Early Sunday morning, we witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in American history at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The American-born shooter, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and injured at least 53 in a three-hour hostage standoff before being killed by local police, who burst through a bathroom wall of the iconic nightspot and shot him dead.
The descriptions from the scene have been horrific, leaving the city of Orlando, the state of Florida and the country in shock.
Twenty minutes prior to the attack, Mateen called 911 and swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, making the attack not just a hate crime against the LGBTQ community but a terrorist attack with international ties.
Although ISIS militants have killed LGBTQ people in parts of Syria and Iraq they have conquered, the group has not specifically targeted the LGBTQ community; its actions are directed more generally against Westerners, religious minorities and other Muslims who do not adhere to its form of radical Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalism.
Mateen’s last-minute declaration of allegiance makes the attack less ISIS-sponsored and more ISIS-inspired, which highlights the danger of so-called “lone wolf” terrorists, especially as military operations wrest control of ISIS territory in Iraq and Syria.
Disaffected and radicalized individuals are harder to identify, predict, arrest and charge, especially if they have no previous criminal records. Mateen had been twice investigated for terrorism-related statements and for a tenuous relationship to an American who had joined radical Islamist militants in Somalia. Both times the FBI determined there was not enough material to charge Mateen with any crime, nor initiate a full investigation.
Unlike the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, the London bombings and the Paris shootings, Mateen’s attack was not coordinated by an outside terrorist group. It lacked the planning and sophistication of those attacks but what made it so deadly was Mateen’s legal purchase of an AR-15, a high-capacity assault weapon easier to buy in Florida than a pistol.
American and allied attacks on ISIS targets will likely increase to destroy the haven of those who would attack the innocent here and elsewhere around the world.
While the debate about guns, radical Islamist terrorism and anti-LGBTQ violence will be at the forefront of discourse in the weeks and months to come, for now, the nation is mourning our dead and treating our wounded. Lines to donate blood in the Orlando area stretched more than a mile long over the weekend. Liberals, conservatives, LGBTQ individuals and American Muslims stood side-by-side Sunday morning to condemn the attacks with equal vigor. Vigils are planned nationwide, including at Posse Grounds Park on Sunday, June 19.
No matter what our beliefs, faiths or identities may be, we are Americans, we are human beings, and we must battle hate and violence with love and unity.
