One View of Public Safety at Richmond on January 20, 2020

Allow me to share a report from Richmond, Virginia, dated January 20, 2020. Karina Bolster of WHSV, ABC Channel 3, wrote a story about Andrew Goddard, the Legislative Director for the Virginia Center for Public Safety. It is a telling account and an inside look at fear of gun violence.

For years, the Virginia Center for Public Safety has held a gun violence vigil at the State Capitol on Lobby Day in which families affected by gun violence join together in solidarity to remember their loved ones. However, concerns for safety Monday led Director Goddard to make a difficult decision about attending Lobby Day. He says ...

“We bring in buses from other parts of Virginia with Virginians and we’ve had to cancel all those buses.”

In making his decision not to bring in the buses, Goddard thought about Charlottesville during the Unite the Right Rally two years ago. He wanted to avoid any such ugly confrontation with thousands of gun advocates who attended the Richmond rally in response to state Democrats’ plans to pass a slate of gun-control bills.

Goddard had studied the proposed measures. Similar proposals have passed in other states and survived constitutional challenges, and Goddard says …

"We know that background checks, extreme risk protection orders, things like that, they are not going to stop an ordinary law-abiding Virginian from protecting themselves with a gun, or being able to keep that gun."

Yet, Andrew Goddard's concerns go well beyond simply avoiding any conflicts. He explains …

“We don’t want to invite children, we don’t want to invite gun violence victims who have already been traumatized, we don’t want to invite families of gun violence, because the mere fact of having to walk through a group of people... with guns is an intimidation they don’t need … “We don’t want any of those people to even add a small ounce of stress in their lives.”

You see, Goddard's son, Colin, was among the 17 people wounded at the mass shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.

Colin remembers that horrible day and his painful ordeal …

“But when they pulled me out of this room, ultimately, they laid me somewhere here in the hallway for a while. The girl I had driven to class that day, Kristina, was lying with me. I remember she looked like she was about to fall asleep. So I kept trying to talk to her, keep her awake. You know, I knew that I was going to be OK when the police were there. I remember looking at the SWAT team members’ eyes, and they were—they looked like, you know, full moons, they were so big. They were so on edge, so alert. And they asked me if I could get up and leave, and I said, 'There’s no way I can get up.'

“I didn’t know that I had a broken leg at that point. One of the bullets had broken my leg. I had received four shots in total at that time. Above my knee, in both of my hips, and then through my shoulder. This is the only one that ever exited. I still have three bullets here in small pieces, all over my hips and my knee.”

(Amy Goodman. “Va. Tech Shooting Survivor Recounts 2007 Massacre and Urges Obama, Romney to Address Gun Violence. Democracy Now. October 02, 2012.)

Colin Goddard Today

Ali Rockett of the Richmond Times-Dispatch (2017) relates Colin's father's painful memories about that day …

“Andrew Goddard watched his son’s blood flowing freely from the four gunshot wounds he suffered after a student at Virginia Tech opened fire on campus 10 years ago.

“Soon, the white hospital bedsheet was soaked red.”

Andrew, who lives in Henrico County, Virginia, says …

“I sat there thinking, ‘What is this going to make me do?’ I want to offer something in exchange for asking for him to live.

Andrew Goddard did just that. He chose to speak out on behalf of those who have been silenced forever by gun violence, as well as those who have been injured and traumatized. He has spent the past five years working to prevent gun violence both in Virginia and in the United States. Goddard says …

“The people you’re working for aren’t the ones who have been shot; they’re the ones who haven’t yet been shot.”

Andrew has defended sensible gun legislation such as Virginia’s recently-repealed “One Handgun a Month” law and the prohibition of guns on college campuses and houses of worship. He has fought the relaxation of other restrictions, such as permitting concealed carry in bars and restaurants. And he has pushed for additional protections such as closing the gun show loop-hole, which allows individuals to sell or buy weapons without background checks or other safeguards.

Andrew Goddard explains …

“The fear is the people from outside; that's the unknown. The people from Virginia – we have met them, we have talked to them, we have sat with them, we have had meetings with them for years... but who can you say when you've got people who ended up doing something like what happened in Charlottesville – those people are being invited here, almost, it's ludicrous."

How about Colin? By his own admission, Colin Goddard will tell you that he was one of the lucky ones that day. 32 students and teachers did not survive the shooting. 16 others were wounded. It took three painful months of physical therapy before Colin could even get out of a wheelchair. He has dozens of constant reminders of the shooting: bullet fragments lodged in his body, leaching toxins into his blood.

Like hundreds and possibly thousands of shooting survivors across the country, Colin Goddard, now a 33-year-old father of two, is suffering a lesser-known and often unrecognized side effect of gun violence: lead poisoning. With his blood lead levels seven times higher than what is considered safe, Goddard faces long-term health risks, including neurological problems, kidney dysfunction and reproductive issues.

Colin has undergone surgery to remove some of the bullet fragments in his hip, which only slightly decreased his blood lead levels. While toxicologists insist the remaining 50 or more pieces need to come out, doctors say it’s too dangerous to remove them. Colin says …

“It feels like you’re a frog in boiling water. You don’t know these small changes in you until it’s too late.”

X-Ray of Colin's Remaining Fragments

Colin now works as a member of Everytown for Gun Safety and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He is an working advocate for solutions to the gun violence epidemic sweeping the nation.

Yet, Colin said he didn't immediately join the the gun safety movement. It wasn't until the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., when he watched the victims on TV the same way the rest of the nation watched his tragedy at Virginia Tech, that something changed for Goddard. He has come to refer to this shift as his “Newtown moment.” He says …

“I think the fact that it was an elementary school shook this country to its core. People said, ‘Something has to change.’”

Anxiety over school shootings and fear of actions by alt-right militia groups have become common fears in America. One third of U.S. adults are so stressed by the prospect of mass shootings that they avoid visiting certain places or attending certain events, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Harris Poll (2019). Almost a quarter said they’ve changed their lives due to fear of mass shootings.

In 2019, mass shootings occurred in a bank, a college, a warehouse, a municipal center, an apartment, a food festival, a Walmart, and a downtown district. A mass shooting can take place virtually anywhere at any time.

People like Andrew and Colin Goddard are working hard to address the problem of gun violence in America. It's not just mass shootings and threats from militant militias that they are trying to study. A 2018 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the civilian gun death rate in the U.S. is nearly four times that of Switzerland, five times that of Canada, 35 times that of the United Kingdom, and 53 times that of Japan. There are, on average, more than 100 gun deaths in the US per day. Brave activists face a tide of violent gun scenarios.