AS THE shock of the Dunblane massacre gives way to an awed horror and grief among millions, it is vital that everything is now done to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that such an unbelievable tragedy may never occur again.

And though little can now or ever mitigate the suffering of their families, friends and community, surely the most fitting memorial to the 16 little innocents and their teacher, who were slain by crazed gunman Thomas Hamilton, must be that reassurance.

That quest calls for immediate action on three fronts.

The tightening of our gun laws.

The improvement of school security.

And the fullest inquiry into the issuing of gun licences to this mass murderer.

For though we may have some of the strictest laws and regulations in the world covering the possession of guns, it is dreadfully evident from the events of Dunblane that more can and must be done to make them safer still.

It is, after all, the case that the Firearms Consultative Committee, which advises the government, has recommended that more is done to stop psychologically disturbed people obtaining guns.

And though the power of the law must, urgently and as fully as possible, be wedded to that sound advice, firm practical rules should also be applied to the legitimate keeping of guns - so that the potential for their misuse is greatly reduced.

In this respect, we would expect any review of our gun laws to consider demanding that weapons owned and used by members of gun clubs must never leave the club and be stored there in maximum security.

And to obviate the risk of such centralised arsenals becoming a target for theft, a further requirement would be that gun owners must decommission their weapons when they are not in use by removing from them and taking away with them specifically itemised components - such as a trigger, barrel or firing pin - without which the weapon cannot work.

That would do much to prevent guns getting into wrong hands of any kind.

And such considerations demand, of any inquiry into the Dunblane massacre, firm answers into how this man, Hamilton, came to be a member of a gun club and, so, the lawful owner of arms that became weapons of mass murder.

For, though hindsight may be a devalued form of wisdom, it is nevertheless appalling that a person known to the police and the community for odd, unstable and improper behaviour could actually be granted a gun licence.

Finally, parents everywhere must now wonder whether enough is done to make schools safe - especially since the Dunblane tragedy is far from the first case in recent years when violence has been visited on school classrooms from outside.

True, by their very nature, schools can never be made totally-secure fortresses and nor would communities want them to become so.

But this awful case demands at least a thorough and urgent government-backed inquiry into school security.

It should have the remit to recommend that standards are perhaps at least as high as those which most businesses now adopt - with the screening and monitoring of callers by "front-desk" staff and by closed-circuit TV and video surveillance and by entry-limiting devices on external doors.

Then, perhaps, from the grief and horror of Dunblane, there may come the consolation that all that is humanly possible has been done to prevent this unbelievable event ever being copied elsewhere.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.