On March 13, 1996, a madman entered Dunblane Elementary School. He opened fire to the children. He murdered sixteen of them in cold blood.
This is one of the most tragic dates in the post-war history of Great Britain. Today is 26 years since the Dunblane massacre.
School shootings
A few weeks ago, the world media again had to report on the aftermath of the school shooting in the US . This time it took place in Oxford Township, Michigan . It is difficult to count how many such incidents have occurred in recent years. Newtown 2012, Blacksburg 2007 and Columbine 1998 are the most tragic of them.
Successive US presidents promise to tighten firearms regulations, but so far all such promises have turned out to be empty phrases at funeral ceremonies. However, there are countries in the world where mass murder with the use of firearms has led to a radical tightening of the rights to possess them . One of these countries is Great Britain.
Anyone who has ever been to England has noted that the average policeman usually does not have firearms. Paradoxically, until until the end of the 1990s, civilians had fairly free access to it. However, everything changed in 1997. Extremely strict rules on the sale and possession of weapons were introduced after the campaign of parents of children murdered in one of the most tragic school shootings in history.
Killer Portrait
Dunblane is a small, picturesque town located in the central part of Scotland. Currently, it has approx. 10 thousand. residents. Until the mid-90s, it was known mainly for the historic gothic cathedral located there. The spring of 1996 changed this state of affairs.
Entrance to Dunblane Primary School
The person who made Dunblane a symbol of senseless and cruel violence was Thomas Hamilton . The man didn't have a good reputation in the neighborhood. He used to be the chaperone of a local scout team, but was accused of various pedophile activities . The police did not formally charge him, but Hamilton had to quit his job. Shortly thereafter, opened a network of youth clubs where firearms were taught and various sports activities were conducted. Initially, these centers were very popular. He attended them, among others British tennis player Andy Murray from Dunblane.
Meanwhile, Hamilton began collecting weapons and returned to his pedophile practices. As a result of rumors about his ambiguous behavior, the popularity of the clubs began to decline rapidly. Soon after, the man was forced to close them. Again, the police did not take any interest in him.
It is uncertain why Hamilton decided to attack Dunblane Elementary . There are hypotheses that was supposed to be revenge for tarnishing his opinion and labeling him a pedophile . What has been established is that it was acting consciously at the time of the attack . Police investigators ruled out his insanity and that he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Blood on snowdrops
On March 13, 1996, at 9.30am, Hamilton parked his car in front of Dunblane Elementary School and cut the telephone cables to it. Then he directed his steps to the gym adjacent to the facility. He had with him two legally purchased Smith &Wesson M19 revolvers, two Browning High Power pistols and 743 rounds of ammunition . Before the fire was opened, he managed to put on the shooting eye and ear protectors.
Its goal was a group of first-graders preparing for physical education classes. 28 children between 5 and 6 years of age, as well as three adult guardians :Eileen Harrild, Gwen Mayor and Mary Blake. Hamilton fired random shots in their direction. Two teachers with a group of children managed to hide in a wardrobe for sports equipment. Gwen Mayor, 43, was trying to cover the students with her own body . The attacker shot her 6 times. The teacher was pregnant . Both she and her unborn child were put on the madman's death toll.
The attacker had two legally purchased Smith &Wesson M19 revolvers with him.
Hamilton then fired shots at the students seated in the room from which the shooting could be seen. The then 11-year-old Steven Hopper described his memories of those events to the press: I looked and saw a man with a gun approaching me . When he turned around and fired, I just dove under the desk. The shots were very quick, as if someone were hitting a hammer . Then there was a break for a few seconds and he started over.
We know from expert examinations that Hamilton returned to the hall and started killing the children who were still alive . When he finished, he put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and shot himself. The massacre lasted only four minutes. During this time, the killer managed to fire over a hundred rounds of ammunition and kill 18 people. 2 adults (including himself), 14 children aged 5, one aged 6 and the unborn child Gwen Mayor.
Fight for a better tomorrow
The news of the tragic events in Dunblane shocked all of Great Britain. Yesterday a real evil came to us. We don't know why and we probably will never understand it - said the day after the attack, the devastated school principal. The country mourned. Vigils were organized in honor of the murdered children, and their funeral was attended by members of the royal family . Over time, this tremendous grief motivated the parents of the victims to fight to change the law governing access to firearms.
One of the leaders of the movement was Mick North , a biochemist whose 5-year-old daughter Sophie was killed in the attack. North abandoned his research career and founded the Gun Control Network , an organization lobbying for the reform of the then law. A campaign led by the mothers of the murdered children was developing at the same time. Its aim was to introduce significant restrictions on the sale and possession of firearms throughout the UK. The symbol of the action was the snowdrop, the only flower that blooms in Scotland in early spring.
Monument commemorating the victims of the massacre
The petition prepared by the Snowdrop Campaign was signed by over a million British citizens in a few months and went to parliament. Soon after was published the so-called Cullen's report . The document prepared for the government presents a number of relatively balanced recommendations regarding the envisaged reforms. The report also revealed shortcomings in the actions of local authorities, which had been informed about possible mental problems of Hamilton since 1991. At that time, no action was taken to withdraw his firearms license.
Weapons not for everyone
Under tremendous pressure from the public, Conservative Prime Minister John Major and his successor in the office, Labor, Tony Blair, enacted two laws in 1997 that radically tightened gun rights. They also banned the sale of most of its types.
Shooting enthusiasts had to take into account a very meticulous control of their mental health and a number of other detailed procedures. The police check how many parking tickets you have. Have you ever driven a car after consuming alcohol? If you're not absolutely okay, you'll never get a gun license - one of the members of the UK shooting club said in an interview with CBS.
To help enforce the new restrictions, a government program has even been created worth £ 150 million. This money was bought from the owners of over 162 thousand. firearms and 700 tons of ammunition.
Lessons from school shooting
If there is anything that can bear God's gaze because it is pure, it is the spirit of a little child - these words are engraved on the obelisk in Dunblane Cathedral commemorating the victims of the shootings. The townspeople managed to deal with the trauma of the tragedy that struck them 26 years ago. In 2018, the parish priest, Father Basil O'Sulivan, supported the families of the victims during the sixth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook School in Newtown . A twinning shootout to the one that happened in Scotland in 1996. There, too, most of the victims were school children . The visit is documented in the movie "Lessons from the School Shooting:Letters from Dunblane" available on Netflix.
Massacre victim, teacher Gwen Mayor, with her students in 1996
For obvious reasons, it is in the US that the hottest talks about restricting access to firearms take place. They get stronger each time there is another mass murder in which innocent people are killed. Both supporters of easy access to weapons and their opponents have their own arguments. One is that the almost complete ban on firearms in the UK has only led to a temporary decline in firearms offenses . On the other hand, it is an indisputable fact that, since the tragedy in Dunblane, there has been no school shooting in the UK. There have been over 200 such tragedies in the United States since 1996.
Bibliography:
- Solly, How the 1996 Dunblane Massacre Pushed the U.K. to Enact Stricter Gun Laws, Smithsonian Magazine (accessed on 20/02/2022).
- Cohen, The life and death of Thomas Watt Hamilton , Independent (accessed on 20/02/2022).
- What happened at Dunblane? , The Week (accessed on 20/02/2022).
- 13 March 1996 Sixteen children killed in Dunblane massacre , stv News (accessed on 20/02/2022).
- Dunblane massacre:Timeline of school shooting that shocked a nation , stv News (accessed on 20/02/2022).