President Biden called for more action against gun violence on Sunday’s one-year anniversary of the Buffalo supermarket shooting as the local community remembered those killed in the racially motivated massacre.
The shooting on May 14, 2022, at a Tops Friendly Markets store killed 10 people — each of whom was Black — and wounded three others. The gunman, Payton Gendron, pleaded guilty in November to more than 20 state charges, including murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism, and was sentenced in February to life in prison.
In an op-ed Sunday for USA Today, Biden cited Gun Violence Archive statistics in writing there have been more than 650 mass shootings and more than 40,000 deaths from gun violence in the U.S. since the Buffalo rampage.
“I have already taken more meaningful executive action to reduce gun violence than any other president, and I will continue to pursue every legal and effective action. But my power is not absolute,” Biden wrote.
“Congress must act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms, requiring background checks for all gun sales, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. We also need more governors and state legislators to take these steps.”
Gendron, who is white, allegedly wrote in a 180-page manifesto that the neighborhood where Tops is located had “the highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live.” Gendron is from Conklin, N.Y., about 200 miles southeast of Buffalo. He still faces a federal case.
Buffalo planned to commemorate the anniversary Sunday by chiming church bells at 2:28 p.m., when the shooting occurred a year earlier. A moment of silence is set to follow.
“The racially motivated mass shooting shook our community to its core,” Mayor Byron Brown said. “It was the day the unthinkable happened.”
The victims killed in the attack were between 32 and 86 years old. Among them was 63-year-old Geraldine Talley, whose son released a book, “5/14 : The Day the Devil Came to Buffalo,” on Sunday.
“I definitely know that she wouldn’t want me to be consumed by sadness and anger,” Mark Talley told the Associated Press, “so I will definitely try to find strength in her memory and use it to fight injustice and racism for the rest of my life in her name.”
Less than two weeks after the Buffalo massacre, 21 people — including 19 children — were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that was carried out by a former student. Earlier this month, eight people died in a shooting at an outdoor shopping center in Allen, Texas.