called it therapy.
"I think there are a lot of people across the country who really don't understand the daily violence that goes on in places like Bridgeport or New Haven or Chicago or D.C. They just literally don't get it," Rodriguez-Torrent said.
So far in Bridgeport this year, there have been 21 homicides.
"There is no returning to how it was," said Goddard of his experience and his campaign. "I have to find a way to turn that negative experience toward something positive."
Goddard said his main focus is getting a bill passed in Congress that would make it more difficult to sell guns to dangerous people. He wants all states held to the same standard.
The killer in the Virginia Tech shooting, who had a history of mental health issues, had two semiautomatic handguns, dozens of 10- and 15-round magazines, and 400 rounds of hollow-point ammunition.
After he recovered from his wounds, Goddard went to work for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, going undercover to gun shows, where he was able to buy guns with little or no identification or background checks.
Lisa E. Nelson, a city resident, asked if change will really happen.
"How do you feel about where we are nationally," Nelson asked.
"I'm hopeful," said Goddard. "I think we are ripe for change."
He said he knows it is an uphill battle.
Goddard rejects the argument some have made that if other students had been armed that day at Norris Hall, they could have defended themselves and fewer would have died.
"We can't have shootouts on campuses. That would be ridiculous," Goddard said.
Once he takes care of the supply side -- what he considers the easy part -- Goddard plans to focus on the issue of demand for guns, making people less likely to want guns to solve problems.
"That is the harder part," he said.
John Marshall Lee told the audience one thing they can do is report things they see. There is a way they can do so anonymously. "You'll feel stronger if you do," he said.
Reese, meanwhile, wants to stage a "100-mom march" through the streets of Bridgeport.
A representative of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, in the back of the room, gave Reese her card before she left.
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