Gay and Muslim rights intersect in Orlando shooting aftermath.

Blood is on my mind. Forty-nine people. Forty-nine bodies moving to the beat of music, 49 hearts pulsing with joy on a dance floor. But the bullets, shot at high velocity from an assault weapon, put a stop to all that life, all that revelry.

This could have happened in any club in America on any Saturday night, but this was a gay club in Orlando on a Saturday night in June. Pride month.

And this could have been any other mass shooting in America – there have been 133 of them this year alone – but the perpetrator was Omar Mateen, a security guard described in some reports as being angered by the sight of two men kissing each other.

Every time I hear about a mass shooting, my mind reels with incomprehension. How is it still legal to buy an AR-15 in this country after Sandy Hook? Aurora? San Bernardino? The answer, I know, lies in the millions of dollars that so many of our political representatives in Congress take from the NRA. This is why we get thoughts and prayers after every mass shooting instead of gun legislation.

And we get speculation. If the shooter had access to mental-health care, he might not have done it. If a good guy with a gun had been there, the bad guy might have been stopped.

But the attack in Orlando – where the shooter was Muslim and a security officer at the nightclub had a gun – has shifted the script. Instead of speculation about guns or mental health, we get speculation about the shooter’s religion. If Mateen hadn’t been inspired by ISIS, he wouldn’t have done it. If Mateen’s religion didn’t condone killing, he wouldn’t have done it. So much rides on an auxiliary.

Early the next morning, an Indiana man by the name of James Howell was arrested in Santa Monica after residents called the police to report suspicious behavior. Howell told investigators he was on his way to the gay pride parade in West Hollywood. In the trunk of his car were three assault weapons and chemicals that can be used to make explosives. When I heard this news, I felt grateful that my city had been spared another mass shooting and happy for the people who were able to march safely. But I also wondered what would have happened if Howell hadn’t been caught. Would it still be a terrorist attack or would it just be the work of a crazed lone wolf?

Initial reports suggest that homophobia and Islamic fundamentalism may have been motivations for Omar Mateen, but one thread ties him to James Howell: access to assault weapons. Eliminating bigotry is a lifelong struggle that has to be fought on cultural, social and religious grounds. But assault weapons can turn any bigot into a mass murderer.

What makes the Orlando attack especially painful is that it was aimed at a community that is already vulnerable. In spite of the political gains and cultural shifts of the last few years, LGBT people are still targeted in a variety of ways. Under the cover of protecting religious freedoms, state lawmakers have introduced as many as 254 bills aimed at restricting their civil rights.

The shooter’s identity is also bringing unwelcome attention to a Muslim community that is equally vulnerable. With talk of special IDs and outright bans on Muslims, this has been the most difficult year since 9/11. This is why it’s important for Muslim organizations to not only denounce the rhetoric aimed at them from the likes of Donald Trump, but also to work on ending the discrimination and hate directed at LGBT people. Justice is a fundamental tenet of Islam. We Muslims cannot demand respect for ourselves if we are willing to look the other way when LGBT people are targeted. Gay rights are civil rights and civil rights are Muslim rights.

A few hours after the identity of the shooter became known, the Muslim civil-rights organization CAIR organized a blood drive to benefit the surviving victims. I have been thinking about the blood that was spilled Saturday night and about the blood that was collected Sunday. The blood of Muslim donors will course through the veins of gay victims. Because we are each other’s keepers.

LAILA LALAMI is the author, most recently, of The Moor’s Account, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She writes the “Between the Lines” column for The Nation, and is a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside.