As of: 06/14/2016 5:57 p.m
The massacre at a gay club in Orlando is increasingly becoming a campaign issue. Democratic presidential candidate Clinton called for more gun control. Her Republican opponent Trump, on the other hand, called for more weapons for self-defense.
More and more details about the massacre in the “Pulse” discotheque early on Sunday morning are becoming known. Omar Mateen laughed as he shot his friend, a survivor says. This image stuck in his head.
Mateen was a regular at Pulse, the Orlando club where he killed 49 people on Sunday. Chris Callen, who works as a disc jockey at “Pulse”, recalls that Mateen was friendly, he had been coming to the bar for quite some time. He also used a gay dating app, the LA Times reported.
Mateen’s ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy, who separated from him in 2011, said when asked if she suspected he was gay himself: “That could well be the case, there must be a reason.”
Perpetrators contradicted themselves in oaths of allegiance
Mateen radicalized himself without direct contact to terrorist networks, said US President Barack Obama and FBI Director James Comey. The chief of the federal police said he was convinced that there was no evidence that the crime was planned outside the United States. According to FBI findings, Mateen contradicted his oaths of allegiance to various terrorist groups, some of which compete with each other.
The top candidates of the parties in the US election campaign reacted very differently. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton assumed the crime was a “lone wolf” and, like the United Nations, called for more gun control and cooperation with US Muslims. Weapons of war have no place on American streets, Clinton said.
Hillary Clinton assumes the act of a “lone wolf”.
Donald Trump is again calling for an entry ban for Muslims.
Build: AP
Trump calls for more weapons for self-defense
Trump, who is running for the Republican Party, again called for an entry ban for Muslims. The huge influx of Syrian refugees must be stopped. However, the US is still a long way from taking in the 10,000 Syrians promised for 2016. And the perpetrator of Orlando was an American citizen. Trump also called for more weapons that threatened people could use to defend themselves. Clinton’s plan is to disarm law-abiding citizens, abolish the 2nd amendment, and let only “the bad guys” and the terrorists keep their guns.
However, Clinton did not call for abolition of the right to own guns. President Obama doesn’t understand what’s going on in Orlando, or understands it better than anyone, Trump said in a phone interview. The Washington Post saw this as Trump’s insinuation that Obama had something to do with the Orlando massacre. Trump then withdrew accreditation for his events from the traditional newspaper.
Obama will travel to Orlando on Thursday to meet with bereaved families and aid workers.