Dunblane massacre
The Dunblane massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, near Stirling, Scotland, on 13 March 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 pupils and one teacher and injured 15 others before killing himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.
| Dunblane massacre | |
|---|---|
Gwen Mayor and her pupils, 1996 | |
| Location | Dunblane, Stirling, Scotland |
| Coordinates | 56°11′20″N 3°58′27″W |
| Date | 13 March 1996 c. 9:35 – 9:40 a.m. (GMT) |
| Target | Pupils and staff at Dunblane Primary School |
Attack type | School shooting, mass murder, mass shooting, pedicide, murder–suicide |
| Weapons |
|
| Deaths | 18 (including the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 15 |
| Perpetrator | Thomas Hamilton |
Following the killings, public debate centred on gun control laws, including public petitions for a ban on private ownership of handguns and an official inquiry, which produced the 1996 Cullen Report.
The incident led to a public campaign, known as the Snowdrop Petition, which helped bring about legislation, specifically two new Firearms Acts, which outlawed the private ownership of most handguns within Great Britain with few exceptions. The UK Government instituted a temporary gun buyback programme which provided some compensation to lawful handgun owners.
Since the massacre and tighter firearm restrictions, no mass shootings with handguns have occurred, though incidents with shotguns and rifles—such as the 2010 Cumbria shootings or the 2021 Plymouth shooting—have taken place; however, as has been consistently the case since the introduction of the Firearms Act 1968, incidents involving lawfully owned firearms in the UK remain extremely rare.