Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Dunblane Primary School massacre survivor wants to tell Donald Trump 'he is wrong on guns'

‘I know there are people who don’t want Trump to come to Scotland – but I do want him to come’

Katrine Bussey
Sunday 06 May 2018 18:24 BST
Comments
Aimie Adam has criticised America’s gun lobby
Aimie Adam has criticised America’s gun lobby (Good Morning Britain/ITV)

A survivor of the Dunblane Primary School massacre has said she wants to meet Donald Trump in a bid to “make him see he is wrong on guns”.

Aimie Adam, 27, said she hoped the US president does come to Scotland when he visits the UK in July, because she wants to meet him.

She was shot twice by gunman Thomas Hamilton as he opened fire on a class of primary one pupils at Dunblane Primary in 1996, killing 16 children and their teacher.

A ban on handguns was introduced in the wake of the atrocity, leaving the incident as the only mass shooting at a UK school.

Despite numerous such incidents in the US, politicians there have so far rejected calls for tighter gun controls.

At a pro-gun rally recently, Mr Trump said that while the UK had “unbelievably tough gun laws”, London was “getting used to” knife attacks and stabbings as a consequence.

Ms Adam, however, said she wanted to let the outspoken Mr Trump “know what it is like to have your life devastated by gun violence”.

She told The Mail on Sunday: “I know there are people who don’t want Trump to come to Scotland – but I do want him to come. I want to meet him and hopefully I can twist his arm by letting him know what it is like to have your life devastated by gun violence.”

She added: “I doubt Donald Trump and his family have ever been close to experiencing what it is like, and they will probably never have to. But perhaps if he could meet me and I could tell him about it, then he would learn something to take back home with him.

“I would also tell him that there is something that you can do about it. We changed gun laws after Dunblane and we have never had another school shooting. America has a different culture but surely anyone can see that if you get rid of the guns, you reduce the likelihood that people will be killed with guns?”

A detailed itinerary for Mr Trump’s first visit to the UK as president has not been revealed but, with the tycoon owning two golf resorts in Scotland and with his mother coming from the Outer Hebrides, there is speculation he will come north of the border during the trip.

Ms Adam, a mental health nurse in Aberdeen, said: “It is easy to say that Trump should just stay away – but if we ever want things to change in America, we need to make him see he is wrong on guns.”

She added: “There is a powerful gun lobby in America, but it is just not good enough to let more people die because of that.”

PA

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in