WATCH: Nancy Pelosi Discusses How Extremists “Gravitate Toward Each Other” Resulting In Violence
Another mass shooting on Saturday afternoon left 10 victims dead. Soon after a suspect was arrested, the news emerged that he was connected to a racist manifesto, and the violent attack is being investigated as a hate crime. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is addressing the online communities that the manifesto credits for the alleged shooter’s radicalization.
CNN reports that Payton Gendron, 18, was arrested after the shooting and has pleaded not guilty to one charge of first-degree murder, with additional charges expected to follow. A manifesto that was published online in his name rants about replacement theory — the notion that a majority group is being ‘replaced’ by minorities, and that has even been spouted by right-wing politicians, as well as popular right-wing media figures. It also describes his purchases of ammunition, and his beginning to plan the attack in January.
Pelosi appeared on This Week Sunday and discussed the shooting, specifically addressing how internet communities build around these racist conspiracy theories, and that social media companies must balance supporting free speech with a responsibility not to help promote violence.
“We have to balance the free speech issues…America is a great country. Our freedom is so important to us, but that freedom also carries public safety with it, and we have to balance those,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi says after mass shooting at Buffalo market. https://t.co/KRKxLedc81 pic.twitter.com/u6kt1ZIaQY
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 15, 2022
“It’s not just one thing. It’s communities of similar thinking who gravitate toward each other. That’s what produced some other violence in our country as well. America is a great country and freedom is so important to us, but that freedom also carries public safety with it, and we have to balance those.”
According to The Hill, Pelosi says that addressing gun violence is a major priority for her party, but that the required 60-vote majority to pass legislation through the Senate is a major hurdle without Republicans on board.
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