WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - US President Donald Trump took aim at two of America's closest allies in a speech at the NRA convention, saying strict gun laws failed to prevent the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and highlighting a purported increase in knife violence in London.
The comments provoked anger in both France and Britain
France was especially incensed after Trump, while speaking at the gun rights convention in Dallas on Friday, pointed his hand as if it were a gun while describing how each of the victims in Paris was fatally shot.
'They took their time and gunned them down one by one -- boom, come over here, boom, come over here, boom,' he said.
The French foreign ministry said, 'France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump's remarks ... and calls for the respect of the memory of the victims.'
'If one employee or just one patron had a gun, or if one person in this room had been there with a gun, aimed at the opposite direction, the terrorists would have fled or been shot. And it would have been a whole different story,' Trump said.
The Élysée palace responded to that comment by saying, 'The free flow of arms within society does not constitute a shield against terrorist attacks. It can instead facilitate the planning of this type of attack.'
A group of about 10 men staged a series of coordinated attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, killing at least 130 people and wounding hundreds.
The attackers, armed with assault rifles and explosives, targeted six locations across the city. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Trump also compared an unnamed London hospital to a 'war zone' in the NRA speech, saying that despite tough gun laws in the United Kingdom, it has blood all over the floors from victims of knife attacks.
'They don't have guns. They have knives and instead there's blood all over the floors of this hospital,' Trump said. 'They say it's as bad as a military war zone hospital ... knives, knives, knives. London hasn't been used to that. They're getting used to that. It's pretty tough.'
The former UK Cabinet minister Charlie Falconer tweeted Saturday: 'US murder rate over 5 times higher than the UK's. There isn't a person in the whole world (with the possible exception of the President of the US, and he's probably lying) who believes the way to reduce our murder rate is to make it easier to get guns.'
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX