A small town's legacy

"Did we end up in Paradise"? My daughter asked, a couple of years ago when we traveled together to a small town called Dunblane, Scotland. We had chosen to stay there because it was on the train and equidistant from Edinburg and Glasgow.

In 1996, my daughter was a five-year-old in kindergarten in a small town like Dunblane. Her teachers were caring toward their young charges. I never thought twice when I left her in their care for the better part of the day. She came bouncing out after school with colored pages she had worked on during the day. This was the beginning of her love of art that would take her through art school, followed by a post baccalaureate artisan degree, and a soon-to-be completed art therapy master's degree. A long road, to be sure, but one that she chose to follow since childhood.

Every five-year-old should have such a bright beginning that manifests in a dream fulfilled. Sadly, that was not the story thirty years ago for children in Dunblane.

Named Scotland's friendliest town, folks in this picturesque, bucolic town are out and about with their dogs in the evenings. We were greeted with "Halo" in a quiet, lilting accent and a tip of the hat or nod of the head on our way to or from our apartment in a former wool mill with wide windows overlooking the River Alan's waterfall.

Atop a hill, sat a substantial medieval cathedral. Its doors were locked whenever I tried to get a look inside, but from my bedroom I could hear the 12th century bells chiming the hour. My good intentions to attend a Sunday service did not come to fruition for reasons I have forgotten. I regret it now.

I learned too late that inside the Cathedral was a memorial to the children who had been victims of a mass shooting in their hometown. These children would be my daughter's age now. Like her, they would have shared classrooms with classmates and teachers who sparked their potential. Each one would have made choices about his/her future, be it art school, athletics, engineering, teaching, organizing, writing, singing, or whatever dream called across those lush hills. Their parents would have bubbled over with pride instead of sorrow.

Those very parents who lost their most precious loved ones took matters into their own hands. They rallied together with the rest of the town in what they called the Snowdrop Campaign for tighter gun laws, which helped to bring about sweeping reforms that left the UK with some of the strictest restrictions on private handgun ownership in the world.*

It gives me pause to read about such a far-reaching legacy for one tiny town --Dunblane would be the last deadliest mass shooting in the whole of the UK. Think of all the lives saved with determination and drive to make their child the last to suffer such a fate in a classroom with pretty pictures on the walls.

Here,in the United States, since 1996 there have been 540 deaths and a total of 844 shootings! There has been N0 national gun law reform.*** We are a country that could take a lesson from a little town in the hills of Scotland who refused to sacrifice anyone's future life, ever again.

*https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/13/friday-briefing-the-legacy-of-the-dunblane-massacre-30-years-on

**https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_school_shootings_and_firearm_incidents,_1990-present

***https://giffords.org/lawcenter/resources/scorecard/