LONDON — As the world joined Americans in mourning the school massacre in Connecticut, many urged U.S. politicians to honor the victims, especially the children, by pushing for stronger guncontrol laws.
Twitter users and media personalities in the United Kingdom immediately invoked a 1996 shooting in the small Scottish town of Dunblane that killed 16 children. That massacre prompted a campaign that ultimately led to tighter gun controls, effectively making it illegal to buy or possess a handgun in the U.K.
“This is America’s Dunblane,” British CNN host Piers Morgan wrote on Twitter. “We banned handguns in Britain after that appalling tragedy. What will the U.S. do? Inaction not an option.”
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called Friday’s attack in Newtown, Conn., a “senseless and incomprehensible act of evil.”
“Like President Obama and his fellow Americans, our hearts too are broken,” Gillard said in a statement.
Australia confronted a similar tragedy in 1996, when a man went on a shooting rampage in the southern state of Tasmania, killing 35 people. The mass killing sparked anger across the country and led the government to impose strict new gun laws, including a ban on semiautomatic rifles.
Rupert Murdoch recalled that case in a Twitter message calling the shootings “terrible news” and asking “when will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons? As in Oz after similar tragedy.”
The mass shooting in Connecticut left 28 people dead, including 20 children. The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, killed his mother at their home Friday before beginning his deadly rampageat the school in Newtown, then committed suicide, police said.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Union’s executive commission, said: “Young lives full of hope have been destroyed. On behalf of the European Commission and on my own behalf, I want to express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this terrible tragedy.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of the “horrific shooting.”
Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Benedict XVI and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among other leaders from around the world who expressed their sympathy.
But amid the messages of condolences, much of the discussion after the Connecticut rampage centered on gun control - a baffling subject for many in Asia and Europe, where mass shootings also have occurred but where access to guns is much more heavily restricted.
The attack quickly dominated public discussion in China, rocketing to the top of topic lists on social media and becoming the top story on state television’s main noon newscast.
China has seen several rampage attacks at schools in recent years, though the attackers there usually use knives, not guns. The most recent attack in China also happened Friday, when a knife-wielding man injured 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China.
Information for this article was contributed by Grant Peck, Thanyarat Doksone, Tais Vilela, Kristen Gelineau, Malcolm Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Charles Hutzler, Sam Kim, Oliver Teves, Sameer N. Yacoub, Don Melvin, Jim Heintz, Frances D’Emilio, Deb Riechmann and Tia Goldenberg of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 15 on 12/16/2012