Leading Democrats like Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and President Biden marked the seven-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre by plugging their gun control agenda.

Pelosi called for an assault weapon ban and "universal background checks" to deter future events like the Orlando shooting, whose perpetrator, Omar Mateen, passed a background check. 

The lone wolf pledged allegiance to ISIS during the June 12, 2016, shooting, which left 49 people dead.

"While progress has been made – including with President Biden’s new gun safety law last year – more must be done to protect our communities," Pelosi said.

Pelosi pounces

Mateen had caught the attention of the FBI before the shooting and was briefly placed on a terrorism watch list before being taken off.

Nevertheless, he passed a background check and was able to legally buy a Sig Sauer MCX rifle and a Glock 17 pistol. Mateen also carried out the attack after a mandatory waiting period to get his pistol.

Showing some of her party's old terror of the phrase "Islamist extremism," Pelosi blamed the attack on a lack of gun control and vague, "bigoted extremism."

"House Republicans must join Democrats in passing legislation to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban and enact universal background checks to save lives and bring an end to the bloodshed," she said.

Exploiting tragedy

President Biden also ignored the attacker and his motives in a statement that urged Congress to take up so-called "commonsense reforms" to stop "gun violence."

Biden said the victims were predominantly "Latino LGBTQI+ people," essentially conflating the attacker with his Republican foes in the culture wars.

Seven years ago today, our nation suffered what was then the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Forty-nine people, predominantly Latino LGBTQI+ people, lost their lives in a senseless act of gun violence.

Today, on Pulse Remembrance Day, Jill and I pray for the…

— President Biden (@POTUS) June 12, 2023

While Democrats commonly seize on tragedies like these once they're fresh, they're also clearly not ashamed to keep exploiting them years after the fact.

At the same time, Democrats are eager to move on from shootings that don't suit their agenda, like the massacre at a Christian elementary school earlier this year in which a transgender terrorist killed three children and three adults. At the time, Biden declared the "transgender community" was "under attack."