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Biden pens letter on one-year mark of Tops shooting, calls for gun violence legislation

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — On the one-year mark of the Tops mass shooting that killed 10 Black people in Buffalo on May 14, 2022, President Joe Biden penned a letter in USA Today calling on Congress to pass stricter gun legislation.

Biden described his visit to Buffalo with First Lady Jill Biden in the days following the shooting, along with families in Uvalde, Texas following a shooting at an elementary school that killed 19.

“Jill and I visited both communities, spending hours with hundreds of family members who lost pieces of their soul and whose lives will never be the same,” President Biden wrote. “They had one message for all of us: Do something. For God’s sake, do something.”

In March, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expanded background checks for people who wanted to buy guns. That includes enhanced background checks on those under the age of 21 attempting to buy a gun. Tops mass shooter Payton Gendron was 18 years old at the time of the shooting.

“At the bill signing, in front of families from Buffalo, Uvalde and too many other communities affected by gun violence, I said the new law was real progress,” President Biden wrote.

In the letter, Biden continued his calls for Congress to pass more gun legislation.

“America doesn’t have to be a place where our children learn how to duck and cover from a shooter, or scan a movie theater or restaurant for their exit options. Gun violence is mobilizing an entire generation of young people. But we cannot sit back and pass this problem off to the next generation to solve,” he wrote. “If we wait, too many of them will never have the chance to grow up. They deserve better than that, as do all of the gun violence survivors and victims’ families asking Congress to do more.”

Biden also took to Twitter on Sunday to honor the victims of the Tops mass shooting, as well as express that “In America, evil will not win.”



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