By Sue Leeman
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 21, 1999; 1:34 p.m. EDT

LONDON –– Remembering 16 tiny coffins after a gunman opened fire in a Scottish school three years ago, Britain urged the United States on Wednesday to respond to its deadliest school massacre by putting handguns out of reach.

Britain imposed a near-total ban on handguns after Thomas Hamilton used four legally owned guns to kill 16 kindergarten children and their teacher before killing himself on March 13, 1996, in Dunblane.

Tuesday's school attack by two Littleton, Colo., teen-agers who laughed as they shot victims and then killed themselves, stunned much of the world.

"I hope that they will look carefully at what this country did in banning handguns after the Dunblane massacre, and I hope we never have to wake up to this sort of news again from America," Defense Secretary George Robertson told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Many reports from around the world criticized the easy availability of guns in the United States.

"How sick is the gun society of America?" mused an article in the Yomiuri daily in Japan, where reports focused on how the two suspects appeared to target minorities and athletes.

"The shooting has brought to light once again the warped strains of 'an advanced society,'" said an article in the national Asahi newspaper.

In an interview with Asahi, Mieko Hattori, the mother of a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student in the United States who was fatally shot in 1992 while looking for a Halloween party, said she hoped the latest shootings would lead to tighter gun control laws.

"Guns are still everywhere. Even a high school student can get them," she was quoted as saying.

At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II urged Americans to seek "the moral vision and the values which alone can ensure respect for the inviolable dignity of human life."

Some weren't optimistic that this would happen.

"There is no reason to believe that America will now wake up, as President Bill Clinton hopes," said the Oslo, Norway, newspaper Aftenposten, pointing out that previous school killings had prompted little action.

British gun laws, now among the tightest in the world, allow police to seek the full medical history of anyone applying for a gun license, including details of any mental health problems. Every applicant must provide the names of two people who have known them for at least two years and who support their application.

The few exceptions to the ban include antique weapons, starting pistols, and small shot pistols used against rats, mice and other pests.