It seems as though each tragedy is sacred only until all the details emerge. At that point, using it to push a political agenda somehow becomes okay. The Orlando massacre is no exception. Many people died in a nightclub? Awful. Oh, the attacker was Muslim? Let me tell you a little bit about immigration. Or: He used an assault rifle? I told you we need gun control.
The Orlando case is unique, however, in that Americans of all political ideologies twisted the tragedy into validation of their beliefs. Unlike Sandy Hook, which cooked up a hailstorm of anti-gun rhetoric, or San Bernardino, which intensified scrutiny on Islam, the Pulse shooting made everyone feel as much vindicated as angry. Sadly, Donald Trump's infamous "Thanks for the congratulations on being right" Tweet is just a cruder expression of the same "When will people realize..." sentiment shared by millions. Both liberals and conservatives feel that the atrocity happened because their word went unheeded. "Told you so," they shout at each other.
The unanimity of the outrage shows how weak the social media rant is. Even with the entire nation in a frenzy, angrily pointing fingers at the other side, nothing will change. Nothing ever does. If there was a time for a horrific act of gun violence to convince conservatives to reform our gun laws, it would've been Sandy Hook. If the deaths of twenty innocent children rendered gun advocates unmoved, I doubt anything will change their minds. So asking the Twittersphere "When will people realize..." after the latest tragedy is futile. Apparently, the answer is never. Similarly, conservatives scolding liberals for welcoming Muslim immigrants into the US is pointless. Liberals are steadfast in their refusal to equate Islam with terrorism (and rightfully so). No matter the context nor the issue, one school of thought blaming atrocities on the other's stubbornness is unproductive.
If anything, the blame game further polarizes the country. When people feel attacked, they cling more tightly to their beliefs rather than reconsidering them. In the wake of the Pulse massacre, calls for gun-control are proliferating. But rather than converting pro-gun folk, the momentum shift has galvanized them, and weapon sales have spiked. And as the alt-right floods social media with anti-Muslim sentiment, liberals are showing solidarity with the Muslim community. What should we learn from all of this? The left's stance on immigration and the right's stance on guns are so deeply fixed that no storm of public opinion can uproot them. Even the deaths of fifty will not convince people to budge an inch on these issues. So for now, keep your "When will people realize..." Tweets in your drafts. They're falling on deaf ears.
But for the worst mass-shooting in American history to pass without provoking some meaningful reform would be a travesty. Lives mustn't be lost for naught. And if Americans would grit their teeth and put gun-control/Muslim immigration aside, they'd find other issues that everyone can agree on addressing. How about fighting terrorism on the internet? FBI director James Comey is "highly confident" that Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, was radicalized online. He's not alone. While the San Bernardino shooters' inspirations are still unclear, it's suspected they encountered hardline ideology digitally. The female shooter pledged her allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook prior to the attack. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber, watched Al-Qaeda-recruitment videos on Youtube. He downloaded ebooks that taught bomb-making. Dylann Roof, the Charleston-church shooter, posted a long racist manifesto on his website before killing nine black church-goers.
It's clear that to stop terrorism, the internet is the frontier on which we must do battle. Islamic extremism won't be solved by "bombing the hell out of" ISIS, as Mr. Trump suggests. Rather, to find terrorists and stop them before they can cause harm, we ought to focus on fighting smart online. That means stopping psychopaths from committing the crimes they hint at on the web, and combating terrorist propaganda. I don't think anyone would argue against focusing on these areas. After all, fighting terrorism is a common denominator - as long as you do it without violating peoples' values. Turning our attention online is a chance to do just that.
To you Californian liberals, I'm not saying that gun-control isn't a worthwhile goal. It most certainly is, and the voices of many will force changes down the line (with a Democrat-heavy congress, perhaps). For the moment, though, it's more productive to turn our attention towards a reasonable goal.
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