Dunblane Massacre
Do you want to know how they got the parents in the UK to turn over their guns to the British Government - and render them defenseless? They slaughtered 16 kindergarteners one school morning. If you want to understand what the end goal for America really is, and have a real debate about gun control, you need to know this story. They are using the same playbook - over and over again.
On March 13, 1996, in the small Scottish town of Dunblane, a man shot to death 16 young children and their teacher, at an elementary school, before turning a gun on himself.
The gunman, Thomas Watt Hamilton, lived in the town. On the day of the massacre, he drove into the school parking lot at about 9:30 in the morning. He cut the cables on a telephone pole and then entered the school, carrying four handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition and wearing shooting earmuffs. He fired a couple of shots as he made his way to the school gym, where teacher Gwen Mayor had just taken her kindergarten students for their physical education class.
Hamilton entered the gym and immediately opened fire, wounding physical education teacher Eileen Harrild and teaching assistant Mary Blake and injuring and killing several children. Harrild and Blake took shelter inside a cupboard in the gym, bringing as many children with them as they could, as Hamilton continued his rampage.
When an adult and an older student tried to look inside the gym to find out what was going on, Hamilton fired toward them and then left the gym, firing toward the library cloakroom and into a mobile classroom, where the students lay on the floor at their teachers’ instruction. Hamilton then returned to the gym, dropped the gun he had been using and chose another one, which he used to kill himself. The entire attack took place over a period of less than five minutes. Mayor and 15 children were killed outright, and another child died in the hospital. A further 15 people, the vast majority of them children, were wounded.
A motive for the massacre was never established.
Thomas Watt Hamilton was born on May 10, 1952, in Glasgow, Scotland. His mother, a hotel chambermaid, was divorced from his father by the time Hamilton was born. Hamilton never knew his father and grew up with his mother's adoptive parents, believing they were his biological parents. They legally adopted him at age 2. He also thought his biological mother was his sister until he was told the truth when he was 22 years old.
As a boy, Thomas Hamilton did well academically. He joined a rifle club and the Boys Brigade as a teenager, and at the age of 20, became an assistant leader of his local Boy Scouts club.
Before long, there were complaints from the boys that Hamilton was teaching them to use rifles and handguns, as well as forcing them to engage in perverted activities, and then paying them to keep quiet. He was asked to leave the Scouts in 1974.
There had been several complaints to police regarding Hamilton’s behavior towards the young boys who attended the youth clubs he directed. Claims had been made of his having taken photographs of semi-naked boys without parental consent.
Two times, complaints were made to him to the authorities when Boy Scouts were forced to sleep with Hamilton in his van during hill-walking expeditions. In 1974, when he was 22, Hamilton’s Scout Warrant was withdrawn, stating that they were “suspicious of his moral intentions towards boys” and he was blacklisted. After further complaints, he was required to leave the Boy Scouts, which angered him. He repeatedly asked to be allowed to return, to no avail, and he wrote letters of protest to various government authorities, claiming persecution.
He claimed in letters written in 1993, just three years before the massacre, that rumors about him led to the failure of his shop business and that he was being persecuted by local police and local authorities. Among those to whom he complained were the Queen and the local Member of Parliament, Michael Forsyth. In the 1980s, another MP, George Robertson, who lived in Dunblane, had complained to Forsyth about Hamilton’s local boys’ club, which his son had attended. On the day following the massacre, Robertson even admitted that he had personally argued with Hamilton “in my own home.” Hmm. In other words, the authorities KNEW him quite well. He was even nicknamed “Mr. Creepy.”
Over the years, Hamilton had became a gun collector, and he organized several boys’ clubs, in which he taught shooting, gymnastics, and sports. Some reports also indicate that he had been turned down as a volunteer at Dunblane Primary School. Tennis star Andy Murray was a student at Dunblane when the slaughter took place, and he later said that he had attended Hamilton’s boys’ clubs as a child.
After the Dunblane massacre, handgun control became highly political. Handgun ownership was increasing in the 1990s and sports shooting, the only legitimate reason for owning a handgun, was a fast growing sport. Yet even members of the elite country-sports lobby were troubled by newcomers, keen on “combat style” shooting, entering the sport.
These tensions opened up after Dunblane. The government commissioned Lord Cullen to run an inquiry into the incident. Lord Cullen was William Cullen, Baron Cullen of Whitekirk (1935-2023), a senior Scottish judge who chaired the public inquiry into the 1996 Dunblane Primary School shootings. His role in the Dunblane inquiry led to major changes in UK gun laws.
Cullen recommended that people store their weapons at the local police stations for safe keeping. These ideas were initially rejected as “unworkable” by gun owners, but they were ultimately overwhelmed by the strength of public feeling. The Cullen Inquiry into the massacre recommended that the government introduce tighter controls on handgun ownership and consider whether an outright ban on private ownership would be in the public interest in the alternative. The report also recommended changes in school security and vetting of people working with children under 18.
A small group, known as the Gun Control Network was founded in the aftermath of the shootings and was supported by some parents of victims at Dunblane. 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 government of the time, under the premiership of John Major, was split, reluctant to confront pro-gun Tories, although Tony Blair’s New anti-gun left-wing Labour Party was waiting in the wings, ready to seize the issue. The Scottish secretary, Michael Forsythe, however, with one of the smallest parliamentary majorities, had made commitments to bereaved family members and promised to get guns banned.
Following the 1997 General Election, the left-wing Labour government of Tony Blair introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997.
Handguns were effectively outlawed in the UK in 1997 through the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, which prohibited the private possession of almost all cartridge handguns following the Dunblane school massacre. The ban banned all handguns, with exceptions made for certain historical firearms, muzzle-loading firearms, and air pistols. In other words, it only took one year after the Dunblane massacre for all law-abiding citizens to turn over their weapons to the UK Government.
By March 1999, the National Audit Office reported to parliament that 165,353 licensed handguns, and 700 tons of ammunition, had been surrendered to the Government.
Nobody expected what happened next. An 105% increase in recorded handgun crime occurred. It also opened up a whole new gun market in the UK comprising non-firing “realistic imitation” firearms (hitherto largely unknown in the UK), BB guns, and high-powered air weapons.
The rise in handgun crime had primarily to do with huge growth in the illegal firearms market. Criminals now were the ONLY people who could get weapons & they did. In the face of some of the world’s toughest gun control laws, criminal ingenuity worked to create new supply routes into Britain - smugglers emerged to meet criminal demand for guns - particularly in “gang affected” communities. Criminals don't obey gun laws. The people, who had turned over their weapons to the Government, were now left defenseless while the police were defunded and neutered.
Today, the authorities in the UK are now facing new threats from open borders and terrorists, such as Paris style “mass casualty” attacks, knife gangs and rape gangs that prey on UK’s girls and young women.
Today, violent crime in England and Wales is rising at an accelerating pace - a 22% increase in knife crime and 11% rise in illegal gun crime.
London's murder rate has grown by 40% and now surpasses New York's. Robberies are way up and, even more disturbing, are committed while people are at home because criminals know that people aren't armed and can't protect themselves
"There has been a big spike in both gun crime and knife crime across London. Certainly my constituency finds itself at the epicenter of that. There are real issues about a lack of resources."
Arab gangs roam the streets on mopeds and throw acid in pedestrian's faces and slash at shoppers with machetes. London's ERs have so many knife attacks, the floors are covered in blood and burn surgeons are overwhelmed.
White vans, filled with armed terrorists, run down pedestrians and then jump out to shoot and stab those that are still alive. Suicide bombers plant so many devices around popular spots that London has eliminated trash cans and placed barricades everywhere.
How has the leadership of London responded? They are out confiscating crochet needles and screw drivers and cautioning unarmed citizens to run and hide if they face armed criminals. The police will come and help you. Right. Good luck with that.
People, NEVER EVER GIVE UP YOUR GUNS - no matter what they do - no matter what happens. That’s what keeps America FREE.
If you wish to know more about the history of gun control - read on:
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