President Joe Biden is in Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday to console the families of victims of a mass shooting this weekend where a lone white gunman targeted a Black community in the latest example of racist violence that the president's campaign promised to quell in the months ahead of 2020.
Biden will be in western New York state, where law enforcement officials say Gendron shot 13 people with a semi-automatic rifle at the Tops Friendly Market. Ten people died.
The president and first lady will pay their respects to the lives lost in the shooting and meet with local law enforcement and first responders, according to the White House press secretary.
She said that the Bidens will visit a Tops Market memorial and deliver remarks at a community center in the afternoon.
Chuck Schumer, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, joined the president on Air Force One to offer their sympathies to the victims and their families. Both Schumer and Gillibrand are Democrats.
The president will use his speech at 1 p.m., according to Jean-Pierre. To urge Congress to pass new measures to reduce gun crime and domestic terrorism.
She said that the president would call the act despicable and that it was motivated by a perverse ideology that tears at the soul of the nation.
Jean-Pierre said that Biden wants lawmakers to take action to keep weapons of war off the streets and to keep guns out of the hands of criminals who have a serious mental illness.
Biden promised to curb racism as a presidential candidate. He contrasted himself with Donald Trump, who at first failed to condemn a white supremacist rally that took place in Virginia.
U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects to the 10 people killed in a mass shooting by a gunman authorities say was motivated by racism, at the TOPS Friendly Markets memorial site in Buffalo, NY, U.S. May 17, 2022.In August 2020, months before his victory, Biden said the bigotry of the Charlottesville rally convinced him to challenge Trump.
It was a wake-up call for us as a country. Biden said at the time that he would have to run for president.
Biden and other Democrats say gun control measures are critical to reduce racial violence.
The rise of white supremist groups or gun deaths has not been stopped by the Biden administration. Republicans have for years prevented gun control legislation from being passed.
New background checks for firearm buyers, bar high-capacity magazines and outlaw military-style assault weapons for civilian use are some of the things the president has asked Congress to do.
Police are investigating Gendron's social media profiles, including a 180-page manifesto he is suspected of writing that explains the Great Replacement Theory.
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