U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the country must take "common sense" steps to reduce gun violence, after meeting with his National Security Council over the Orlando mass shooting.
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Obama also slammed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who reiterated his call to ban Muslims from entering the country and quickly claiming the attack was the work of an Islamist militant.
“The only reason that the killer was in America in the first place was that we allowed his family to come here,” said Trump. “When I’m elected I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there’s a record of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies.”
Trump also called for Obama to resign and for Democrat Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race, claiming that the Democratic Party politicians had not done enough to prevent terrorism attacks in the United States.
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President Obama said Trump's plans are a betrayal of "American values."
“That is not the America we want,” said Obama
President Obama said preventing attacks by one person, known as “lone wolves,” is as difficult as fighting the Islamic State group in the battlefield in Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. leader noted it has been a year since the Islamic State group has staged a major successful offensive operation in Syria or Iraq, and that 120 leaders and commanders have been “taken out.”
Obama described Omar Mateen, the man behind the homophobic massacre, as an "angry, disturbed and unstable” young man, but added that there were no signs that a foreign terrorist group directed the attack.
“If we imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists' work for them,” said Obama.
The Orlando massacre is being described as the single most deadly mass shooting by a lone gunman in modern U.S. history – that is, excluding mass shootings committed against Indigenous populations.
Mateen killed 49 people inside Orlando's Pulse nighclub before being killed during a confrontation with police forces.