Connecticut Shootings: The Lessons From Dunblane, Scotland - Where 16 Children Were Massacred In '96 [View all]

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Last edited Sun Dec 16, 2012, 10:09 AM - Edit history (1)

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Massacred
What happened on 13 March 1996 was the worst school shooting ever perpetrated in Britain. Sixteen children were killed - most of them just five years old. Their teacher was also shot.

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Out of the massacre came a determination that something should be done to prevent a similar horror in future.

There was the Snowdrop Campaign, calling for a ban on the private ownership and use of handguns in Britain. The campaign was named after the small spring flowers which had already begun to come out on that cold March morning. Some 700,000 people signed the Snowdrop petition and the law was changed.

There was legislation too, raising standards of school security across the UK. No longer would it be easy for an unauthorised adult to wander into a primary school gymnasium with four handguns and 700 rounds of ammunition, as Thomas Hamilton had done in Dunblane.

In Scotland, the link between the availability of guns and the number of people shot dead every year is accepted. Since Dunblane, the public have remained firmly in favour of keeping firearms out of private hands.

This year, five people have been killed by guns in Scotland. That's in line with the rest of the UK per head of population and a death rate 50 times lower than in the United States

Full article:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20736167

Dunblane school massacre

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Gun Control Network was founded in the aftermath of the shootings and was supported by some parents of victims at Dunblane and of the Hungerford Massacre.[12] Bereaved families and their friends also initiated a campaign to ban private gun ownership, named the Snowdrop Petition (because March is snowdrop time in Scotland), which gained 705,000 signatures in support and was supported by some newspapers, including the Sunday Mail, a Scottish newspaper whose own petition to ban handguns had raised 428,279 signatures within five weeks of the massacre.

The Cullen Inquiry into the massacre recommended that the government introduce tighter controls on handgun ownership[13] and consider whether an outright ban would be in the public interest.[14] The report also recommended changes in school security[15] and vetting of people working with children under 18.[16] The Home Affairs Select Committee agreed with the need for restrictions on gun ownership but stated that a handgun ban was not appropriate.

In response to this public debate, the then-current Conservative government introduced a ban on all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre single-shot weapons in England, Scotland and Wales. Following the 1997 General Election, the Labour government of Tony Blair introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, banning the remaining .22 cartridge handguns in England, Scotland and Wales, and leaving only muzzle-loading and historic handguns legal, as well as certain sporting handguns (e.g. "Long-Arms&quot that fall outside the Home Office Definition of a "Handgun" due to their dimensions. The ban does not affect Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre#Gun_control