Dunblane relatives visit US gun victims
● Scots mother and son tell how gun control victory followed killings
The family of a Dunblane shooting victim have visited Florida to support relatives and friends of those killed in the Parkland high school tragedy.
Alison Crozier and her son Jack – who lost five-year-old Emma in the 1996 massacre – travelled to the US with radio station LBC.
“We wanted to bring hope, that was the main thing,” a Scottish mother who lost her five-year-old daughter in the Dunblane massacre said during a visit to Florida to support relatives of those killed in the Parkland school shooting.
Alison Crozier, whose daughter Emma lost her life along with 15 other children and their teacher in March 1996, also met students and a Democrat congressman campaigning for stricter gun control following the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February. Seventeen people were killed and 17 others wounded in the incident.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon contacted Ms Crozier and her son, Jack, who accompanied his mother on the visit last month, via a Facetime call.
She told them, “I struggle to understand the American psyche around guns” and that “Parkland will be remembered, hopefully for what it led to in terms of gun law reform, rather than the horror that happened”.
Relatives of nic ho lasdw or et, killed just a month before his 18th birthday, asked the Croziers what lessons US campaigners could take from Dunblane’s Snowdrop Campaign which in 1997 led to the UK’S Conservative government banning handguns above .22 calibre. Tony Blair’s Labour government then banned all cartridge handguns.
Mr Crozier told Gary Dworet and Vivien D’addario, Nicholas’s aunt and uncle: “What happened at Dunblane was that they hit that brick wall. Then they just burst straight through it.
“That’s what needs to happen. People are going to say no to you. People are going to say it’s impossible. It’s not impossible.”
Talking to Ms D’addario about the emotional toll trying to cope with the tragic loss of a loved one, Ms Crozier said: “You go through every single emotion … I don’t think you ever accept it, to be fair. You’ve got to go on. You’ve got other family members. You do have to – and you can.”
Mr Dworet asked how Scottish campaigners had built up support for gun control.
Mr Crozier said the two key aspects were that it had been a grass roots movement and that the Snowdrop Campaign had spoken with one voice.
He added: “So, with the opposition that you guys have got, you have one opponent, the NRA [National Rifle Associa- tion] essentially, and that’s one very strong voice and there’s been thousands of other fragmented voices all shouting for the same thing, but not quite exactly the same thing, and the message is getting lost.”
The Croziers, whose trip was arranged by lbc radio, also met student campaigners Nikhita Nookola and Christy Ma – who lost school friends in the February attack – at the Pine Trail Park near the high school where a memorial has been set up in honour of those killed.
Congressman ted deuch, who represents Florida’s 22nd District and has been campaigning for gun control in Congress, said hearing about the campaign in Scotland had inspired the students.