Biden: It’s an act of ‘terrorism’
President Biden described the murder of 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket 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 hatecrime 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.
‘Photo-op’ slam
As Biden spoke, a crowd of hundreds — including relatives of the victims — gathered across the street, although not all of them appreciated Biden’s latest attempt at being the 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 manifesto before the attack. On Tuesday, Biden focused his remarks both on condemning white supremacy and calling for new restrictions on firearm ownership.
“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.”