US News

Joe Biden suggests gun reform after Buffalo shooting ‘terrorism’

President Biden described the murder of 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store as “terrorism” Tuesday after visiting the crime scene and meeting with the victims’ families amid fresh demands that he enact sweeping new gun control and hate crime legislation.

“What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism, terrorism, domestic terrorism — violence inflicted in the service of hate and the vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior,” the president said during remarks lasting about 15 minutes at a local community center.

As Biden spoke, a crowd of hundreds — including relatives of some of the victims — gathered across the street, and not all of them appreciated Biden’s latest attempt at being Consoler-in-Chief. 

“We would like the president to pass a law that protects black people from hate crimes. Until something like this happens, it’s a slap in the face to see him pass bills for other Americans,” 45-year-old Antonia Wynter of Rochester told The Post.

“We didn’t come up for a photo op to see his wrinkly ass,” she fumed. “We came up to see a bill passed.”

Suspect Payton Gendron, 18, is believed to have been motivated by anti-black racism and published a lengthy manifesto before the Saturday attack. On Tuesday, Biden focused his remarks both on condemning white supremacy and calling for new restrictions on firearm ownership.

“Look, I’m not naive. I know tragedy will come again. It cannot be forever overcome. It cannot be fully understood either. But there are certain things we can do,” he said. “We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when we passed the [1994] crime bill last time and violence went down, shootings went down. 

“We can’t prevent people from being radicalized to violence,” Biden went on, “but we can address the relentless exploitation of the Internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism.”

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited a memorial at the Buffalo grocery store where a gunman murdered 10 people. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

Gendron allegedly used a semiautomatic rifle to shoot 11 black people and two white people during the rampage. 

Family members of two of the victims expressed appreciation for the president’s visit.

“He did as much as he can,” said Latifa Johnson, 29, the granddaughter of Celestine Chaney. “He came here. He said he’s going to change the gun laws and change the amount of weapons people can have. 

“That’s what I’m looking forward to,” Johnson told The Post. “Just stop the guns.”

President Biden and Jill Biden laid flowers at the makeshift memorial. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

“Let us get the right laws and get him to sign them,” agreed Vyonne Mackniel, brother of victim Andre Mackniel. “Gun reform. With some of these teenagers, they need to monitor some of those video games too because watching that video looked like a video game to me.”

The accused shooter published a 180-page document outlining his bigoted views of various ethnic groups, including Jews, before driving more than three hours to Buffalo from his 5,000-person hometown of Conklin, along the Pennsylvania border near Binghamton.

Biden did not single out any public figures by name, but broadly condemned what he described as the promotion of prejudice “for profit.”

“Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America, but they don’t understand America,” Biden said.

The president added that the media and Internet have “radicalized angry, alienated, lost and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be ‘replaced’ — that’s the word, replaced — by the other, by people who don’t look like them.”

“I and all of you reject the lie. I call on all Americans to reject the lie. And I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain and for profit.”

Biden also linked racism to the anti-democratic actions of a racially diverse but mostly white mob that stormed the Capitol last year to prevent certification of his 2020 election victory.

“As president of the United States I travel the world all the time,” Biden said. “And other nations ask me, heads of state in other countries ask me, ‘What’s going on? What in God’s name happened on January 6? What happened in Buffalo? What happened —?’ They’ll ask. We have to refuse to live in a country where black people going about their weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause.”

Biden shared brief biographies of the shooting victims, including former Buffalo Police officer Aaron Salter Jr., 55, who was fatally shot while trying to stop the attack.

Salter, who had retired from the force and was working as a security guard at the store, was “a hero who gave his life to save others on a Saturday afternoon,” Biden said.

“Had that [gunman] not been wearing that vest that he purchased — bulletproof vest — a lot of lives would have been saved,” he added.

After calling for new gun restrictions, Biden told reporters before returning to Washington that he doesn’t believe any new anti-terror laws are needed, saying, “we have enough laws on the books to deal with what’s going on.”

The White House has also made a point of not accusing specific political figures of potentially inspiring the gunman.

Gov. Kathy Hochul lays flowers at the memorial for the shooting victims. AP

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday declined to blame by name any Republicans or Fox News host Tucker Carlson — unlike many Democrats, including Schumer, and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). But she did share the same message in broad strokes.

“The people who spread this filth know who they are and they should be ashamed of themselves,” Jean-Pierre said on Air Force One. “But I’m not going to give them or their noxious ideas they’re pushing the attention that they desperately want.”

Some commentators, especially on CNN and MSNBC, have sought to link Gendron to Republican leaders and Carlson — pointing to their allegedly common thoughts on immigration. But other commentators disagree on the link, arguing that broader circulation of the shooter’s manifesto would show clear distinctions.