tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/dunblane-primary-25733/articlesDunblane Primary – The Conversation2021-03-11T16:09:45Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1567022021-03-11T16:09:45Z2021-03-11T16:09:45ZDunblane 25 years on: how a mass school shooting changed British gun laws<p>March 13 marks the 25th anniversary of the appalling shooting massacre at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. </p>
<p>The death of 16 young children and their teacher was a horrifying moment in the UK. The tragedy ultimately prompted an almost total ban on the private ownership of handguns. And as many parts of the world continue to ask what it will take to prompt similar bold thinking about gun control, it’s worth looking back at how it happened. </p>
<p>Britain’s first mass shooting took place some years before Dunblane. In small town in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/hungerford_massacre">Berkshire</a> a man had killed 16 people in 1987.</p>
<p>However, this incident did not prompt major change. In the aftermath, the gun lobby managed to fend off demands for tighter gun control. Automatic rifles were prohibited (the Hungerford killer had used an AK47 variant assault rifle, hardly a civilian rifle) but the Firearms Consultative Committee, full of shooting lobby representatives, was established to advise the government on “firearm safety” issues. “Safer shooting” was its priority, rather than gun control.</p>
<p>After the Dunblane massacre, there were calls to ban handguns. This time, lobbyists couldn’t dismiss the tragedy as a “one off”. The fact that the victims were almost entirely five- and six-year-old children prompted unprecedented outrage and made it difficult for lobbyists to decry tighter controls as a “knee-jerk reaction”.</p>
<p>The government of the time sought to manage the issue by establishing a judicial inquiry. However, a <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk-news/snowdrop-campaign-change-law-2509982">grassroots campaign</a> called Snowdrop forced MPs to reject the inquiry’s cautious compromise <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/276636/3392.pdf">proposals</a> and parliament voted for a ban on handguns exceeding .22 calibre (as used to such lethal effect at Dunblane).</p>
<h2>Lessons for the future</h2>
<p>No part of the world remains untouched by <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Gun-Crime-in-Global-Contexts/Squires/p/book/9781138937390">mass firearm violence</a>. Political scientist <a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25887">Steffen Hurka</a> has studied mass shootings in Europe, revealing that only some incidents lead countries to tighten their gun laws. He has found that the emergence of a political “champion” (such as the Snowdrop campaign that had so much impact after Dunblane) has been particularly significant in prompting reform. This is especially the case if that champion is embraced by a mainstream political party.</p>
<p>In effect, this is what happened after Dunblane, with Tony Blair’s New Labour adopting the call for change. According to Hurka, change is even more likely when a general election is looming. New Labour won the 1997 UK general election and honoured its commitment to legislate, banning virtually all handguns in 1998.</p>
<p>By contrast, reform may be thwarted if there is strong opposition from a powerful and organised gun lobby (and a significant firearms industry). Widespread gun ownership and an active “gun rights” culture can also serve to frustrate policy change.</p>
<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2375010">It has been argued</a> that, in the US, following mass shooting incidents, it is possible to detect a so-called “shooting cycle” at work. Opposition only has to stall pressure for change for a relatively short while to be effective. As the days and weeks pass, the most acute pressure for change tends to fall away, other news stories push the mass shooting from the front pages and the “shooting cycle” closes, the reform opportunity lost.</p>
<p>All this helps explain the limited progress towards gun control in the US and after Hungerford in the UK and yet also the fairly dramatic progress of firearms control measures after Dunblane.</p>
<h2>Applying the evidence</h2>
<p>A growing community of inter-disciplinary gun studies scholars is attempting to draw lessons from these past efforts. We are using the past to try to understand what needs to happen to protect the public and diminish the risks posed by under-regulated weapons. That includes looking at loopholes in gun legislation, inadequate enforcement of existing firearm laws and small arms proliferation and trafficking. </p>
<p>We’re <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/home.html">learning more</a> about illicit weapon markets, including supply, demand and pricing. Whereas once the field was dominated by often narrowly conceived American studies, a broad new emerging agenda is now in evidence.</p>
<p>A conference hosted by the University of Arizona in 2017 (held, ironically, only a week after the Las Vegas shooting which left 61 people dead) took this new agenda forwards. By developing a better understanding of a people’s attachments to firearms, the risks associated with poor regulation, firearm proliferation and misuse can be more effectively addressed. Likewise, the connections between an informed research community and political support for sensible gun law reform might also begin to contest the hegemony of the gun rights lobby in the US – meaning the National Rifle Association.</p>
<p>The dangers of weapon proliferation, firearm misuse and the normalisation of gun ownership in many parts of the world suggest there is little time to lose. Almost three-quarters of a million people die (directly or indirectly) as a result of gun violence each year. There are thought to be close to 900 million firearms in the world, with about 10 million being added each year, 95% of them in the hands of men. </p>
<p>There is still much ground to catch up on in stemming the tide of firearms, even in the <a href="https://chembiopublishers.com/JOCFS/JOCFS180038.pdf">safest societies</a>. Terrible as it was, the awful shooting at Dunblane 25 years ago was a real wake-up call.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Squires is affiliated with The UK Gun Control Network</span></em></p>Anyone hoping for gun reform should take note of how the aftermath of the UK’s worst shooting played out.Peter Squires, Professor of Criminology & Public Policy, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/561162016-03-11T13:32:28Z2016-03-11T13:32:28ZAfter Dunblane: why do some people recover from major trauma better than others?<p>Eleven girls and five boys aged five and six, together with their 45 year-old schoolteacher, <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/2016-03-05/dunblane-victims-and-relatives-remember-school-massacre-20-years-on/">were killed</a> at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland on March 13, 1996. Many other children were injured, some seriously. The gunman, Thomas Hamilton, then turned his weapon on himself. It was one of the worst recorded firearms incidents in British history.</p>
<p>Twenty years later, some of the survivors and witnesses <a href="https://www.tes.com/article.aspx?storycode=2206490">remain deeply scarred</a> psychologically, whereas others seem to have made a <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/stirling/dunblane-massacare-survivor-says-killer-hasn-t-ruined-her-life-1-4048230">better recovery</a>. Why do some fare better than others? What enables children and adults to withstand the effects of potentially traumatising events? </p>
<p>Influential pre-trauma factors include family history and social circumstances, age and gender. Also important are the degree of social support in the person’s life and the history of physical and psychological health, both individually and in the family. <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/basics/risk-factors/con-20022540">In general</a> being older and male, being in good psychological and physical health, and in a loving and stable family or relationship <a href="http://courses.washington.edu/pbafadv/examples/PTSD%20Meta.pdf">are all</a> protective factors. All of these children were very young – but, even so, their close family ties may have protected some to a degree.</p>
<p>When it comes to the trauma itself, the duration and severity of your exposure <a href="http://courses.washington.edu/pbafadv/examples/PTSD%20Meta.pdf">are both important</a>. It is much worse if you are injured or if you witness others being hurt or killed. It is also worse if the trauma is caused, as with Dunblane, by an individual rather than by some unexpected natural or technical phenomenon. Some of the children may have benefitted from not witnessing everything that happened and might have been protected from the worst aspects of the tragic incident. </p>
<h2>Recovery prospects</h2>
<p>The majority of children and adults who are involved in traumatic incidents eventually recover well. Of course everybody – almost everybody – is affected initially. It is a natural response. People often feel numbed, dazed and disoriented, with intrusive thoughts and dreams of the event. Children’s behaviour becomes understandably disturbed. In most cases the symptoms will ease off after a period of days or weeks without any need for therapy. Psychologists never recommend therapy for everybody in a “blanket” fashion, but rather support, comfort, consolation, reassurance and perhaps some education. </p>
<p>In the days and weeks after any traumatic event, psychologists tend to carry out what is termed “watchful waiting”. We watch what is happening to people’s symptoms, screen using <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg26/chapter/1-guidance">appropriate psychological measures</a> and then treat using <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg26/chapter/key-priorities-for-implementation">psychological therapies</a> that are proven, suitable for the age group, evidence-based and delivered by people who have been trained to work with that population. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial, Dunblane Cathedral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfitzpatrick/18122168282/in/photolist-88NDya-88RSyb-tBoRgh-88NDaZ-88RSKY-88NDke-88NDoP-88NDCx-88RSCQ-7xufeZ-88NDJR">Ken Fitzpatrick</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is what happens after the trauma that often determines the outcome. It will affect recovery if there is a lack of support, abuse of any kind, or physical or psychological adversity – I’m thinking of family or relationship breakdown, family members being injured or dying, unemployment and poverty or homelessness and so forth. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14736317/">We consider that</a> there are four possible trajectories from trauma survivors. A small number (up to 5%) develop symptoms but then recover. Between about 5% and 10% have temporary symptoms <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17728415/">which do not</a> manifest themselves until a period of months or years has passed and between 10% and 30% develop symptoms which endure in one form or another. </p>
<p>In each case, symptoms can include thinking of unpleasant things, trying to avoid these thoughts or triggers, having trouble concentrating and sleeping and becoming jumpy and irritable. But the largest proportion – around half – remain psychologically intact and are relatively unaffected. This is referred to as resilience. </p>
<p>There is also the phenomenon that we call post-traumatic growth. After trauma, many people see a new purpose in living. Having often narrowly cheated death, many live every day as if it was their last, savouring the present and not thinking much about the future. Many trauma victims go on to have deeply fulfilling lives and many traumatised children go on to work in the helping professions themselves. </p>
<p>The majority who recover are the lucky ones, of course. There are sadly still many who remain scarred for life, despite the very best therapy, because of the intensity of their experiences and what else is happening in their lives. So on March 13 we will remember those 16 children of Dunblane and their teacher, but also all the survivors. Many of them are living proof that it is possible to recover from a major trauma and lead a contented life. That at least is something to be thankful for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Hacker Hughes is the current president of the British Psychological Society. He is a director of Jamie Hacker Hughes Ltd Psychological Healthcare Consultancy, and receives funding from the Ministry of Defence, the Forces in Mind Trust and Lord Ashcroft's Cayo Foundation.
</span></em></p>The odds of recovering from a terrible experience are higher than you might think.Jamie Hacker Hughes, Professor of Military Psychology (Visiting), Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.