Rising higher than the grief over the mass killing at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida in the US is the condemnation of the act as either an act of Islamic terrorism or of the outcome of loose gun control, depending on who's condemning.

Irrespective of the analysis, however, the horror remains. On Sunday, a gunman armed with an assault rifle and a pistol walked into Pulse and opened fire. The attack began at 2 am local time before the police intervened, shooting and killing the attacker.

The shooter, Omar Mateem, was previously interviewed by the FBI but they found the interviews to be "inconclusive" and he wasn't put down as a potential threat. Clearly, this didn't prevent him from having access to the guns with which he killed 50 people and injured another 53.

Quick to sense an opportunity, the Islamic State seemingly claimed responsibility. The link is not obvious, although, as Ronald Hopper, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge on the case, said, "It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State."

However, the authorities have cautioned against making any direct linkages to the Islamic State. "So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre," said another US counterterrorism official. "This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody."

In his statement, President Barack Obama said, "We know enough to say this is an act of terror and an act of hate. As Americans we are united in our feelings of outrage and our feelings of grief.”


Before this incident, the worst instances of mass shootings in the US were the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007, in which 32 people were killed. Earlier this week, singer Christina Grimmie was shot and killed by an assailant also in Orlando. On June 1 of this year, two men were killed in a shooting at the University of California, Los Angeles that ended in a suicide.