In Britain, it took just one school shooting to pass major gun control

A police officer arranges bouquets of flowers in rows at a side entrance to Dunblane Primary School following a school shooting that left 16 students and one teacher dead. (Lynne Sladky/AP)

As Americans continue to reel from the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 students and 2 teachers dead, headlines and commentators repeat a common refrain: The U.S is the only country where this happens.

Nowadays that may be true, but 26 years ago, it happened in Scotland. In March 1996, a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School, killing 16 students, a teacher, and injuring 15 others. To this day, it is the deadliest mass shooting in UK history.