Buffalo shooting fuels renewed calls for gun control, social media accountability

The mass shooting at a New York supermarket over the weekend dominated the Sunday talk shows this week, as the tragedy spurred renewed cries for gun control and fueled concerns over violent hate crimes in the country.

A gunman shot 13 people at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on Saturday, killing at least 10. Eleven of the victims were Black and police are investigating the shooting as a hate crime following a racist manifesto the gunman published online.

While the gunman’s apparently hate-motivated assault has captured the attention of the nation, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” the focus should be on “sensible gun control” to prevent the next shooting.

“After all of these mass shootings that have taken place in this country for different reasons, year in and year out, month in and month out, week in and week out, let Buffalo, New York, be the last place that this kind of mass shooting happens,” Brown said.

The gunman, who was wearing a tactical vest and had briefly livestreamed the shooting on Twitch, surrendered to police and was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge Saturday evening.

Authorities say that Payton Gendron, 18, wrote and published a 180-page manifesto via 4Chan, an online social forum. In the manifesto, Gendron espoused racist ideas and white supremacist ideology including the “Great Replacement” theory, or a false belief that liberals are intentionally replacing white people with minorities in the U.S. for political benefit.

The shooting follows other recent high-profile hate crimes in the U.S., including a white supremacist who targeted Hispanics in 2019 when he shot and killed 23 people in El Paso, Texas, and a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Sunday said Gendron would not “see the light of day again.”

“This person murdered 10 innocent victims in our community just yesterday,” Hochul said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Gendron is from Conklin, a town close to Ithaca that hugs New York’s border with Pennsylvania. He traveled more than 200 miles to Buffalo with a legally purchased assault-style rifle and illegal magazines banned in New York.

Gendron was investigated by police last year after he made threatening statements, according to NBC News. He was taken for a mental health evaluation but was not charged with a crime.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Hochul told moderator George Stephanopoulos that Gendron had been on the authorities’ radar for something he wrote in high school. 

Hochul said social media platforms must be held responsible for allowing Gendron to publish the manifesto online, arguing hateful ideas were “spreading through social media platforms that need to be monitored and shut down the second these words are espoused.”

“The CEOs of those companies need to be held accountable and assure all of us that they’re taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information,” Hochul said. “How these depraved ideas are fermenting on social media – it’s spreading like a virus now.”

President Biden condemned the attack, saying in a statement on Saturday it was “antithetical to everything we stand for in America” and that “we must do everything in our power to end hate-fueled domestic terrorism.”

“We must all work together to address the hate that remains a stain on the soul of America,” Biden said during an address on Sunday at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service outside the U.S. Capitol.

Buffalo residents held a prayer vigil for the victims on Sunday morning. Pictures on social media show candles, pictures and flowers placed at the scene of the shooting.

Byron, the city’s mayor, told CNN on Sunday that Buffalo was shocked and horrified by the tragedy, but added the shootings would not end without federal action to stop the availability of weapons in the nation.

“We cannot have another incident like this in America, where lawmakers in Washington fail to act,” Byron said. “Enough is enough.”