Thomas Watt Hamilton

Hamilton headed towards the north-west side of the school to a door near the toilets and the school gymnasium. After entering, he made his way to the gymnasium armed with four legally-held handguns—two 9mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum revolvers. He was also carrying 743 cartridges of ammunition. In the gym was a class of twenty-eight Primary 1 pupils preparing for a PE lesson in the presence of three adult members of staff.

In the mobile classroom closest to the fire exit where Hamilton was standing, Catherine Gordon saw him firing shots and instructed her Primary 7 class to get down onto the floor before Hamilton fired nine bullets into the classroom, striking books and equipment. One bullet passed through a chair where a child had been sitting seconds before. Hamilton then reentered the gym, dropped the pistol he was using, and took out one of the two revolvers. He put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, pointed it upwards, and pulled the trigger, killing himself. A total of 32 people sustained gunshot wounds inflicted by Hamilton over a 3–4-minute period, 16 of whom were fatally wounded in the gymnasium, which included Mayor and 15 of her pupils. One other child died later en route to hospital.

Two books – Dunblane: Our Year of Tears by Peter Samson and Alan Crow and Dunblane: Never Forget by Mick North – both give accounts of the massacre from the perspective of those most directly affected. On 1 March 2006, Creation Books released Predicate: The Dunblane Massacre — Ten Years After by Peter Sotos. In 2009, the Sunday Express was criticised for an inappropriate article about the survivors of the massacre, 13 years after the event.

Evidence of previous police interaction with Hamilton was presented to the Cullen Inquiry but was later sealed under a closure order to prevent publication for 100 years. The official reason for sealing the documents was to protect the identities of children, but this led to accusations of a coverup intended to protect the reputations of officials. Following a review of the closure order by the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, edited versions of some of the documents were released to the public in October 2005. Four files containing post mortems, medical records and profiles on the victims, as well as Hamilton's autopsy, remained sealed under the 100-year order to avoid distressing the relatives and survivors.

In the nave of Dunblane Cathedral is a standing stone by the monumental sculptor Richard Kindersley. It was commissioned by the Kirk Session as the Cathedral's commemoration and dedicated at a service on 12 March 2001. It is a Clashach stone two metres high on a Caithness flagstone base. The quotations on the stone are by E. V. Rieu ("He called a little child to him..."), Richard Henry Stoddard ("...the spirit of a little child"), Bayard Taylor ("But still I dream that somewhere there must be The spirit of a child that waits for me") and W. H. Auden ("We are linked as children in a circle dancing").

In response to this public debate, the Conservative government of John Major introduced the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which banned all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre single-shot weapons in England, Scotland and Wales, and following the 1997 General Election, the Labour government of Tony Blair introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, banning the remaining .22 cartridge handguns as well. This left only muzzle-loading and historic handguns legal, as well as certain sporting handguns (e.g. "Long-Arms") that fall outside the Home Office definition of a "handgun" because of their dimensions. The ban does not affect Northern Ireland.

In August 1997, two varieties of rose were unveiled and planted as the centrepiece for a roundabout in Dunblane. The two roses were developed by Cockers Roses of Aberdeen; the 'Gwen Mayor' rose and 'Innocence' rose, in memory of the children killed. A snowdrop originally found in a Dunblane garden in the 1970s was renamed 'Sophie North' in memory of one of the victims of the massacre.

English punk rock band U.K. Subs released a song called "Dunblane" on their 1997 album "Quintessentials", with the chorus "After Dunblane how can you hold a gun and say you're innocent?"

The Dunblane school massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot 16 children and one teacher dead and injured 15 others, before killing himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.

Public debate about the killings 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. In response to this debate, two new Firearms Acts were passed, which outlawed private ownership of most handguns in the United Kingdom.

At about 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton, aged 43, was seen scraping ice off his van outside his home at Kent Road in Stirling. He left soon afterwards and drove about 5 miles (8 km) north to Dunblane. He arrived on the grounds of Dunblane Primary School at around 9:30 a.m. and parked his van near a telegraph pole in the car park of the school. Hamilton cut the cables at the bottom of the telegraph pole, which served nearby houses, with a set of pliers before making his way across the car park towards the school buildings.

On 19 March 1996, six days after the massacre, Hamilton's body was cremated. According to a police spokesman, this service was conducted "far away from Dunblane".

On the Sunday following the shootings the morning service from Dunblane Cathedral, conducted by Colin MacIntosh, was broadcast live by the BBC. The BBC also had live transmission of the Memorial Service on 9 October 1996, also held at Dunblane Cathedral. A documentary "Crimes That Shook Britain" featured the massacre. The documentary Dunblane: Remembering our Children, which featured many of the parents of the children who had been killed, was broadcast by STV and ITV at the time of the first anniversary. At the time of the tenth anniversary in March 2006 two documentaries were broadcast. Channel 5 screened Dunblane — A Decade On and BBC Scotland showed Remembering Dunblane. On 9 March 2016 relatives of the victims spoke in a BBC Scotland documentary entitled: Dunblane Our Story to mark the twentieth anniversary. A 2018 Netflix documentary Lessons from a School Shooting: Notes from Dunblane, directed by Kim A. Snyder, drew comparison with the Sandy Hook massacre, by exploring the grief and friendship between the two priests serving the affected communities at the times of the respective shootings.

Seven months after the massacre in October 1996, the families of the victims organised their own memorial service at Dunblane Cathedral, which more than 600 people attended, including Prince Charles who was representing the Royal Family. The service was broadcast live on BBC1 and conducted by James Whyte, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Television presenter Lorraine Kelly, who had befriended some of the victims' families whilst reporting on the massacre for GMTV, was a guest speaker at the service.

The gymnasium at the school was demolished on 11 April 1996 and replaced by a memorial garden. Two years after the massacre on 14 March 1998, a memorial garden was opened at Dunblane Cemetery, where Mayor and twelve of the slain children are buried. The garden features a fountain with a plaque of the names of those killed. Stained glass windows in memory of the victims were placed in three local churches, St Blane's and the Church of the Holy Family in Dunblane and the nearby Lecropt Kirk as well as at the Dunblane Youth and Community Centre.

With the consent of Bob Dylan, the musician Ted Christopher wrote a new verse for "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in memory of the Dunblane school children and their teacher. The recording of the revised version of the song, which included brothers and sisters of the victims singing the chorus and Mark Knopfler on guitar, was released on 9 December 1996 in the UK, and reached number 1. The proceeds went to charities for children. Pipe Sergeant Charlie Glendinning of the City of Washington Pipe Band (US) composed "Dunblane", a tune for bagpipes, which Bonnie Rideout arranged for two violins and viola. It was recorded on Rant, an album produced by Maggie's Music. Pipe Major Robert Mathieson of the Shotts and Dykehead Pipe Band composed a pipe tune in tribute, "The Bells of Dunblane".

Hamilton claimed in letters that rumours about him led to the failure of his shop business in 1993, and in the last months of his life he complained again that his attempts to organise a boys' club were subjected to persecution by local police and the scout movement. Among those he complained to were the Queen and the local Member of Parliament, Michael Forsyth. In the 1980s, another MP, George Robertson, who lived in Dunblane, had complained to Forsyth about Hamilton's local boys' club, which his son had attended. On the day following the massacre, Robertson spoke of having previously argued with Hamilton "in my own home".

The released documents revealed that in 1991, complaints against Hamilton were made to the Central Scotland Police and were investigated by the Child Protection Unit. Hamilton was reported to the Procurator Fiscal for consideration of ten charges, including assault, obstructing police and contravention of the Children and Young Persons Act 1937. No action was taken.

Hamilton had briefly been a Scout leader – initially, in July 1973, he was appointed assistant leader with the 4th/6th Stirling of the Scout Association. Later that year, he was seconded as leader to the 24th Stirlingshire troop, which was being revived. Several complaints were made about his leadership, including two occasions when Scouts were forced to sleep with Hamilton in his van during hill-walking expeditions. Within months, on 13 May 1974, Hamilton's Scout Warrant was withdrawn, with the County Commissioner stating that he was "suspicious of his moral intentions towards boys". He was blacklisted by the Association and thwarted in a later attempt he made to become a Scout leader in Clackmannanshire.