Protest Easy Guns

Testimony by Andrew Goddard, father of injured victim Colin Goddard, before the Virginia Tech Panel

Mr. Chairman and members of the VT panel.

My name is Andrew Goddard and my son Colin was shot 4 times in room 211
of Norris hall at VT. I stand before you today ready to take you to a
place that no one else may choose, or be at liberty, to take you. I
want you to sit beside me in the hospital room on that Monday night
with my son. I want you to look at him lying there with all the pipes,
tubes and wires of modern medicine connected all over his body. I want
you to listen to the beeps and whirs of the machines that are working
to help his body overcome the multiple shots. I want you to look at
his face and see perhaps your own child or a loved one and feel with me
the helplessness of being a parent that can do nothing for their child
at that moment. You will learn, as I did, that bullet wounds are not
sewn shut, due to risk of infection, but left
to bleed. I want you to watch, as I did, as blood oozes from the 5
holes in his body, soaking the dressings, his pillow and his bed
sheets. You will learn, as I did, that bullet fragments lodged in his
body are not routinely removed and that they will stay with him for
life, as will the huge titanium rod driven down the full length of his
femur to stabilize the fracture. I wanted to take you to that bedside
to remind you of the suffering of the survivors, I will leave it to
others more qualified than I to take you to the place from which the
majority of the other victims will never return.

Starting that night, and for almost every day since, I have conducted
my own internal investigation into the event, as any parent would do.
I asked myself a million times, how did this happen to my son and why?
I still have no concrete answers other than that this awful tragedy was
the direct result of the interaction between a deranged individual and
2 simple, efficient and readily available killing machines.

As to the motive for the actions of the killer, I have no idea, but
the method that he used to carry out this heinous act is much easier to
understand. Despite what others have said, my son and the other
victims were not in the wrong place at the wrong time. My son was in
the right place, a classroom of a well respected university at 9:00 am
in the morning. What place could have been righter? Despite what
others may tell you, the fact the Cho was able to purchase his weapons
so easily is a serious indication of the problems that exist with gun
control in our country and especially here in Virginia.

On Sept 11 2001 Al Qaeda terrorists carried out in the most horrifying
attack on US soil ever, killing more than 3000 people in several
locations. The government sprung into action and we as a nation were
warned about the imminent threat to our lives posed by Al Qaeda. Many
new laws and various pieces of legislation were enacted to keep us safe
from this hideous threat. The government even installed a color coded
alert system to keep us informed about the level of threat that these
terrorists pose. I believe it is currently yellow.
Since that same day in 2001 at least 60,000 of our fellow citizens have
been killed in gun violence, which represents a rate of killing of more
than 20 times that inflicted by Al Qaeda, A rate of killing that they
could only dream about, yet we are still unable or unwilling to review
our legislation on gun control.

Members of the panel, if such a thing existed, then today the National
Security Threat Level for gun violence would be at level RED which
would represent the highest level or in other words “absolute certainty
of attack”. At least the same number of our fellow citizens will die
from gunfire today as died at VT on April 16th. Indeed the number may
be considerably higher. Sadly the level was also RED the day before
the VT attack, the day of that attack, the day after the attack and
every single day since. It is red today, it will be red tomorrow and
will remain that way until we come to our senses and take some concrete
action to protect ourselves from this needless slaughter.

Yesterday I visited VT and was given a tour of Norris hall by one of
the police officers that investigated the incident. I was very
impressed by his knowledge and the professional way that he dealt with
my questions. I also saw the first signs of changes that the
university is making in light of the knowledge learned from the
attack. One specific example was the replacement of the original bump
bar door locks with new flush mounted locks that cannot readily be
chained together to corral victims into a killing zone.

Why do i ask you to consider the fine details? It became clear to me
yesterday, that the difference between me sitting here with my son
and me sitting with the other parents of the deceased victims can be
measured not in yards or feet, but in fractions of an inch. The
difference in response time that meant the difference between life or
death can be measured not in hours or minutes, but in mere seconds!
(This paragraph was added without notes, so may be slightly
inaccurate)

You as a panel need to examine all the aspects of this tragedy as the
eyes of the world are on you. When you finally make your report you
will have the ears of the world too. Please examine the minutia of
this event, but don’t be afraid to look at the big picture items also.
The future security of American campuses and other locations is in your
hands.

(added)

This was to be the end of my testimony, however, in light of what I
have heard today I would like to add one final comment:

(this was in light to the repeated reply by officials that they could
not answer questions regarding Cho due to the laws of confidentiality)

On April 16th. my son's privacy was breached and many of his colleagues
and faculty had their privacy totally eliminated, along with their
lives! I find it incredibly distasteful that an individual, who so
brutally violated the privacy of so many, should have his own privacy
so doggedly preserved, even though he is deceased!