Let me start off by stating that I am a straight, white man who is still in college. I do identify as a Republican when it comes to partisanship, and I am extremely blessed. I have never had to endure poverty or hunger. I have never had to fight for what I have. While I have worked to be in the position that I am in now (and I've worked very hard), I would never consider my journey a struggle or a fight to get what I wanted. I am the quintessential white privileged son of two amazing parents who have worked very hard to be where they are at today, and they did it for me and my brother. That's the general gist of who I am and what my background is -- now, on to the rest of the story.
On June 12, 2016, a man by the name of Omar Mateen went into a gay night club in Orlando named Pulse, and was responsible for one of the largest mass shootings in US history, killing 49 people and wounding 53. This event has really made me very sad, and not just from the actual incident. I want to make it clear that in no way am I trying to detract from the sadness that is associated from this event. As stated earlier, I have never been involved in a mass shooting, so I have no idea what these individuals went through that night. But what saddens me apart from the actual event is the responses from both the Democratic and Republican parties, who are both trying to get as much out of this tragedy as they can.
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has since come out after the event making statements that follow the same trends as "I told you so." He has also used the religion of the attacker to further support his anti-Islam foreign policy, one that has received a large amount of negative comments from both parties. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has used this event as a catalyst for stricter gun control, something the Democratic party has been trying to accomplish for some time now. In my opinion, these are both flawed solutions to a much bigger problem. You can not take the actions of one individual and associate those actions with an entire group. All Muslims are not terrorists. I don't care if you're white or black, Republican or Democrat, straight or gay. You can not associate everyone within the Islamic religion with terrorism. But as I said before, you can not associate the actions of one with the potential actions of many. Just because Omar used an AR-15 firearm does not mean that everyone who purchases an AR-15 intends to use it to commit an act of terror. Stricter gun control policies will only take firearms that were legally purchased out of law abiding citizen's hands, and it does not take illegal firearms out of criminals' hands. I will come back to these policies in a moment, but I want to discuss more about the tragedy that occurred.
Omar's father said that Omar was disgusted at the sight of a gay male couple kissing the morning prior to the attack, which was used as inspiration for the attack. And I've been hearing things like, "Oh, the liberals are just using this to play on the emotions of America!" and "The conservatives don't care about the gay community." Let's just take a step back for a moment and realize one key fact: this act of terror could have happened to any group of people, anywhere in the world. Omar could have seen a group of college students and become disgusted over the higher education system in the US, or seen a group of African Americans and become disgusted with the color of their skin. Honestly, I don't really care if they are gay or if they are Buddhist or if they are Argentinian; this should not happen to any group of people. Period. No human being should have to fear that their lifestyle will put their lives and the lives of others in danger. There is nothing wrong with being gay. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim. But there is always going to be evil in this world. No matter how many walls we build or how many guns we take away, there will always be someone who finds a way to inflict harm on others.
As a side note, there is no reason to direct foul language towards the LGBT community. You may not agree with their life choices, but that does not give you the right to curse them and their differences. Christianity is a religion built upon love, respect, and tolerance. Take for example the actions of Chick-fil-a. They are notorious for their disapproval of the lifestyle choices of the LGBT community. They are equally notorious for never being open on Sunday.... ever. However, after the Orlando attack, several employees from Chick-fil-a went in early on a Sunday morning, made hundreds of their famous chicken sandwiches and gallons of their sweet tea, and took them down to the blood bank where they gave out them out for free to those who were donating blood to save the lives of those injured in this tragedy. That is Christianity. That is showing love and compassion despite disagreements with lifestyle choices.
So how do we stop it? I don't know. I do know that walls won't stop terrorism. I know that taking guns away from citizens won't stop it. And sitting around singing "Kumbaya" won't help at all. There are some actions that we can take to prevent acts like these, but mainly our ideology of terrorism needs to change. We need to stop associating terrorism with just Islam. Dylann Roof, a white Christian, murdered nine black churchgoers in South Carolina because blacks "needed to go." Nobody called him a terrorist, even though his actions fit the definition of terrorism to a T. Terrorism can come from anywhere. We need start associating terrorism with terrorism. What happened in Orlando was an act of terrorism: not because Mateen was a Muslim, but because he used violent means to pursue a political goal.
I may not know what needs to be done, but I do know that something needs to be done, and we need to be unified now more than ever. My prayers go out to those affected by this incident.
