On December 10th 2012 my gun violence group and I Skyped a survivor of the Virginia Tech Shooting, who is working with the Brady Campaign, Colin Goddard. The ultimate goal of this fieldwork was to hear his story if possible, as well as learning from someone from the Brady Campaign and getting as much information as possible. One thing that I learned from Colin was that the shooting happened in two parts in the span of two hours. I also learned that Colin’s phone call was the only phone call that to the police that reached the police from the school building that he was in. He also told us about how he had been in to much shock to even register that he had gotten shot three times at different periods. One of the questions I have is how did the shooter manage to shoot an entire dorm, and then an hour later go to another school building without being stopped? I learned that the Brady Campaign has a lot of people that were directly related to gun violence in hit and fighting for their cause. I also learned from Colin his entire recount of the events that happened that day. I think some next steps are to follow up with Colin and talk about what else we can do. I also think that we should try to find his movie so we can watch it with the class. We could possibly even talk to the head of the Brady Campaign. I learned that we are quite good at interviews and have gotten better since the beginning of the year at I providing questions, as well as talking to people that know a lot more about the topic than we do. I think that one thing tap hat I did particularly well on this visit was interacting with the interviewee in order to learn as much as possible. I want to remember the way he used a vivid description of the events that happened. I also want to remember what he said: “I was in the right place at the right time. I was at school”
