Sin punishable by death?: Home grown terrorist opens fire in gay nightclub

Was it a hate crime or terrorist attack?

A shooting at a gay nightclub around 2 a.m. in Orlando, Florida resulted in at least 50 deaths and over fifty others wounded.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - As patrons danced and enjoyed their drinks at the Pulse Nightclub, no one expected 29-year-old Omar Mateen to open fire.

Mateen was armed with a handgun, an assault rifle and a currently unknown amount of ammunition, Orlando Police Chief John Mina reported.

According to CNN, Mateen rented a van and drove to the club late Sunday night and opened fire around 2 a.m.

ABC News explained when Mateen began to shoot, a police officer working at Pulse exchanged fire until Mateen started taking hostages.

He held the hostages until approximately 5 a.m., when a SWAT team rescued them and engaged in a gunfight, resulting in Mateen's death.

Mateen's parents were born in Afghanistan and he was "on the radar" for quite a while as a suspected ISIS sympathizer, though he was not previously linked to any crimes.

Mir Seddique, Mateen's father, told NBC News, "This has nothing to do with religion" but admitted his son witnessed two men kissing in Miami and the experience deeply upset him. Seddique believes that instance may be related to the shooting.

Ron Hopper, the FBI assistant agent in charge of the FBI's Tampa division, stated investigators were "looking at all angles right now" for the actual motive.

FBI bomb squads were sent to investigate Mateen's apartment as well as any questionable materials, while other teams cleared his van.

When asked if Mateen was a radical Muslim, Hopper replied: "We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that, that particular ideology. But right now we can't say definitively, so we're still running everything around."

When asked about it, Hopper explained: "Early on, when we had possible identification made, we run everything to ground, whether it winds up being the actual individual or not. ...[O]nce the notification is made, more details will be able to be shared, most likely from our counterterrorism division up at FBI headquarters."

Later, new information revealed Mateen called 911 just before he opened fire to pledge allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

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