New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrongly says Buffalo supermarket killer used a bump stock

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Around an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ban on bump stocks, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrongly said a gunman who carried out a racist massacre in her hometown of Buffalo had used the gun accessory that can allow semiautomatic rifles to shoot as fast as a machine gun.

Hochul, a Democrat, made the error first in a statement emailed to media and posted on a state website Friday, then later in post on X that has since been deleted.

She incorrectly said that the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo in 2022 used a bump stock. In the shooting, the gunman modified a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle so he could use illegal high-capacity ammunition magazines, but he did not use a bump stock to make the weapon fire at a faster rate.

“Exactly one month ago, we marked the anniversary of the deadly Buffalo massacre — the horrific day when a hate-fueled gunman murdered ten of our neighbors, using a bump stock to transform his firearm into an even deadlier weapon,” Hochul’s emailed statement read. She added that the Supreme Court decision was “a sad day for the families who have lost loved ones in mass shootings.”

Her now-deleted post on X said “a man using a bump stock killed 10 of our neighbors in Buffalo.”

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