Colin McIntosh, a church minister in Dunblane, Scotland, where a gunman shot dead 16 school children in 1996, offers Newtown's grieving families "our deepest sympathy and concern and support." By Keir Simmons and Yuka Tachibana, NBC NewsDUNBLANE, Scotland -- Thousands of miles from Newtown, Conn., a lone gunman walked into the elementary school of this Scottish town and murdered 16 children aged 5 and 6 along with their teacher.
That was 17 years ago, but memories of the incident, which led to a total ban on the private ownership of handguns in the U.K., are still raw in Dunblane.
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"I have a vivid memory as I arrived at the school of the desperation of parents trying to find out what happened," former police officer Louis Munn told NBC News. "But when I went inside the school it was absolute silence, there was the smell of school lunch in the air and children's coats still hanging on the wall."
Mick North, who lost his daughter Sophie, said: "Children become real people at around 5 years old. She was taken away so early."
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