Once again, U.S. news has provided a shocking reminder of the pain and devastation of losing a loved one in a shooting. Nothing can prepare you for what it feels like to leave your child at the school gates in the morning and never see him alive again. Twenty-six years ago, this is what my family was forced to endure. My five-year-old daughter Sophie was one of the victims of the March 13, 1996 massacre at Dunblane Elementary School.
This is not the first time that parallels have been drawn between what happened in a small Scottish village and what happened yesterday in another small town in the United States. The horror of the events is the same, but while Dunblane was the only shooting at the British school, the same cannot be said of the events at Robb Primary School in Uvalde. It was the latest in a string of mass shootings in the United States, often in schools.
After Dunblane, many in Britain, including the families of the victims, acknowledged that the most significant factor in the tragedy had been the ease with which the perpetrator had accessed the pistols, in his case high-powered pistols. At the time, UK law allowed him to have them legally. Dunblane families and others campaigned to ban guns, and we were not distracted by those who said gun ownership was not the issue.
Needless to say, regardless of the other factors involved, the only thing common to all mass shootings is that the perpetrator had a gun. Thanks to massive public support, which was channeled through Dunblane families, other activists, the media and a significant number of politicians, successive Conservative and Labor governments passed legislation in 1997 and introduced the property ban. deprived of handguns. This was despite the hostility of the arms lobby and many on the right, including the current prime minister, who strongly opposed any change to gun laws.
The changes not only reduced the availability of a dangerous type of weapon, but also indicated the direction the UK wanted to take, which minimized the use and availability of weapons and always put public safety at the forefront. from the agenda. Since the late 1990s, levels of gun crime in Britain have dropped significantly, gun homicides are rare and there have been very few other multiple shootings.
At the time, many suggested that we only campaigned as a way to deal with our loss, even though it was never cathartic at the time. But we knew that our voices would be heard for what had happened to our children, and for me it was my responsibility to do what we could. I am very proud to be a part of something that has achieved so much and made life safer for others.
The British experience shows that gun control works, but this is a lesson that Americans seem reluctant to learn. Whenever, in the years immediately following Dunblane, I was asked to comment on shootings in U.S. schools, which were happening with increasing frequency, I naively expressed the view that as soon as the Americans realized of what had been achieved after the shooting of our own school there would have been a haste to take similar measures. I could not have been more wrong, and with increasingly lax gun laws, too many of its citizens continue to pay the price with their lives.
The numbers are staggering. Deaths from armed violence total more than 17,000 so far this year, thousands of them homicides (only four homicides with guns have been reported in Britain in 2022). In 2020, 999 children under the age of eleven were killed or wounded in shootings in the United States. Armed violence remains one of the leading causes of death, in fact the leading cause among those under the age of 20.
International comparisons show a correlation between a country’s level of arms ownership and the number of gun deaths. In the United States, a gun at home makes it more or less likely that a member of the household will be killed with one. The more weapons, the more dead. And so if the United States really wants to turn its thoughts, tears, and prayers after every mass shooting into something positive, they have to deal with the readily available firearms.
Too many cling to the second amendment to the constitution and how it supposedly confers the right of everyone to bear arms, an interpretation that many find questionable. Despite their precise interpretation, the founding fathers would surely be horrified that their 18th-century words were used to justify arming 21st-century teens with weapons that have turned their own schools into battlefields and allowing a teenager to give them away. it’s an 18th anniversary. of weapons, which he then uses to kill young children.
After the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, I wrote a speech that included the following lines: “We’re always told about the U.S. love story with the gun, but from here it seems more abusive relationship, one that causes too much pain, misery and death. Take the opportunity and change that relationship now and allow your children to look to a safer future. “
I am devastated that in the four years since then there have been very few indications that a nation that is otherwise considered concerned is worried enough about the consequences of this love story. As always, many people say that things will change after the events in Uvalde. Hopefully, but past experience doesn’t make me optimistic. The victims, and their families, of this and all the other shootings deserve much better.
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