In the days following the attack, numerous people stated that they had recognized Mateen from various gay dating Web sites and apps, but the FBI was not able to substantiate those claims through forensic examination of his phone, his computer, or online account records. There was no evidence that he had been directed to make the attack by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also called ISIS), and the declaration of allegiance that he made to ISIL in his 911 phone call was just the latest in a series of contradictory statements along such lines made by Mateen. At various times, he had claimed solidarity with Hezbollah (a Lebanese Shīʿite militia allied with Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad), the Nusrah Front (a Syrian al-Qaeda client engaging in open warfare with Assad), and ISIL (which was fighting both of the previous groups). Mateen’s seeming inability to distinguish between these competing ideologies made his apparent self-radicalization no less dangerous, and it emphasized the threat posed by so-called “lone wolf” terrorists.
Prior to the October 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, the Pulse attack was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, a milestone made problematic by the uncertain definition of such an event. Some 120 settlers were killed by a Mormon militia at Mountain Meadows in September 1857, and more than 200 Sioux men, women, and children were massacred by federal troops at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. As these two mass killings were carried out by organized military or paramilitary groups and not individuals, they are typically not included in a survey of mass shootings. Similarly, as many as 300 people may have been killed in the Tulsa race riot of 1921, but this is event could be more accurately characterized as a deadly mob action or even a lynching writ large. Using the most widely accepted criterion—the targeting of people in a public place for reasons unrelated to another crime—the deadliest mass shooting prior to June 12, 2016, had occurred at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Virginia, on April 16, 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.
The shootings at Pulse also represented the deadliest single incident targeting the LGBTQ community in U.S. history, eclipsing the June 24, 1973, arson attack on the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans. That fire claimed the lives of 32 people, among them the congregants of a pro-LGBT Christian church who were meeting at the bar after the conclusion of services. That fire was the deadliest in New Orleans history, but public officials largely ignored the event, with neither the mayor nor Louisiana’s governor issuing a statement, and local churches refused to host funerals for the dead. The response to the Pulse attack could not have been more different. Tens of thousands attended public vigils and observances around the world, and landmarks such as One World Trade Center and the Eiffel Tower were illuminated in the rainbow colours of Gay Pride. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama and Vice Pres. Joe Biden met with survivors and the families of victims in Orlando, and Obama renewed his call for a legislative response to gun violence. He described the attack as both an act of terrorism and a hate crime, stressing that “attacks on any American—regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation—[are attacks] on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.”
Michael Ray