Mothers of murder victims condemn Trump for exploiting their dead children
At the NRA’s annual convention, Trump used murdered children as an example to push for more guns. The mothers of those children slammed him for his ‘offensive’ remarks.
Trump’s decision to use murder victims to push the NRA’s agenda drew immediate backlash. Mothers of those victims in the United Kingdom quickly and vehemently rebuked his callous remarks.
While speaking at the NRA’s annual convention, Trump attacked stringent anti-gun laws in the United Kingdom.
“They don’t have guns,” he said. “They have knives and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital.”
He claimed it was “as bad as a military war zone hospital … knives, knives, knives.” And he said that while “London hasn’t been used to that,” the city is “getting used to that. It’s pretty tough.”
The remarks referenced a BBC story about Royal London Hospital, aggregated by the right-wing Daily Mail, in which one surgeon’s comments likening the facility to a war zone in Afghanistan were amplified.
But the surgeon, Dr. Martin Griffiths, noted on Twitter that Trump had missed the point of his remarks.
“Happy to invite Mr Trump to my (prestigious) hospital to meet with our mayor and police commissioner to discuss our successes in violence reduction in London.”
The families of crime victims in the United Kingdom were even more outraged and appalled by Trump’s unhinged rant.
Bhupinder Iffat Rizvi’s 20-year-old daughter was shot dead in Kent in 2003. She told the London Telegraph she was “horrified and offended” by what Trump said.
“I found his speech very, very offensive,” she said. Since he spoke, she’s “had calls from other mother and fathers affected by knife and gun crime,” she added.
“Mr Trump may be a businessman, and the US does see guns as big business and money is important to them, but we are mothers and have lost our children to violence.”
And she pushed back against Trump’s claim, that the response to crime is to further flood the streets with guns. “Is he really suggesting we should legalize guns? I couldn’t believe it. Is he really saying people should pick up a gun and go and shoot someone they are in dispute with, and they can try to shoot you back?”
Caroline Shearer, mother of a murdered 17-year-old boy, agreed. “We don’t need a new problem with gun crime. That’s the last thing we need,” she told the paper. “We have got enough nutcases running around with knives. Can you imagine what it would be like if they had guns?”
Lynne Booker’s son Terry died from a stabbing at age 19. She ridiculed Trump and the NRA for their pro-gun advocacy. “We are trying to get dangerous weapons off the streets, not put more on with guns.”
British politicians slammed Trump, as well. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott wrote that she could “hardly see how violent crime in London justifies the licensing of guns in the US.”
Furthermore, a spokesman for the Liberal Democratic Party, Sir Ed Davey, said Trump’s remarks were “ridiculous” and revealed “his ignorance of Britain.”
Trump is scheduled to visit the U.K. in what has been downgraded to simply a “working visit,” rather than the full state visits that Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush made.
British residents already widely dislike Trump. And his crass use of crime victims is unlikely to win over many fans when he makes his curtailed visit.
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