Daily Times

Trauma surgeons in London said U.S. President Donald Trump had missed the point after he linked a wave of knife crime in the British capital to a ban on handguns.

Anger also flared in France after Trump, in a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA), used his hands in a gesture to mimic the shooting of victims in Paris in 2015. Trump, who is due to visit Britain on July 13, told members of the NRA in Dallas, Texas on Friday that a “once very prestigious” London hospital, which he did not name, had become overwhelmed with victims of knife attacks.

“They don’t have guns. They have knives and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital,” he said. “They say it’s as bad as a military war zone hospital. Knives, knives, knives, knives,” he added, making stabbing gestures. London suffered a spike in knife crime in the early part of this year, and the total number of murders during February and March exceeded that in New York.

Last month, trauma surgeon Martin Griffiths told the BBC that some of his colleagues had likened the Royal London Hospital in east London where he works to the former British military base Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

Published in Daily Times, May 6^th 2018.