Dunblane: UK remembers 25 years since nation's worst mass shooting

Sixteen schoolchildren were killed when a man opened fire on a gym class

A fountain in the Garden of Remembrance at Dunblane Cemetery honours the memory of the teacher and 16 schoolchildren killed by a gunman on March 13, 1996. Getty

People in the Scottish town of Dunblane on Saturday privately marked the 25th anniversary of Britain's worst mass shooting, which led to the introduction of some of the world's toughest gun laws.

Sixteen schoolchildren, aged 5 and 6, were killed along with their teacher, who tried to protect them when a man opened fire on a gym class before shooting himself.

Covid-19 restrictions have shut churches across Scotland, forcing a day of private reflection.

But Colin Renwick, minister at Dunblane Cathedral, said the victims would be remembered at an online service on Sunday.

"For those who lost someone in the tragedy, every day will be one of remembering in some way, and the anniversaries that will be just as poignant for them will be the birthdays of those they have lost, as they ponder what might have been," he said.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that she was "thinking today of 16 little children, their teacher and all those who still live with the pain".

"They are forever in our hearts," she said.

Memories of the morning of March 13, 1996, are seared in the memory of people in Dunblane, and the rest of Britain.

Thomas Hamilton, 43, committed the atrocity with legally held handguns, prompting a campaign for an overhaul in Britain's gun ownership laws.

Peter Squires, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton and a member of the Gun Control Network founded after the shooting, said it was a turning point.

"It triggered a whole load of new thinking about what you need to do to make society safe from guns," he said.

Within months, more than 700,000 people signed the Snowdrop Petition set up by the families of the victims, calling for stricter gun controls.

By 1997, their high-profile campaign of speeches, media appearances and political lobbying paid off, despite fierce resistance from gun clubs and recreational shooters.

New laws were passed prohibiting the ownership of handguns, which Mr Squires said had since been held up as a model around the world.

The government compensated handgun owners who handed in their weapons to police stations during an amnesty period.

Guns were used in 0.2 per cent of all offences recorded by police in England and Wales in 2019, official statistics showed, with 33 deaths caused by offences involving firearms.

The figures for Scotland are even lower.

The only comparable mass shooting was in 2010, when 12 people were shot dead by a licensed firearm holder in Cumbria, north-west England.

Andy Murray, formerly the world's No 1 tennis player, was an 8-year-old pupil at Dunblane Primary School when the attack happened.

"At the time, you have no idea how tough something like that is," he told the BBC in June 2013.

"As you start to get older you realise. The thing that is nice now, the whole town, they recovered from it so well."

Jack Crozier and his sister Ellie Crozier lost their 5-year-old sister Emma in the shooting and made it their mission to honour her memory by supporting anti-gun campaigners.

Their focus is on the US, where more than 19,000 people were killed in shootings last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Dunblane campaigners supported calls for a change to US gun laws after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, when 20 children and six staff were killed.

"Eyes are going to be on Dunblane, and we don't need the eyes on Dunblane any more," Mr Crozier told STV.

"But we need to be looking at what is going on in other countries, and America in particular."