It is unimaginable.

Those words were repeated throughout the weekend following a Sunday morning attack that left at least 49 dead and 53 wounded in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub. It’s hard to imagine the grief of families and friends, as well as an entire city, as questions continue to outnumber answers.

The motives of suspected gunman Omar Mateen are a challenge to decipher. Some people are quick to point to Mateen’s alleged declaration of allegiance to the Islamic State, while others say his attack on a gay club was motivated by homophobia. Even others say he was simply angry and violent, or may have struggled with mental illness.

While answers will continue to surface as investigators study Mateen’s actions, we do know one thing: From this point on, how we respond is more important than why it happened.

Large-scale acts of violence too often seem fleeting. For many of us, the devastation unleashed in Orlando was over before we heard the news. The largest mass shooting in American history didn’t unfold for us. It was just there as we woke Sunday morning, making it even more unimaginable.

It leaves us struggling with how to react. Do we call for action? Do we look for government leadership? Can we bear doing nothing?

These are not easy questions to answer. Yet, how we approach them — for any hate crime or act of terrorism — will determine how effective such attacks are.

If we — as individuals, as communities and as a nation — react too quickly and without forethought, we give terrorists power. We let them change us. We let them strip away a piece of our society.

It would be too easy to call for drastic actions and turn our own fears into hatred of those who disagree with our viewpoints and stand in the way of what we believe is right.

However, if we do that, aren’t we giving the terrorists — whether as individuals or a group of like-minded zealots or bigots — what they want? If we give in to that emotion, we fail to learn lessons that could steer us toward a better society, rather than one that merely reacts to each crisis.

Other attacks will come. Unfortunately, hatred and fear make that fact inescapable. We can stop some with diligence, but it would be impossible to stop every troubled soul without drastically altering our society.

So, it’s time to steer our attention away from why the gunman attacked and start considering our own motives for reacting, knowing that how we react will tell whether the terrorists are winning.

 

— Rochester Post Bulletin, June 13