You're listening to The Drag.

This podcast,

This podcast contains strong language, references and descriptions of domestic abuse, violence, and suicide.

It also has graphic descriptions of gun violence in schools.

Mental health is an important part of this story, so please take care while listening.

Previously on this season of darkness, if I told somebody I was in the first school shooting,

they always say, oh, Columbine,

but the first school shooting, of course, was UT. It's very hard for people in modern day America to realize that this kind of thing did not happen.

Every time there is a mass shooting,

the image another caught me as I tried at my sleep.

It's one of those things that come time as it passes on by,

this will fade somewhat from memory, but it won't go away.

And it shouldn't go away.

We should be reminded that this sort of thing did happen and can happen again.

My name is Colin Goddard.

I'm a senior policy advocate at Everytown for Gun Safety and

nearly eight years ago I survived the shooting at Virginia Tech. It was a shooting involving

a young man with a diagnosed his history of mental illness that was that went untreated.

Colin Goddard sat in front of a microphone at a wooden table on February 12th, 2015.

In front of him were the Texas State Senators who served on the State Affairs Committee.

A timer counted down his two minutes to speak.

He was one of the many that day testifying in opposition to Texas Senate Bill 11.

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