Acts of terrorism can strike anyone at any time.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, orange or purple; gay or straight or somewhere else on the sexual orientation scale; young or old; skinny or plus size. Hate doesn’t discriminate. 

The shootings Sunday morning in Orlando were the deadliest terroristic incident on United States soil ever since Sept. 11, 2001. It was significant enough that the Islamic State put out a kudos and congratulations to the shooter. Whether or not ISIS sponsored or recruited the gunman for the task will be revealed in the coming days.

The country was rocked by 9/11, but these days shootings are so frequent, whether it is terrorism or a crazed person mad about something and taking it out on innocent people. These days people watch the news, put their feelings out on social media, wind up deleting people who don’t agree with them, and nothing gets done to remedy the problem. Eventually everyone moves on with their lives until the next incident.

If a terrorist wants to attack, he or she will, and the terrorist will find a way around safeguards the country puts in place. But we can certainly demand our leaders increase those safeguards, and we can increase the frequency we tell our loved ones that we love them.

Hate cannot be eradicated, but love can prevail.