Trump: London hospital like ‘ a war zone’

Months after Florida shooting, Prez rallied gun owners at NRA meet

Dallas, May 5: US President Donald Trump, who made a pilgrimage to the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Dallas on Friday to rally gun owners, fuelled fears of a knife crime epidemic in London by comparing a hospital in the city to “a war zone”, with blood all over the floors.

Summarily rejecting calls for stricter laws despite a high school massacre in Florida that fuelled public demands for change, he used a familiar argument to defend gun ownership.

Mr Trump asked whether vans, trucks and cars, which have been used by terrorists, should be banned. Then he turned to knives.

“I recently read a story that in London, which has unbelievably tough gun laws, a once very prestigious hospital, right in the middle, is like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds,” he said. “Yes, that’s right, they don’t have guns, they have knives and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital. They say it’s as bad as a military war zone hospital.”

Mr Trump stabbed the air several times with an imaginary knife and muttered: “Knives, knives, knives.”

It’s unclear which hospital Mr Trump was referring to. But the BBC reported that Dr Martin Griffiths, a trauma surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, had recently told the network that his fellow doctors have compared the hospital to an Afghan war zone because “we routinely have children under our care — 13, 14, 15 years old are daily occurrences, knife and gun wounds.”

Mr Trump’s inflammatory comments come two months before he is due to make his first visit to the UK.

I recently read a story that in London, which has unbelievably tough gun laws, a once very prestigious hospital, right in the middle, is like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds — Donald Trump, US President