Trump NRA Speech Draws Ire In France, Britain
“France is proud to be a country where acquiring and carrying firearms is strictly regulated”
President Trump gave a great speech at the NRA on Friday, and given the venue, his speech was primarily focused on our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Some of what he had to say, however, has ruffled some feathers in the UK and France.
The speech is very campaign-esque and as such is fun to watch. He covers everything from jobs, North Korea, Kanye, and Mueller to the focus of his speech: gun rights in America.
President Donald Trump doubled down on his support for the National Rifle Association at the group’s annual conference in Dallas on Friday after previously vowing to fight the powerful gun-rights group following a February mass shooting at a Florida high school.
“Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your president,” Trump told the supportive crowd in a campaign-style speech.
. . . . In his address to the group Friday, Trump renewed his pledge to possibly “harden” public schools, arm “highly trained” teachers and guards, and improve mental health and background checks to curb mass shootings.
. . . . He urged the crowd to vote in the November midterms to allow Republicans to maintain, or possibly increase, their majority in the House and Senate.
“We need Republicans to do it right to get the kind of things we want,” he said. “We have to get Republicans elected.”
Additionally, Trump spoke about our Second Amendment rights and noted that “In America we trust the people to be wise and to be good. We trust them to take responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities. And that is why in America we have always trusted the people to bear arms.”
Trump commented on freedom and his enduring trust in American citizens in the portion of the speech in which he addressed arming teachers to protect students.
He literally advocated for armed teachers, saying, “We support the Second Amendment, not only because we believe in freedom, but also because we trust in everyday, talented, wonderful people … And by the way, these teachers, they love their students. And they are not going to let anybody hurt their students. But you have to give them a chance.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/992503576852393985
Watch the full speech:
The crowd at the NRA loved the president’s speech. France and the UK, not so much. The president noted that the UK and France have restrictive gun laws that don’t allow the people to protect themselves and that cause terrorists to use knives or vans to commit their slaughter.
There is so much outrage on the left in France and in the UK on behalf of France, that the Express UK had this hyperbolic headline: “End of special relationship: Macron and Trump row erupts over Paris attack comments.” They do concede, however, at the very end that “London has seen a spate of knife crime this year, and saw more murders during February and March than New York.”
U.S. President Donald Trump caused anger in France and Britain by suggesting looser gun laws could have helped prevent deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and linking knife crime in London to a handgun ban.
In a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday, Trump mimicked the shooting of victims in the Paris rampage and said if civilians had been armed “it would have been a whole different story.”
The French government issued its strongest criticism of Trump since he took office and one minister urged the leader to apologise, at a time when President Emmanuel Macron has been reinforcing bilateral ties following a state visit.
“France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump’s comments about the Paris attacks on Nov. 13, 2015 and demands that the memory of the victims be respected,” the foreign office said in a statement.
“France is proud to be a country where acquiring and carrying firearms is strictly regulated.”
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he hoped Trump “would come back on his words and express regret”.
France expresses its firm disapproval of @realDonaldTrump's remarks on the subject of the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, and asks that the memory of the victims be respected. https://t.co/bY6o1duBHg
— French Embassy U.S. (@franceintheus) May 5, 2018
It’s not just in France that Trump’s observations met with stern disapproval. Britain was also not amused.
Reuters continues:
Trump, who is due to visit Britain on July 13, told NRA members that a “once very prestigious” London hospital, which he did not name, had become overwhelmed with knife attack victims.
“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 said, making stabbing gestures.
London suffered a spike in knife crime early this year, and saw more murders during February and March than New York.
Last month, trauma surgeon Martin Griffiths told the BBC 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.
But on Saturday he indicated Trump had drawn the wrong conclusion from 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 @SadiqKhan @metpoliceuk @NHSBartsHealth #WindrushAwards pic.twitter.com/G4vYqTkfbL
— Martin P Griffiths ? (@martinpgriff) May 5, 2018
.@realDonaldTrump disgraceful speech – UK knife crime nowhere near your off-the-scale gun deaths. When you come to London, come and meet our amazing young people, youth workers and NHS workers instead of banquets and pomp: BBC News https://t.co/46vmRqQzMP
— Sarah Jones MP (@LabourSJ) May 5, 2018
The President had this to say after his speech:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/992538416196804608
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Comments
Soooooo, no one is disputing or offering a counterargument about whether armed citizens or better armed citizens would have changed the outcome in Paris. They are just offended by words.
The 21st century “feelings” brigades are not very convincing.
Sacré bleu!
Trump NRA Speech Draws Ire In France, Britain
Sorry, I don’t see that as a bad thing. It’s France and Britain.
I wouldn’t consider them good role models, these days.
Well I guess Trump will just have to live with the fact that he’s not going to get many votes from French and British citizens.
Why, if Trump keeps this up, I bet France and Britain will try to meddle in our elections by targeting tariffs at swing states or something.
UK knife crime is so bad that the regulate knife ownership and are considering even stricter regulations. And then there was the man arrested for carrying a potato peeler in public recently.
Next, being arrested for carrying a 30 chip magazine …of Pringles.
A potato peeler? I can see that… I personally have gouged eyes out with a potato peeler… (the potatoes had sprouted a bit in the kitchen cabinet…)
They had to. It had a 30 chip clip.
(sorry)
Hey now. Don’t laugh.
My ex once went after me with a cheese slicer. You know, one of those with the little roller and wire?
Da bitch was gonna take me down one layer at a time
So when the Frogs and Brits get overrun by the Islamists, who they gonna call to save their sorry derrieres again? Yep, we Second Amendment Americans.
I suspect that by the time French or British cry for help, it will be nearly impossible to root out Muslims, and that there will be few untainted countrymen left to save. Churchill understood, and now Briton is so PC they refuse to pay attention too what Churchill said.
Three times in one century. WW-I, WW-II, and the Cold War.
“The next time we will say no”
I certainly hope that is the case.
Let them get their own butts out of the fire this time.
I saw this comment somewhere recently, and given France’s unhappiness with DJT’s comments, it seems appropriate to repeat,
Which Way, America?
(A) The way of the Founders/Framers
or
(B) The way of the EU/USSR/UN/Islam model
There’s no middle road.
Under (A), rights are inalienable (especially the right to defend which exists even in the absence of the 2A), inherent in each person by simply existing. Government is organized, with the consent of the governed, solely to protect those rights.
Under (B), rights are “granted” by government which exists unto itself regardless of the consent of the governed, acting as the final arbiter. Here, what government “gives” can as easily be taken away.
Well, which do we (or a voting majority) really, really want, (A) or (B)? There is no other choice.
The idea of centralism was always a false premise. Moving toward a “compromising center” always means abandoning your founding principles. And you will note that all “compromise” is a one-way ratchet, moving in one direction only, towards that of more government.
Do we want freedom FROM government via limited, constitutional government whereby government itself is bound by law, or do we want total government. There is no middle position. Madison (Fed. 51) put it this way, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”
Rather than government being dependent on the people, as Madison et alia had hoped, today we witness Obama and his crowd of leftists (including all historical lefties from Wilson, FDR, LBJ, et alia) inverting the Framers’ ideal to the point that the people, and as many as possible, must be made dependent on the government which will then go after the producers (“tax the rich” is their shibboleth) with a vengeance, a taste of which we got 2009-2016.
Governments are tools of the people, people are not tools of the government. The divine right of kings has been replaced by the “divine” right of government. Subjects versus citizens….
That’s an excellent summary…
Fscarn, that was a fantastic summary! Your absolutely right, there is no middle ground here. Hopefully more and more people will start to recognize that before it all gets incrementally taken away.
Its a free country, only if you can keep it.
England used to be a hotbed of gun enthusiasts. Wimbledon and Bisley as examples. The gun trade was vibrant with the likes of Purdey, Westley Richards, Holland & Holland, John Rigby, Greener, W & C Scott, Boss, Webley, on and on.
Today France and England have chosen a slow suicide by Islam.
Acquiring a firearm is hard in France? The employees of Charlie Hebdo and the people on the train with A1C Spencer Stone remember differently.
Just as in Chicago, acquiring a gun in France or the UK is only hard if you obey the law.
I love the logic of gun-grabbing governments.
They ban private ownership of firearms. But, terrorists and other criminals still manage to procure and use them.
When they manages to reduce the number of firearms to a very low number, then the terrorists and criminals begin to use knives. So, they outlaw the possession of knives.
When the number of knives becomes significantly reduced, then the terrorists and the criminals switch to motor vehicles. This requires that private possession of motor vehicles be reduced or banned.
When this is accomplished, the terrorists and criminals will switch to hammers, saws, screwdrivers, pens, pencils and other commonly available tools. So, logically, these must be banned as well.
If this happens, the terrorists and criminals will simply use clubs, their bare hands and numbers to achieve their goals. And, as the civilization now has no modern tools left, it has gone back to the stone age. BUT, the violence has not abated any. Why? Because the violence was never the result of the existence of tools. It was inherent in a portion of the population. Which has not changed at all.
When they manages to reduce the number of firearms to a very low number
But even this part doesn’t happen. They don’t go away; at best they go underground. This is the standard failure mode of all “prohibition” laws. Laws only function if the vast bulk of the population follows them without any need for encouragement.
Plus, it’s only a matter of time when bad guys manufacture their own weapons and ammo, if they don’t already… 3-d printing a milling machines, there’s no way the government will be able to stop them.
Or they start buying cheap hand grenades on the black market.
France and formerly Great Britain were never big on arming the peasants
Oh, dear me, no! We can’t have that now, can we? There’s the difference. At least in GB, they aren’t citizens. They are subjects. Disarmed, and more laws and Acts than gtrains of sand on the beach.
Grizz, we usually agree, but I will take issue on one point. The British people are not subjects. Being a subject implies at least a residual obligation of the rulers to care for them.
After the deliberate murder of Alfie Evans by the Brit NHS, it is clear that to their government the Brits are Objects. Things to be used up and discarded once they are no longer useful or amusing to their rulers. Toilet paper comes to mind.
I don’t think the kid stood much of a chance, but, the way the entire thing was handled was disgusting, and frightening.
There was a time in England that yeomen were required to spend every Sunday afternoon in the church yard practicing with their longbow. A longbow which could put an arrow through the breastplate of an armored knight at 100 yards. So when the French Revolution happened, the peasants had pitchforks and torches. THe English were a little more respectful of their peasants. They have also learned their lessons, and worked on disarming them. I’ve read then, that when the English feared a German invasion, they needed donations of weapons from us to arm their home guard. Apparently, somebody was in a hurry and left too many weapons at Dunkirk. Poor planning. After the war, they destroyed the weapons. Now they are not worried about their peasants revolting.
Wizard of Id cartoon: Sire, the peasants are revolting!
I know, I can smell them from here.
Oh, don’t forget, the Wesley brothers helped stop the French Revolution. The French revolted against their royalty and the Church. Now, they are defenseless against the Mohammedans.
after previously vowing to fight the powerful gun-rights group
I don’t remember that vow.
I was curious about that statement as well….. sources, NBC? or more fake news?
More like NBC is fake news.
Sad to see the Vichy crowd doesn’t like our freedoms.
We value all of our freedoms enough to defend France’s soil when their freedom and very existence were under the boot of Germany.
France hasn’t done much since the War of 1812 and its giving us the Statue of Liberty.
I seem to remember before the United States even became the United States we had a disagreement with Great Britain about the right to bear arms. Seems the colonists won that argument and the United States was the result of winning.
So we upset the Brits and the Frogs. So what?
Talk about missing the point! The relative lethality or ease of repair of knife v gun wounds is completely irrelevant. The point is that guns enable would-be victims to defend themselves, so even if the laws work, and criminals also have no guns victims are still worse off than if both they and the criminals have guns.
This is a point 2A defenders often miss, by stressing the fact that such laws seldom work and bad guys will get guns anyway, implying that if only they could work, if only we could eliminate guns entirely, we would want to do that. The opposite is true. A world with guns is objectively better than one without them.
Oops. I didn’t mean to copy and paste the whole article there. I don’t know how that happened. Here it is again with only the relevant part quoted, so please ignore the previous one.
Talk about missing the point! The relative lethality or ease of repair of knife v gun wounds is completely irrelevant. The point is that guns enable would-be victims to defend themselves, so even if the laws work, and criminals also have no guns victims are still worse off than if both they and the criminals have guns.
This is a point 2A defenders often miss, by stressing the fact that such laws seldom work and bad guys will get guns anyway, implying that if only they could work, if only we could eliminate guns entirely, we would want to do that. The opposite is true. A world with guns is objectively better than one without them.
muslims pay no attention to “strict regulations” on guns or anything else.
So by law it is difficult to carry a firearm in France. Is that why their soldiers have historically dropped them and run at the first sign of trouble?
Ad for a Chauchat light machinegun. “nearly new, only dropped once.”
To me it is clear that the smart ones left the UK in the early 1700’s and the permanent peasant class remained behind.
That’s been my theory about Europe and the US, not just England. We got the people who wanted better and were willing to risk and work for it, they got the followers.
Is anti-native violence (“migrant” violence against the native population) increasing in Switzerland like it is in England and France?
Charlie Hebdo could not be reached for comment.
It doesn’t matter what the dhimmi French and Brits think. They’ve been overrun and surrendered to their new Muslim masters. Soon enough they’ll be living under Sharia law.
The insanity of anti gun French is shown when there were no guns present to defend the Charlie Hebo staff despite numerous threats and attacks against them by Muslims practicing Islam.
Add to that that the Muslims were able to obtain AKs despite the ban.