Americans Kill Americans

Donald Trump says the USA needs a new President. More, he suggests we need one as soon as possible: Reacting to a 24- hour spree in London of three stabbings and one shooting resulting in three deaths, the leader of the free world has tweeted "LONDON needs a new mayor ASAP. Khan is a disaster - will only get worse!

Trump previously had denounced Mayor Saddiq Khan, not in the least because the latter is a Muslim.  Responding to Trump's remark

Just in case you weren’t aware:

🇺🇸Pop. 330 million
🇬🇧Pop. 65 million

🇺🇸Gun homicides (2017): 14,542
🇬🇧Gun homicides (2017): 31

5x the population.
469x more gun homicides.

Laws matter. https://t.co/Kk0Z8Wc6j4

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) June 15, 2019

In Great Britain, guns don't kill people- and neither do people kill people, generally. Recognizing that the knife is the weapon of choice there, Klass nonetheless further notes

If you just look at the murder rate — regardless of weapon — the murder rate in the US is roughly 5.35 per 100,000 inhabitants. In England & Wales, it’s 1.22. So the UK murder rate is 4.4x lower than the US murder rate. And it’s largely because of easy access to guns.

Whatever other reasons there might be for disinclination of Britons to shoot each other

Great Britain has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the world.  The main law is from the late 1960s, but it was amended to restrict gun ownership further in the latter part of the twentieth century in response to massacres that involved lawfully licensed weapons.  Handguns are prohibited weapons and require special permission.  Firearms and shotguns require a certificate from the police for ownership, and a number of criteria must be met, including that the applicant has a good reason to possess the requested weapon. Self-defense or a simple wish to possess a weapon is not considered a good reason.

Admittedly, Great Britain has an unfair advantage over the United States. It has no Second Amendment to misinterpret, as we have done routinely in the USA.   And knives are simply not as efficient at killing strangers, acquaintances, and loved ones as are firearms.  So if Sadiq Khan needs to be replaced as mayor of London, surely the inadequate and pathetic Donald Trump is  no more as a President than he is as a human being.

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