President Joe Biden praised 26-year-old Brandon Tsay, of San Marino, as an American hero on Tuesday night, Feb. 7, during his State of the Union speech, in which he hailed the Alhambra dance studio operator’s action to thwart a gunman’s Jan. 21 rampage as a symbol of sacrifice while condemning the gun violence that led to 11 dead in a Monterey Park dance hall.
“He thought he was going to die, but then he thought about the people inside,” Biden said. “He saved lives. It’s time we do the same as well. Ban assault weapons now. Ban them now — once and for all.”
Tsay was helping to run the Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio in Alhambra on the night of Jan. 21 when a man walked in carrying a MAC-11 semi-automatic pistol. Tsay stopped him, wrestled the gun away from him and kicked out the man, who had only minutes earlier opened fire inside of Monterey Park’s Star Ballroom Dance Studio. It turned a weekend of Lunar New Year celebration and a night of dancing into yet another massacre in America.
Ultimately, Tsay would be credited with preventing a second attack at the Alhambra dance studio.
Brandon Tsay, 26, stands as President Joe Biden acknowledges him at his 2023 State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, 2023. To his left is Bono, U2’s leade singer. And to his right is RowVaughn, mother of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man who died after being severely beaten by Memphis police. (Courtesy)
At the mention of his name by Biden, Tsay stood to wave and nod to a chorus of applause from a standing joint session of Congress, including the president’s cabinet and the U.S. Supreme Court. He sat in the First Lady Jill Biden’s viewing box along with other esteemed guests.
On his right were the parents of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died last month after a brutal beating by police in Memphis, Tenn. And on his left was the band U2’s lead singer Bono, known for his humanitarian work in the fight against HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty.
Brandon joined me at my State of the Union tonight.
During a Lunar New Year celebration, he wrestled the semi-automatic pistol away from a gunman who had already killed 11 people.
He saved lives.
It’s time we do the same and ban assault weapons once and for all. pic.twitter.com/jFEPrTMVCL
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 8, 2023
Other guests, among others, joining Tsay in the box included Lynette Bonar, of the Navajo Nation, who initiated the first cancer center opened on a Native American reservation, LGBTQIA+ activists Gina and Heidi Nortonsmith and others whose stories weave into a tapestry of American tenacity and progression.
Tsay was not the only distinguished guest from the San Gabriel Valley attending the speech. Locals and leaders, including Monterey Park Councilmember Henry Lo and Juiley Phun — the niece of 67-year-old Star Dance shooting victim Muoi Dai Ung, among others, were invited by the White House because they personify issues or themes to be addressed by Biden in his speech or embody the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, the White House said.
But since the week after the Monterey Park shooting, Tsay has emerged as a symbol of selflessness and a hero in a shaken community, known as among the quietest and friendliest in the region, where immigrants, many Asian, have settled.
Leaders from law enforcement to Monterey Park, and from the statehouse to the White House have celebrated Tsay, who himself has described the aftermath as “surreal.”
But he has also pivoted off the praise, using his newfound celebrity to remind people that “life is fragile,” and that “we as a community should spend our precious time reaching out to each other,” he told a Jan. 29 Alhambra Lunar Year gathering, where leaders paid tribute to his courage.
“We have the rest of the year to spread compassion and build back our community. We can mend and grow from this tragedy,” he said.
Biden’s acknowledgement of Tsay came as part of the president’s wide-ranging speech, which included a vociferous called for a ban on assault weapons.
Amid the applause of that moment in his speech, he proclaimed: “We did it before. I led the fight to ban them in 1994. In the 10 years the ban was law, mass shootings went down. After Republicans let it expire, mass shootings tripled. Let’s finish the job and ban assault weapons again.”
Lo, the Monterey Park councilmember, attended as U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla’s guest to further elevate the issue of gun regulation.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.) introduced a pair of bills against assault weapons. The Assault Weapons Ban would ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices. The Age 21 Act would raise the minimum age to purchase assault weapons from 18 to 21, the same requirement that currently exists in law for handguns.
Authorities say the Star Dance Studio gunman wielded a semi-automatic pistol with an “extended large-capacity magazine” and a homemade suppressor attached.
“For Asian Americans, we have a rate of social problems (such as) a lack of accessibility to culturally competency, mental health services poor labor conditions — which all contribute to violence in our community,” said Lo, who as mayor of Monterey Park facilitated emergency actions as well as restorative initiatives in the days that followed the shooting. “Add to that the rise anti-asian hate and you can see the conditions, which have, I think, really exposed the fragility of our community.”
According to Pew Research, gun deaths have climbed sharply in recent years. The 19,384 deaths that took place in 2020 were the most since at least 1968. The 2020 total represented a 34% increase from the year before, a 49% increase over five years and a 75% increase over 10 years.
“This is a national conversation, because although in California, we have very strong anti-gun violence legislation (yet) we have other states that are more lax and have not stood up to the gun lobby,” Lo said. “And I think that’s why this is something that congressional action is required.”
For groups seeking to reduce hate against Asians and Pacific Islanders in America, the moment Tuesday was a culmination of longstanding efforts.
Last week, AAPI Victory Alliance joined 116 gun violence prevention groups as part of The Time is Now coalition, requesting Biden pursue all possible options to push for gun violence prevention action – including declaring a national emergency due to gun violence and creating a federal office of gun violence prevention.
The non-profit aims to empower AAPI voters through education and data driven policy creation and advocacy. Varun Nikore, executive director of the AAPI Alliance, said the increase of AAPI hate crimes fed a level of fear that gun manufacturers utilized in order to market to the vulnerable and misinformed population. Nikore believes the instatement of an office dedicated to gun violence response would mean efficient reactions and resources in times of crisis.
“I would say we are at the early days of an epidemic,” Nikore said.
Most guns used in U.S. mass shootings are legally obtained, according to the Violence Project’s database. In 2022, mass shooters used semi-automatic weapons to kill more than 40 people between May and July alone.
“Sadly, these tragedies in Monterey Park and elsewhere are reminders of the urgency with which we need to act,” Padilla said.
Related links
A Monterey Park kung fu school had a safe space at a revered dance studio. Then came the mass shooting
Two weeks later, what we know — and still don’t know — about Monterey Park shooter
‘It’s going to take some time’: Alhambra’s Lai Lai Ballroom seeks to buoy ‘healing process’ after shooting
Brandon Tsay, who disarmed mass shooter, is cheered and honored in Alhambra