A series of shootings this weekend rocked cities from coast to coast. At an event in Hackensack on Monday, Gov. Phil Murphy addressed this latest spate of gun violence in the nation.
“There can be no safe place for any candidate or any elected official seeking wiggle room on guns to hide. Wiggle room is how we end up with 16 dead Americans in one fitful weekend, more than half of whom were targeted just because they were Black,” said Murphy. “This is another mournful week in America. How many more people have to senselessly die before we wake up? How many more have to senselessly die before we come to our senses?”
On Saturday, a gunman opened fire in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and injuring three more. Almost all of those who were shot were Black residents. Authorities say the attacker planned to continue his shooting rampage if he escaped the scene. An 18 year-old white male suspect is in custody and charged with first-degree murder.
Investigators say the gunman is believed to have posted a lengthy racist manifesto online, where he referenced two New Jersey shootings that targeted Hasidic Jews. The manifesto allegedly references so-called replacement theory, the false belief that white American voters are being replaced with immigrants and people of color.
One man was killed and other people were injured in a mass shooting at a Presbyterian church in the southern California City of Laguna Woods. Police arrested and charged a 68-year-old man for the shooting. The congregation is made up of mostly elderly Taiwanese immigrants.
Other shootings were reported over the weekend in Hot Springs, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Amarillo and Houston in Texas; and Winston Salem, North Carolina. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 200 mass shootings so far in 2022.
