BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – President Joe Biden said it will be “very difficult” for Congress to pass new gun control laws and that there is very little executive action he can do at this time to address gun violence in America.
Biden’s comments came while he was in Buffalo Tuesday visiting the site of the racially motivated mass shooting that killed ten people and injured three others at a Tops supermarket over the weekend. Biden visited a memorial at the site of the attack and met with the families of the victims.
Photos: President Biden visits Buffalo after mass shooting
Biden delivered a speech at the Delavan-Grider Community Center in Buffalo where he denounced white supremacy as a “poison” and condemned the racist ideologies that contributed to the shooter’s motivations.
Biden spoke with reporters at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport before boarding Air Force One back to Washington. Biden was asked if there were any executive orders he could issue to address gun violence or whether he thought there was a renewed opportunity for Congress to pass new gun reforms in the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo.
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“Not much on executive action. I’ve got to convince the Congress that we should go back to what I passed years ago,” Biden told reporters. “It’s going to be very difficult. Very difficult. But I’m not going to give up trying.”
“We have enough laws on the books to deal with what’s going on now,” Biden continued. “We just have to deal with it. Look, part of what the country has to do is look in the mirror and face the reality. We have a problem with domestic terror. It’s real.”
Eleven of the 13 people shot during Saturday’s Tops mass shooting were Black. Payton Gendron, 18, was arrested at the supermarket and charged with murder after the rampage. Prior to the attack, Gendron allegedly posted an online manifesto taking credit for the violence in the name of white supremacy.
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“White supremacy is a poison, it’s a poison, it really is, running through our body politic. It’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean no more,” Biden said in his speech in Buffalo Tuesday.
“We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can, the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America,” the president said. “Silence is complicity, we cannot remain silent.”