Obama on mass shooting: ‘U.S. has to decide if this is the country we want to be’

President Barack Obama says the worst mass shooting in U.S. history is a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get a weapon that allows them to shoot people in a school, in a house of worship, a movie theater or a gay nightclub.

Fifty were killed, including the shooter, and 53 more hospitalized, at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida overnight.

Speaking from the White House, Obama says the United States has to decide if that is the “country we want to be.” He says that doing nothing is a decision as well.

The shooting has thrust the topic of gun control back into focus as a presidential election nears.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has called for expanding background checks to sales at gun shows and online purchases, and for reinstating a ban on assault weapons. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said the existing background check system should be fixed, not expanded, and that assault-weapons bans do not work.

Obama addressed the nation Sunday, calling the shooting “an act of terror” and an “act of hate.”

He said Sunday the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism and that no effort will be spared to determine whether the shooter was affiliated with terrorist groups.

Obama is noting that the killer targeted a gay nightclub. He says it’s a “sobering reminder” that an attack on any American is an attack “on all of us.”

The president has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and federal buildings until sunset Thursday “as a mark of respect for victims of the act of hatred and terror” at a gay Florida nightclub.

He’s also directing the same observance at embassies and other U.S. government facilities abroad.