A comment by a British party leader about one of the darkest days in Scotland's history has sparked widespread anger. According to the account, the Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe has caused major upset by the way he referred to the 1996 Dunblane massacre, in remarks that critics say diminished the scale of the tragedy.
The remarks were made on one of the biggest media platforms in the world. According to the reporting, Lowe appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast and suggested that the strict handgun laws introduced in the UK had come in because there was a murder in Dunblane, a description that reduced a mass killing to a single crime.
That characterisation was quickly challenged as simply wrong. According to the account, the suggestion is factually inaccurate and has been drawing widespread criticism, with people in Scotland and across the UK saying the comment diminishes one of the darkest days the country has known.
The reaction focused not only on the facts but on the tone. According to the reporting, Lowe's comments were described as insensitive and disrespectful, with critics also pointing to what they saw as a dismissive tone in the way the remarks were delivered on the podcast.
The scale of what happened at Dunblane underlines why the comment caused such offence. According to the account, on the 13th of March 1996 a man entered Dunblane primary school and shot dead 16 children and their teacher, a tragedy that led to a nationwide debate on gun laws and to some of the strictest handgun restrictions in the world.
For the families of the victims, the issue is deeply personal and still raw. According to the reporting, one of the children killed that day was Emma Crozier, and her family has over the years been relentless in its campaign, vocal in its wish for the United States and other countries to get tougher on gun controls.
It was from within that family that one of the sharpest responses came. According to the account, Emma's brother Jack Crozier gave a statement to Sky News in which he said that Rupert Lowe's father had had his pistols taken away while his own father had had his daughter taken away, adding that Lowe knew exactly what happened at Dunblane and had made an active choice on one of the world's biggest podcasts.