Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Commemorating Third Anniversary Of The Buffalo Tops Supermarket Mass Shooting

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to mark the third anniversary of the tragic Tops Supermarket mass shooting in Buffalo, honoring the lives lost and urging his colleagues to take continued action against hate-fueled extremism and the gun violence epidemic nationwide. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Three years ago today, ten beautiful innocent lives were cut short in a horrible racist mass shooting at a Tops Supermarket on Buffalo’s East Side. 

Buffalo is the city of good neighbors, and nowhere is that truer that on the East Side. But in just two minutes, the community was forever changed. 

Ten of our grandparents, parents, sons, daughters, friends, neighbors went to the grocery store that day. It was a convening place, a meeting place, the Tops Supermarket was, and they never came home.

I remember being in the community in the days and weeks after.

I met a young boy only a few years old, his father was out buying him a birthday cake at the grocery store and he never came home. It rattles you to your core.

The Buffalo community has done a lot of healing over the last three years, but the pain from the shooting still lingers to this day.

After the shooting, I worked hand in hand with the families of those we lost in Buffalo, to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – the first gun-safety legislation in 30 years.

I had authored the Brady law, which did so much good and still does so much good, 30 years before.

Both sides came together, Democrats and Republicans. It was a good moment, to expand background checks, crack down on gun traffickers, and invest in violence intervention programs, to make our streets safer, and make our communities safer.

Passing this bill was a moment of significant progress in the fight against gun violence. We cannot turn back the clock on this progress made in honor of those we lost.

We have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to rid America of the gun violence epidemic.

But the memories of those we lost in Buffalo three years ago today give me endless motivation to keep pushing.

May God bless Buffalo, God bless all the families impacted by the tragedy three years ago today, and may God bless America.

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