DURHAM - Early this month, in a small town in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, yet another madman walked into a school -- armed with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, two shotguns, a stun gun, two knives, two cans of gunpowder and 600 rounds of ammunition -- and shot 10 girls, killing five, and himself. These shootings in West Nickel Mines Amish School came just days after killings at schools in Wisconsin and Colorado.

We have not been immune from such incidents in the Triangle either. In August, Alvaro Rafael Castillo fired shots at Orange High School in Hillsborough, injuring two. And in 1986 the quiet community of north Durham reeled when David Mancuso shot and killed fellow student Norma Russell in the high school parking lot.

Of all the killings, though, I'm struck most by the murders of 16 kindergarten children and a teacher in Dunblane, Scotland on March 13, 1996. Here's why:

People in Scotland and throughout Great Britain were so outraged that they lobbied their government for change.

Two independent petitions were launched, with over 1 million signatures obtained. The momentum generated by these petitions and their supporters led to the banning in 1997 of all handguns in private ownership in Great Britain.

As the Gun Control Network of London reports, "The handgun ban was the culmination of a campaign that began in the immediate aftermath of the Dunblane massacre."

Of course, talking about gun control in this country is about as loaded as the guns themselves. We have the Second Amendment, allowing us to bear arms, we have the powerful National Rifle Association that goes after anyone brave enough to support gun control, and we have lots of people who believe we're safer if we each pack a pistol.

(In fact, a gun kept in the home is four times more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense; seven times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide; and 11 times more likely in an attempted or completed suicide.)

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Many of us would like to believe that the school killers in our midst are readily identifiable people like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in 1999. If only the parents had paid more attention to these disturbed kids, we say, or if only authorities had responded more aggressively to Eric Harris' sick Web site. But more often than not we read about the shock and disbelief of neighbors and co-workers at the actions of these murderers.

True, once the story comes out, these people are profoundly disturbed in ways nobody noticed. Nonetheless, we can't predict who is going to go over the edge, when and in what setting. We need, therefore, to limit the access of weapons.

As gun control advocates have noted for years, school killings are a small piece of the picture. Every day in this country a child is killed by a firearm every three hours. Many of these are urban youths gunned down by drug and gang violence. We don't seem to identify with these children and their families, however; it's as if they live in another world, beyond a life that we can imagine. But surely we can relate to those parents whose children sat in Sandra Smith's honors English class in Colorado when Duane Morrison decided to show up, dangerous and unhinged. These killings do happen anywhere and everywhere.

The Amish community in Pennsylvania is seen as a bucolic world that still retains qualities of our once-better selves. The people live simply. They keep to themselves and tend to one another. Now our violent ways have intruded upon their peaceful lives. Can we not do something to make amends? Can we not turn West Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, into our Dunblane, Scotland?

Go to the Brady Campaign Web site, www.bradycampaign.org, or join your local chapter of the Million Mom March, www.millionmommarch.org. Learn about gun laws in North Carolina. Vote. Pay attention to the views of politicians running for election, beginning this November. Give money if you can.

Spread the word: we won't tolerate this kind of violence anymore.

(Marjorie George is a writer and parent of two children in the Durham public schools.)

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