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DUNBLANE, Scotland — If there’s anywhere that understands the pain of Newtown, it’s Dunblane, the town whose grief became a catalyst for changes to Britain’s gun laws.

In March 1996, a 43-year-old man named Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school in this central Scotland town of 8,000 people and shot to death 16 kindergarten-age children and their teacher with four legally held handguns. In the weeks that followed, people in the town formed the Snowdrop campaign – named for the first flower of spring – to press for a ban on handguns. Within weeks, it had collected 750,000 signatures. By the next year, the ban had become law.

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It is a familiar pattern around the world – from Britain to Australia, grief at mass shootings has been followed by swift political action to tighten gun laws.

Many in the United States are calling for that to happen there, too, after the shooting of 20 children as young as six at a school in Newtown, Connecticut. Many other Americans are adamant the laws should not change.