Gov. Wolf calls recent mass shootings ‘appalling,' reiterates call for gun reforms

Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday condemned deadly mass shootings that happened over the weekend in Buffalo and Orange County, Calif.

Ten people were killed and three others injured at a shooting inside a grocery store in Buffalo on Saturday, while one person was killed and five others injured in the shooting at an Orange County church.

“It is just appalling,” Wolf said during a stop in Pittsburgh. “They are both just awful.”

Wolf said the motive for the shooting in Orange County is still unclear, but he condemned the “racial hatred” that appears to have motivated the Buffalo shooter. Authorities said the suspected Buffalo shooter, Payton S. Gendron, wrote a screed that included white supremacist rhetoric and 11 of the 13 victims were Black. Buffalo officials said Gendron’s attack was meant to intimidate non-white, non-Christian people into leaving the United States.

“That is unacceptable,” Wolf said.

Wolf said these shootings place more pressure on lawmakers in Pennsylvania and across the country to pass gun-reform laws.

He said these mass shootings are happening at a time when “there are so many guns out in so many hands.”

Wolf, a Democrat, called for Pennsylvania legislators to remove the background check loophole that allows shotguns, sporting rifles and semiautomatic rifles to be sold at gun shows without a background check.

He also called for legislation to require Pennsylvania gun owners to report lost or stolen guns. The Trace, an investigative journalism site focused on guns, reported that the vast majority of the 23,000 stolen firearms recovered by police between 2010 and 2016 were connected with crimes.

In Pittsburgh last year, police officials reported that half of the guns seized in cases involving kids and firearms were stolen.

“I think this is something we need to do,” Wolf said. “These are some common-sense things we can do.”