Rick Jervis

USA TODAY

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 campus-wide 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 in the shooting and later became a gun violence prevention advocate. “That’s makes me feel good. We’re on the right trajectory.”

On Apr. 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.

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The incident gained international media attention and reignited the national debate on gun control, especially in regards to mental health and background checks. Cho’s mental health status should have barred him from passing a background check to buy his guns, said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Less than a year after the 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, liberal 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 USA.

Mass shootings such as the one on 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.

For Goddard, the moment to turn to activism came during the 2009 Binghamton, N.Y., civic center shooting, when a gunman killed 13 people before killing himself. The TV images of that incident were eerily familiar: the wail of ambulances; the teddy bears and candles laid at the scene; the rising body count.

“It really took me back to my own experience,” he said. “Another dozen families were on Day One of that crazy journey.”

Goddard joined the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and began speaking at rallies and on Capitol Hill for the need for stricter gun rules. But he was stymied by the inaction of federal lawmakers on the issue.

After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting left 20 grade-school children and six adults dead, Goddard was dismayed to see a bill that would have expanded background checks on gun purchases defeated in Congress by just six votes. “That was an incredibly tough couple of days,” he said.

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.

“I know we’re not going to get American guns death to zero. That’s unrealistic,” he said. “But I know we could prevent what happened in Binghamton or Virginia Tech and we can bring those numbers down. It’s absolutely worth it.”

Follow Jervis at: @MrRJervis.