Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
On Saturday afternoon, 13 people were shot and 10 killed at a Buffalo supermarket. The individual who carried out the heinous attack has been apprehended.
Shoppers in and around a Buffalo, New York, supermarket Saturday detailed being forced to hide behind cars, calling out for help as a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others in a mass shooting authorities believe was racially motivated.
Grady Lewis said he was outside the supermarket when he heard seven or eight gunshots, and described seeing a White man “fully prepared, ready to go,” dressed in tactical gear spraying gunfire at the entry of the store, which is located in the heart of the city’s Black community.
Law enforcement arrived within two minutes after the shooting began, Lewis told CNN affiliate WKBW. He “heard at least 20 or so shots” before the suspect exited the store.
“He came out, he put the gun to his head, to his chin. Then he dropped it and took off his bulletproof vest, then got on his hands and knees and put his hands behind his back,” Lewis said, describing the moments the suspect was arrested by police. “I thought they were going to shoot him but they didn’t shoot him.”
Of course, CNN citing this as “racially motivated” doesn’t make it so. After all, CNN likes to claim everything is racially motivated.
However, this time, they might just be right.
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Saturday’s mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism.
The gunman was identified during his arraignment as [name removed] of Conklin, New York. That name that matches the name given in a 180-page manifesto that surfaced online shortly after the attack and took credit for the violence in the name of white supremacy.
Law enforcement and government officials would not confirm the validity of the document in the immediate hours after the attack. Yet, the excruciating detail provided leave little doubt of its authenticity. A senior federal law enforcement official told the New York Times they believed Gendron posted the document.
“There are certain pieces of evidence that we have ascertained in the course of this investigation that indicate some racial animosity,” Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said. “I’m not going specifically talk about or elaborate on what exactly they are right now.”
The document, which News 4 has reviewed, plotted the attack in grotesque detail. The writer plotted his actions down to the minute, included diagrams of his path through the store and said he specifically targeted the Tops Markets location on Jefferson Avenue because its zip code has the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lives.
“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said. “A straight-up racially motivated hate crime.”
Let me make this perfectly clear. I find any motivation for a mass shooting to be disgusting, but hatred of any kind is especially awful. If this is indeed what happened, then…I’ve got absolutely nothing.
It also appears the suspect traveled a fair way just to target this particular grocery store.
So now we’re talking about the Buffalo shooting. We shouldn’t be. We shouldn’t have to have this. I shouldn’t have to scour through the news looking for information on this awful crime. I shouldn’t have to do this.
But I do.
This happened and it’s beyond awful. Of course, my thoughts and prayers go out to all of those affected. We’d gone a while without a real mass shooting. Some had no choice but to use the broader definition that has no bearing on any other mass homicide to justify their existence.
I was hoping we just wouldn’t see more of these. Not for a good while yet. Unfortunately, that’s not to be.
I don’t want to delve into the politics too much here, but I will point out that New York has a lot of gun control, so before people start screaming for more of it, keep in mind that this happened in a state that had more regulations than anyone is seriously considering at the federal level.
So everyone needs to hold their horses and let’s get a chance to process what happened.
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2022/05/15/buffalo-shooting-n58293