Morbid Fact Du Jour For February 28, 2011
Today’s Resentful Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On March 13, 1996, a social misfit named Thomas Hamilton walked into the primary school in Dunblane, near Edinburgh, Scotland, and opened fire in the mroning assembly, killing 16 children and a teacher, and wounding 14 others before killing himself. The cause seems to have been resentment (as it is in the majority of such cases). Hamilton was a gun fanatic who had run a local boys’ club until parents intervened because he was subjecting their children to what they regarded as physical ordeals. (One child on a boating trip was made to sleep on deck all night in only his shorts.) He was widely suspected of being a homosexual paedophile, although this was never proved. The massacre was his way of lashing back at the community. Later that year, as a consequence of the massacre, the British government banned all handguns, to the fury of hundreds of legitimate gun clubs.
Culled from: The Mammoth Book Of The History Of Murder
Wow the banning of handguns in one incident. Never happen here, I’m afraid!
Don’t they get it? It’s not the people who are sane and follow rules(and not to mention,don’t kill people.) who abide the laws. If some crazy wants to do it, they’re going to do it. Laws ain’t gunna stop them! I didn’t know that handguns were banned… I feel bad for the clubs and those just wanting personal protection. Just remember, you can take them away from good people,but the bad people are always going to have them.
In the UK they have always had much stricter rules about gun ownership. Even Hamilton had to go to a lot of trouble to get the many guns he owned.
Until fairly recently, London policemen did not routinely carry service weapons.