THE TERRIBLE events in Connecticut yesterday will have stirred awful memories for the people of Dunblane, 16 years after a shockingly similar tragedy in the town.
Thomas Hamilton launched his attack on the children and teachers of Dunblane Primary School on March 13 1996, leaving 16 children and a teacher dead, after harbouring a grudge that teachers had been spreading gossip about him in the town.
In a rambling letter to Central Region’s education convener almost two months before the tragedy, he claimed teachers had “contaminated all of the older boys’’ with gossip about him.
And, less than a week before he murdered the class of five-year-olds and their teacher Gwen Mayor, Hamilton wrote to the Queen to complain that he had been harassed by the police and branded a sex pervert.
The former Scout leader murdered 15 children and Gwen Mayor in the school’s gym hall before leaving through the emergency exit.
In the playground outside he began shooting into a mobile classroom. He also fired at a group of children walking in a corridor, injuring one teacher. Hamilton then returned to the gym and with one of his two revolvers fired one shot into his mouth, killing himself instantly.
A further 11 children and three adults were rushed to the hospital as soon as the emergency services arrived. One of those children subsequently died from her injuries.
The subsequent public inquiry revealed that Hamilton had licences for six guns and had previously been investigated by local police for inappropriate behaviour around young boys.
The year after the massacre Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 which banned the remaining handguns in England, Scotland and Wales, and left only some historic and sporting handguns legal.
Some at the time felt the legislation a knee-jerk reaction, but the will of an outraged public forced the Government to act quickly.