Donald Trump on Wednesday said law enforcement should treat Muslims with dignity while scrutinizing mosques for terrorist activity.
“We have to check, respectfully, the mosques and other places,” he said during a campaign rally in Atlanta.
{mosads}The presumptive Republican nominee said Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando is proof that “radical Islam” is a growing danger.
“This is a problem, if we don’t solve it, it’s going to eat our country alive,” he said. “We aren’t vigilant and we aren’t smart. We’ve been the dummies. We have to be the brilliant country now.
“Right now everything is about political correctness,” Trump added. “There’s nothing wrong with being strong. There’s nothing wrong with being smart.”
Trump said the massacre shows the need for tighter rules for immigration from nations with links to terror, an idea he pushed during a speech Monday.
“We’re having horrible things happening for allowing people into our country who don’t deserve to be in our country,” he said.
“His ideas weren’t born here,” Trump added of gunman Omar Mateen, 29. “His ideas were born somewhere else.
“It’s amazing our country can continue to survive. Eventually it’s not. It’s amazing our country can be abused so badly.”
Forty-nine people died and 53 others were injured when Mateen opened fire early Sunday morning on Pulse Nightclub. Mateen, a U.S. citizen from Port St. Lucie, Fla., died in a confrontation with police.
Authorities say Mateen voiced solidarity with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) during his rampage.
President Obama on Tuesday said no evidence currently suggests a foreign terrorist organization directing Mateen’s actions.
“[He] took in extremist information and propaganda over the Internet. [He] appears to be an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized.”
Mateen’s father emigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan. Seddique Mir Mateen on Sunday said his son’s actions have “nothing to do with religion.”