An American-born man who'd pledged allegiance to ISIS gunned down at least forty-nine people early June 12 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States and the nation's worst terror attack since 9/11, with at least fifty more being injured. By comparison, the Virginia Tech shooting of 2007 had thirty-two deaths and seventeen injured, while twenty-six were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, mostly children.

I was born in the end of June, which coincidentally is the time of year when the Stonewall Riots occurred in 1969. Because Stonewall is considered the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States, June is designated as LGBT Pride Month.

One death is a tragedy. Forty-nine is a number, and when added to every other mass shooting in our history, the meaning is lost in the statistics. America made it clear after Sandy Hook, that guns were more important than citizens when the butchering of children was bearable. 'Shootings just happen, and if everyone had guns, they could protect themselves.' Such rhetoric offers no consolation to the families of those children. Such rhetoric offers no comfort to the families of the fifty individuals who were gunned down yesterday by a fanatic fueled by hate. It doesn't matter what this killer's religious or ethnic background was because hatred has ingrained itself in every culture, every generation.

There was a call for blood donations for those wounded at the Pulse nightclub. How ironic, that blood is being called for those who are legally incapable of giving any because of an archaic procedure linked to the hysteria during the AIDS epidemic. It's legal for a man to buy an AR-15 assault rifle, but an MSM man cannot donate blood. Straight men who employ the services of a prostitute, however, face no such restriction after a certain time period. Gay men are perceived as 'tainted' even if they are tested as negative, just for having any MSM experience even once.

Those in the LGBT community should be glad to see the vigils, the tributes around the world pouring in support toward a minority who has lost fifty brothers and sisters. However, what is the meaning we can find from all the mourning? What will change to ensure such loss was not in vain? The answer sadly may be nothing. What is the point if we allow media to denounce this hate crime as 'just another shooting?' What is the point if laws are not implemented to prevent people from obtaining automatic or semi-automatic guns designed to kill? Why remember names of victims if they died for nothing, with no laws being passed to protect minorities or people at risk?

We should be angry, we should be sad beyond belief, and it is ridiculous that there are those who are condoning this shooting as just another tragedy and think it can be brushed off. It was a hate crime, the deadliest shooting in US history, and it is a sign of how much more work needs to be done for change. Hate should not be something we condone in our society because you don't need weapons like fists, knives, guns or bombs. Killings always start with hate, and hate cannot be stopped except through empathy and understanding. We can be apathetic and do nothing about these tragedies, or we can learn from them and make progress for everyone. If we are able to live up to such high, yet realistic and attainable, ideals, then we may prevent another family from mourning a preventable murder.