Autumm Hargraves of Grafton places a rainbow flag in the middle of a circle of candles and roses during a vigil held for victims of the Orlando, Fla., mass shooting at Milwaukee City Hall on Monday evening. Credit: Calvin Mattheis

She rarely attends community vigils, Joan Stewart tells me.

"I never come to these things," she says as we stand in closed-off Wells St. and look up at the large rainbow flag draped on Milwaukee's City Hall.

"But we just have to remember we're all humans. Nothing this horrible should happen to human beings."

You know the horrible thing she means. America now ranks its many mass murders, and what happened early Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando tops the list of deadliest gun massacres so far. Forty nine people at the club are dead, plus the shooter, and 53 were wounded.

Joan lives on the city's west side and works at an asset management company downtown. She came to the vigil alone on Monday evening.

"It's just such a good and immediate response," she says.

Hundreds of us stand together against the terror, seeking comfort for ourselves, offering it to each other, and trying to find some hope for the future. We each clutch two small flags, one the Stars and Stripes, the other a rainbow.

"To members of the LGBT community, we share your agony and your heartbreak," Mayor Tom Barrett says when it's his turn to speak. "We are here for you. You are part of us, and we are part of you. We are one community."

The crowd applauds that line, and again when he says we need to address the easy access to guns. Not guns that people might use for self-defense, but the kind of assault rifle that's designed to do exactly what happened at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

This message resonates with Harry Sutton, a retired florist who lives in Mequon. "That kind of equipment doesn't need to be on the street. If the military trains you to use it, you need to sign it out. And when you're out of the military, you sign it back in," he tells me. I agree with him, even as I understand that any gun can do great damage in the hands of a criminal.

Harry is wearing a shirt that says "Human" to signal this is not a gay thing, but an all of us thing.

"It breaks my heart," he says, "to see a whole generation having to grow up with this fear and lack of freedom. Something has to happen in this country. I don't care which lunatic they put in office. Something has to change."

The murderer's name is not spoken at the vigil, and I will not speak it here. He failed if he thought he was spreading hatred toward our LGBT brothers and sisters, because the opposite is happening as we stand in solidarity beside them.

Think about how suddenly same-sex marriage has become the law of the land. Brian Buchberger and Andy Schaidler of Milwaukee pledged their love in a commitment ceremony in 1998 and made it legal in 2008 by traveling to California and marrying.

The news of what happened in Florida has been sinking in slowly and painfully for them.

"That's part of the reason we're down here is because we feel kind of helpless. What else can you do but show up with your friends and do a group hug and say why?" Brian, a graphic designer, tells me at the vigil.

"After PrideFest was over and all the streamers were taken down, we all started thinking now we're going back to our jobs and our day-to-day lives, and all those people aren't," he says.

The amount of crushing grief and loss caused by this spasm of violence is incomprehensible.

"I don't want us to deny that this is a hate crime," says another speaker at the event, community activist Brenda Coley, stressing that many of the dead are Latino. "And I don't want you to make this about Islam. It's about homophobia and transphobia and racism."

Those hate germs have not magically gone away even as gay people enjoy greater acceptance in America. This terrible crime reminds us of that.

"This national tragedy happened against a backdrop of anti-LGBTQ legislation that is sweeping this country, and we cannot forget that in our time of grief," Karen Gotzler, the final speaker of the event, warns us. She is executive director of the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.

Finally, the words and music give way to a minute of silence punctuated by the tolling of the City Hall bells more than a dozen times. The mayor says it's one ring for each instance when President Barack Obama addressed the nation following a mass shooting.

It will take more than silence to prevent the next one.

Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or email at jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl