Evil and horrific are the two adjectives that sum up the attack on a crowded nightclub early Sunday in Orlando, Fla. The death toll, which stood at 50 this morning, made it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The senseless bloodshed of innocent people should leave us universally sickened and angry. There is no other response.

Sadly, there will be many who attempt to attach their personal political or ideological causes to the circumstances surrounding this atrocity, hoping to attach a moral.

It doesn’t need a moral, other than this: the world is inhabited by evil forces in conflict with good, and evil must be confronted.

Authorities said they were investigating the attack on the Florida dance club as an act of terrorism.

The suspect, identified as Omar Mateen, was the son of Afghan immigrants. He was shot dead by SWAT officers after the attack turned into a hostage stand off.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for ousting Islamic foreigners would not apply to Mateen. He was an American citizen.

Mateen’s father, when contacted by reporters Sunday, recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault.

Maybe. But would it have made any difference — would the killings have been any less atrocious — if it had taken place in a dance club full of heterosexuals? Murder is murder.

The assailant happened to be on some sort of FBI watch list, although the way agents described it, the list includes a multitude of marginal characters of interest. The way they explain it, the sheer numbers make them hard to track.

Agent Ronald Hopper said the FBI interviewed Mateen twice three years ago after he made inflammatory remarks to co-workers, but those interviews were inconclusive.

In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time.

Mateen bought at least two firearms legally within the past week or so, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The shooter called 911 shortly before the attack and pledged his allegiance to ISIS — apparently too late for FBI agents to process the information and respond.

The killings marked the 15th time that Barack Obama’s presidency was punctuated by a mass killing — events for which the president invariably called for tougher restrictions on assault-style firearms.

Different gun laws might have made a small difference. Mateen was a licensed gun owner — he’d been employed as a security guard since 2007 — and was wearing an explosive suicide vest, apparently with every intent to deploy it as a back up if his AR-15 failed him.

It should not matter how we regard Islamic terror, gay or lesbian rights, gun control, border protection or even after-hours dance clubs.

We all should stand unified with President Obama’s assessment when he called the shooting an “act of terror” and an “act of hate” perpetrated against Americans.