Biden Calls Buffalo Massacre “Domestic Terrorism,” Says White Supremacy is “Poison”

President Joe Biden addressed the recent shooting rampage during his trip to Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday. While there, he met with the families of the victims from Saturday’s massacre and addressed both racism and hate that officials say motivated the gunman.

“What happened here is simple, straightforward terrorism,” Biden said.

“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.”

“In America, evil will not win, I promise you. Hate will not prevail, and white supremacy will not have the last word,” Biden continued.

Biden was joined by first lady Jill Biden and they visited a memorial placed at the location of the shooting, Tops Supermarket.

The two went to honor the 10 victims who died and placed a bouquet of flowers at the site.

The gunman also wounded three others.

The President and First Lady also met with law enforcement, first responders, and community leaders.

“You have to refuse to live in a country where Black people going about a weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause,” Biden said. “We have to refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packaged for power, and for-profit.”

During his remarks, he read the names and descriptions of the 10 killed, and what they had gone to the store for that day, NBC News reported.

Biden has called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban, an issue he has pushed for well before he became president, but it still lacks the votes in the Senate to pass.

“This venom, this violence cannot be the story of our time. We cannot allow that to happen,” Biden said. “Look, I’m not naive, I know tragedy will come again. It cannot be forever overcome, it cannot be fully understood either, but there are certain things we can do.”

Biden has dealt with several mass shootings since he has been in office, which has prompted him to take executive action and urge the Department of Justice to do more to stop illegal gun distribution.

House Democrats are expected to vote on a bill that seeks to fight against white supremacists and other domestic extremist groups, but Democratic efforts to advance gun control measures have been blocked by Republicans in the evenly divided Senate.

Some Republicans are being slammed for allegedly espousing a far-right conspiracy theory that investigators say the gunman in Buffalo wrote about in a lengthy “manifesto” that drove him to target and kill Black people.

“I call on all Americans to reject the lie, and I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for-profit,” Biden said.