The Sunday morning mass shooting in Orlando, Florida immediately pushed politicians into two camps: those who said it’s time to take terrorist threats more seriously, and those who said it’s a wake-up call for tougher gun control laws.
The shooting, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, is also likely to take center stage in the presidential election.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were quick to respond to the event in ways that further revealed how the event was being seen through a political lens.
By Sunday afternoon, the motivation behind the shooting wasn’t entirely clear. The suspected shooter’s father said religion was not a factor.
But the shooter, Omar Mateen, had been under surveillance by the FBI before, and his Afghani heritage had authorities probing a terrorist angle.
For Republicans, it was enough to issue warnings that the fight against radical Islamic terrorism isn’t over. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, saw it as a terror attack, “the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.”
“It is a sobering reminder that radical Islamists are targeting our country and our way of life,” he tweeted.
It is a sobering reminder that radical Islamists are targeting our country and our way of life.
— Michael McCaul (@RepMcCaul) June 12, 2016
Another Republican, David Jolly of Florida, said the shooting was “our Paris,” a reference to the Islamic terrorist attack that killed 130 people in November.
This is our Paris,” Jolly said. “Let us resolve today to always confront and defeat terror at the hands of evil so that this may never happen again.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was more cautious, and said authorities need time to determine “whether it was connected to international terrorist groups.”
But the attack on the gay community prompted the Log Cabin Republicans to also urge politicians to get ready to highlight radical Islam. “If the shooter’s suspected motivations are indeed confirmed, we call upon President Obama and the presumptive nominees of both parties to condemn the attacker and acknowledge in no uncertain terms the cause of this massacre: radical Islamic terrorism,” the group said.
But Democrats were immediately casting the issue as a gun control matter. While Hillary Clinton was silent on motive, Bernie Sanders said the incident shows it’s time to stop selling certain weapons. “I believe that in this country, we should not be selling automatic weapons which are designed to kill people,” Sanders said. “We have got to do everything that we can on criminals, people who are mentally ill. So that struggle continues.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., one of the senators representing the state where the Newtown shooting took place in 2012, said Congress can be blamed for failing to act.
“This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America — nowhere else,” Murphy said. “Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence.”
“This doesn’t have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing — again,” he said.
The White House released a statement Sunday that called the event a “tragic shooting,” and made no mention of terrorism.
But according to early reports, one complicating factor for Democrats is that the shooter, Omar Mateen, had a license to carry his firearm, and had a concealed carry permit as well. Those factors are likely to prompt Republicans to explore solutions aimed at reining in terrorism.
Ben Carson, a former presidential candidate who advises Donald Trump now, said the event shows the U.S. needs to take terrorism more seriously and to stop worrying about offending certain groups along the way.
“We have to get much more serious about the way that we look at potential terrorist activity,” Carson said on Fox News. “We need to very carefully examine how we’re doing things, and the political correctness is beyond the pale.”
