Biden: Buffalo mass shooting was domestic terrorism

WASHINGTON, May 17 (KUNA) -- US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the Buffalo, New York mass shooting was "domestic terrorism." "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 to any other group," Biden said in a speech during a visit to Buffalo, where he and First Lady Jill Biden paid their respects to the lives lost in Saturday's supermarket shooting.
He added "we've seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh, last year in Atlanta, this week in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York. 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.
We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of White supremacy has no place in America," he stressed.
He continued "now's the time for people of all races, from every background, to speak up as a majority and American and reject white supremacy." "Jill and I bring you this message from deep in our nation's soul, in America, evil will not win, I promise you. Hate will not prevail and White supremacy will not have the last word," he remarked.
Biden stressed "we have to refuse to live in a country where people going about a weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war, deployed in a racist cause.
We have to refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packaged for power and for profit." Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a gaggle on Air Force One "our country is facing an epidemic on gun violence that is costing lives every day as we've seen most recently in Buffalo and other examples." She reiterated that Biden "is using every tool he can to fight gun violence." Up to ten people were killed and three others wounded in Saturday's supermarket shooting in Buffalo. (end) si.mb