A new deadliest shooting in U.S. history

In the midst of Pride Month, a week into Ramadan, days after the burial of the beloved American Muslim Muhammad Ali, America awoke Sunday to yet another unbearable slaughter, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Some 50 people have been declared dead in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando. President Barack Obama called it “an act of terror and an act of hate.”

The shooter, Omar Mateen, was said to have stormed into the club at 2 a.m. and opened fire just before last call. He remained there for hours before police stormed the building and killed him.

Mateen was an American citizen born in New York to Afghan immigrant parents, and the comparison to San Bernardino and Paris, where homegrown radical Islamists committed similar carnage, was immediate.

The Islamic State has encouraged lone-wolf attacks during Ramadan – the better, supposedly, to reap some sort of sick afterlife glory. CNN reported that Mateen called 911 before the attack, ranting about ISIS and the Boston Marathon bombers. Later, terrorists claimed responsibility through an encrypted phone app.

Mateen’s father told NBC News that the 29-year-old man recently saw two men kiss in public and became “very angry.”

This mass slaying had something else in common with too many others – an “AR-15” type assault rifle used by the deranged shooter. That was, of course, the military-grade weapon used by James Holmes to slaughter a crowd of moviegoers in Colorado; and by Adam Lanza to murder 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook; and by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife to mow down 14 terrified people at a holiday luncheon in San Bernardino; and by Christopher Harper-Mercer to kill nine people at an Oregon community college.

The Orlando assailant, like so many in our heavily armed nation, was legally licensed to carry such rapid-fire weapons. Whatever questions there are about Mateen’s motive, if there were more restrictions on such weapons, perhaps he would not have killed so many.

The security vs. gun control debate immediately became part of the presidential campaign.

Shameless as he is, Donald Trump immediately tried to turn the massacre to his political gain. Already basing a large part of his appeal on creating fear, he seemed to take some sort of glee in tweeting: “Appreciate the congrats on being right on radical Islamic terrorism.” Perhaps the presumptive Republican nominee assumes it plays into his hands, that a fearful nation will turn to someone who presents himself as a bully and tough guy.

If we are to survive as a nation, we must find a way to embrace our diversity while curbing our violence.

Tragically, after past incidents such as this, gun sales have soared. How many guns do people need to feel safe? We already have more guns than people.

Most of us will mourn and some will do what we can to help. In Orlando on Sunday, thousands came forward to donate blood, overwhelming the city’s blood banks in an effort to do something, anything, meaningful.

Undoubtedly, they were motivated by concern, caring and compassion. Not fear. Whatever we do, and we must do something, our reaction cannot be from fear. It must be from strength. Like the strength being shown in Orlando.

This story was originally published June 12, 2016 at 4:27 PM with the headline "A new deadliest shooting in U.S. history."