Gun laws have changed 10 years after Va. Tech
Nation’s deadliest school shooting renewed debate
Colin Goddard still jumps at the sound of a slammed door. Three bullets lodged in either hip and above his left knee are also constant reminders of the shooting massacre he survived on the Virginia Tech campus 10 years ago Sunday.
That incident, which left 32 people dead and 17 wounded, remains the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. It reawakened the debate on gun violence and led to significant changes in gun laws.
The shooting also spurred changes in campus safety, including campuswide emergency notifications and threat assessment teams that are the norm on college campuses today. But it was the fight over gun laws stemming from the shooting that took center stage.
“Efforts to help build a movement are more robust and sophisticated and better versed than they were before,” said Goddard, 31, who was shot four times and later became a gun violence prevention advocate. “That’s makes me feel good. We’re on the right trajectory.”
On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, 23, a Virginia Tech senior, entered campus armed with two semi-automatic handguns and nearly 400 rounds of ammunition and began shooting students and faculty. After the 10-minute rampage, he killed himself.
Cho, a South Korean citizen and U.S. permanent resident, had a history of mental disorders. Two years before the shooting, a Virginia court declared him mentally ill.
The incident gained international attention and reignited the national debate on gun control, especially in regard to mental health and background checks. Cho’s mental health status should have barred him from passing a background check to buy guns, said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Less than a year after the Colin Goddard, shooting, President George W. Bush signed the NICS Improvement Amendments Act, which tightened reporting of mental health data from states to federal databases for background checks on weapons purchases. The bipartisan legislation is considered one of the strongest recent federal mandates on gun sales.
“As a result of that law, almost every state dramatically improved reporting of that kind of information,” Gross said. “That process is still ongoing today.”
The shooting and new law also motivated gun advocates. While petitioning Washington to loosen gun laws, gun-rights lobbyists turned their focus to the states, helping to pass new gun laws in several states, said Erich Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America, a pro-gun lobby representing 1.5 million members and activists across the U.S.
Mass shootings such as the one at Virginia Tech could be prevented if more citizens have guns to take down shooters, Platt said.
“There has been this crescendo of mass shootings that have driven people to say, ‘We need more lawful people who can protect themselves and stop these things,’ ” he said.
To date, 14 states have passed “constitutional carry” laws, allowing gun owners to carry weapons without permits, with most of those laws passed after the Virginia Tech shooting, he said. In addition, 10 states allow guns on public university and college campuses.
Today the movement to prevent gun violence and enact sensible gun laws is as robust as ever, Goddard said. States such as California, Nevada and Oregon have recently passed laws toughening gun rules. And Goddard, now married with an infant daughter, trains other survivors of gun violence in advocacy. His current goal: background checks on every gun sold in America.