Our National Culture Of Violence

From Isn't What Happened in Arizona Media-Fed Bigoted White Christian Male Terrorism? by Mark Karlin:

The right-wing culture of hate and implicit coded call to kill the enemy, as if on a mission from God, is a subset of our larger national culture of violence.

From our policy of maintaining superpower status through wars and coups to going back to the conquest of America by the slaughter of Native Americans, we have had a history of a large segment of our population that views violence as a remedy for personal and political grievances - as well as the fulfillment of ideological goals. For them, "putting down your enemy" is as American as apple pie.