Pro-Gun Activists Call Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor a "Coward"

Recently, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence documented attacks by pro-gun activists on a Minnesota survivor who lost her sister in a domestic homicide. Now, just two days later, another pro-gun activist has made an ugly attack on a gun violence survivor, in this case one who was shot multiple times during the massacre at Virginia Tech.

Commenting on the blog "Snowflakes in Hell: Firearm Policy and Politics in Pennsylvania" (which is run by Keith Milligan, an Election Volunteer Coordinator with the NRA-ILA) a pro-gun activist named Miguel Gonzalez stated the following:

Colin Goddard is now a mouthpiece for the Antin Gun movement because he is in a desperate search for the gonads he lost under a desk at Virginia Tech. It has to shame him to no end that a 76-year-old professor blocking a door with his body showed more balls than he will ever have.

To Andrew Goddard: The only roach that you know, scurried away under a desk that day at VT and is the fruit of your loins.

Colin Goddard was 21 years old on the morning of April 16, 2007 when he and the 16 other students in his class began to hear a commotion in another part of the building. Their teacher ordered them to get under their desks and asked someone to call 911. Colin was in the process of doing so when deranged student Seung-Hui Cho burst into the room and opened fire. Colin was hit four times - in both hips, the knee and the shoulder. When he dropped his phone, another student was able to cover it with her hair and complete the call, bringing police to the scene.

By his own admission, Colin 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. Nonetheless, it took three painful months of physical therapy before Colin could even get out of a wheelchair.

Colin's father, Andrew, soon got involved with the Million Mom March, an organization with the motto, "Sensible gun laws, safe kids." After hearing about another gruesome mass shooting in Binghamton, New York in April 2009, Colin knew he had to get involved, too. He contacted the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and began interning with them. Today he serves as their Assistant Director of Legislative Affairs.

Gonzalez, for his part, is a pro-gun activist from Miami, Florida who runs the blog "Gun Free Zone." He can also be found on Twitter. And he wasn't the only pro-gun activist who made such accusations about Goddard. Several others followed his lead.

At the "Snowflakes in Hell" blog in question, a user going by the name of "Colin" added, "+1,000,000 for Miguel! My feelings exactly. I was raised to call a spade a spade, and Goddard’s definitely a coward (and a liar to boot)."

Another commenter at the blog, "cargosquid," then stated, "As for Colin Goddard, he didn’t 'freeze.' By his own words, he was hiding under a desk for at least 10 MINUTES, before the Cho showed up. He refused, consciously, to defend himself OR leave the target area. Lockdown? Screw that. What is he, a child?" "cargosquid" is a pro-gun activist from Richmond, Virginia who runs the blog, "United Conservatives of Virginia." A video of him being interviewed can be seen here.

Pro-gun activist Link Porterfield Tweeted the following at CSGV about Goddard: "Civil rights activist calls a coward a coward." Porterfield is from Boise, Idaho and runs the blog, "What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Ammunition?" His Twitter account is @peaceloveammo

Finally, Kurt Hoffman, a pro-gun activist from Southern Illinois, Tweeted at CSGV to show us a blog he wrote about Colin in which he called him "contemptibly, loathsomely evil."

Why these individuals chose to say such things about Colin and his father—whatever their policy or philosophical differences with the Goddard family might be—is beyond imagining.

[Editor's Note: Since this blog was published, Keith Milligan has changed the name of his blog from "Snowflakes to Hell" to "Shall Not Be Questioned."]