In a post on Facebook today on the Orlando shootings, I said that a large part of me finds the argument compelling that gay people should practice armed self-defense. (I linked to a strongly-written piece by Tom G. Palmer advocating this.) What I might have also said is that a large part of me finds the argument likewise compelling for gun bans; I was conflicted on this issue.
The context for my ambivalence was the understanding that the Orlando shooter was a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer acting on ideological beliefs in a 'calm and controlled' manner (as described in the news); if gay people are indeed under this kind of attack, armed self-defense may be reasonable to consider, and straight people arguing for non-violence may be doing so from a position of privilege (as a friend put it on Facebook).
However, it now appears that the shooter was a regular patron at the club, and was also active on a gay dating/chat app. This changes my understanding of the shooting drastically: the shooter as a mentally unstable man, in thrall to hate, anger and shame. Most of the major rampage shootings in recent years involved young men who werelikewise angry and mentally unstable. The message from this is that it becomes reasonable to consider the weapons being used--usually semi-automatic pistols and rifles. The Orlando shooter used a Glock pistol and an AR-15 rifle. These weapons are popular, which might explain their prevalence in shooting incidents. But they're well-suited for these kind of incidents, because they enable an assailant to quickly kill many people. For this reason, bans on these kind of weapons are needed. The political will might not be present to enact an effective ban of these guns, and may be counterproductive in the election this fall. But we need to press this issue.
Perhaps there is something else we should press: the role of religion in homophobia. After the terrible shooting incident in Charleston a year ago by a shooter who displayed racist emblems such as the Confederate flag, there was a strong move to remove these symbols from public property across the South and elsewhere. The Orlando shooter was motivated by homophobia, possibly intensified by his own shame at being gay (if he indeed was gay), but this homophobia was clearly rooted in his conservative Islamic religious beliefs. We therefore urgently need to address homophobia in religion. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, still uses language such as 'grave depravity' and 'intrinsically disordered' to describe homosexuality (paragraph 2357 of the Catechism). In those cases where such teachings are still present, we need to call this out. We need to ask if these teachings are still valid, and if so, we need to demand why. We should demand a direct explanation, and when such is given, we should hold it to the standards of modern science. We cannot expect anyone to go against their own conscience and we must respect freedom of religion, but this should not prevent us from challenging teachings that place an intolerable burden upon gay people.