President takes jab at crime in London
LONDON — If anyone had any hope President Donald Trump would adopt a more conciliatory tone toward Britain before his visit in July, it was dashed Friday when he appeared before a National Rifle Association conference in Dallas and took a jab at London’s crime rate.
“Knives, knives, knives, knives,” he said, mimicking a stabbing motion as he defended gun ownership in the United States.
Saying that Americans’ rights to carry guns were “under siege,” he said: “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.”
Appearing to link the wave of knife crimes in London to a ban on guns, he added: “They don’t have guns. They have knives, and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital.”
He also drew sharp rebukes in France for using his hand in a gun gesture during the speech to mime how a gunman had killed hostages during a terrorist attack in Paris in 2015.
The reaction in Britain was weary humor and bewilderment, with many in the news and on social media questioning where the president got his information.
Writer and performer Robert Webb wrote on Twitter: “Well, it’s a beautiful day here in Trump’s war zone. I’ve been to the shop and didn’t get even mildly stabbed.”
According to the BBC, Trump may have used as inspiration a Radio 4 interview last month with a London trauma surgeon, Martin Griffiths, who said he was treating stabbing victims “on a daily basis.”
He added that some of his military colleagues had described their practice as similar to that of a military camp in Afghanistan.
But the surgeon, who works for the Royal London Hospital, responded on Twitter to Trump, suggesting he had missed the whole point and saying he was “happy to invite Mr. Trump to my [prestigious] hospital.”
Karim Brohi, a trauma surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, said in a statement Saturday that while knife violence was “a serious issue” in London, “to suggest guns are part of the solution is ridiculous.”
He added: “Gunshot wounds are at least twice as lethal as knife injuries and more difficult to repair.”
Knife crime in Britain rose by 21 percent last year, according to figures released in September by the Office for National Statistics, which compiles an authoritative survey of crime in England and Wales.
Stabbings in London were at their highest level in six years. At least 38 people in London have died from knife crime this year, according to the Metropolitan Police.
In France, after Trump said a civilian could have stopped the massacre at the Bataclan concert hall in November 2015 if that person had been armed with a gun, François Hollande, the former French president, said on Twitter that the comments and antics were “shameful” and “obscene,” according to Reuters.