Dunblane’s message to US

The UK learned a very hard lesson from the Dunblane massacre in 1996. That it took the deaths of 16 children and their teacher to make us realise allowing easy access to guns inevitably leads to tragedy is a source of profound regret, but Britain now has some of the strictest controls on firearms of any country in the world.

In contrast, the US has lurched from one mass shooting to another. In the first nine weeks of 2018, there were 14 instances in which at least one person was shot at a school, according to CNN. These included the murders of 17 students and adults at a school in Parkland, Florida, and the shootings of 16 people, two fatally, at a school in Benton, Kentucky. But despite this, despite the Bath School massacre in 1927 (44 dead), Columbine in 1999 (13 dead), Virginia Tech in 2007 (32 dead), and Sandy Hook in 2012 (27 dead), America has not yet learned.

As the survivors of Dunblane send messages of support to US gun control campaigners, it can only be hoped the fact that the UK has one of the lowest levels of gun violence in the world will help make Americans realise what needs to happen.