Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, has written a column on The Huffington Post about Glenn Beck's violent rhetoric, specifically its role in an aborted attack against frequent Beck target the Tides Foundation:

Williams pulled the trigger on those two officers, but Beck's harsh rhetoric against Tides and other leaders of progressive groups, whom he identifies as “enemies,” have helped stoke the fires of outrage in a sector of the American public that is armed and eager to do battle with foes that they believe -- or have been led to believe - are in some way destroying our country.

Beck acknowledges that he has viewers who are capable of responding violently to his hyperbolic accusations. He has warned, “it is only a matter of time before an actual crazy person really does something stupid.”

Helmke also notes just how absurd it is for someone who uses the rhetoric of war and violent confrontation like Beck (for instance, pretending to poison Speaker Pelosi) to put together an event purporting to be in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Beck wants us to believe that his rally is blessed by “divine providence”, and is part of a transition to his picking up the mantle of King's dream, which he claims has been “lost and distorted.”

I heard Dr. King speak back in the 1960's and this Nobel Prize for Peace-winner's dream looked nothing like the hate and blood-soaked imagery Beck conjures with his TV show rhetoric. When King used his preacher's pulpit and international celebrity to speak to the “enemies” of social justice, he imagined an America where black and white children would play together, and where Jews, Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics would join hands in a fight for social justice. His dream, ultimately, was supported by “faith” that would “transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

Beck, of course, has been on a tear against the concept of social justice, something he describes as "a perversion of the Gospel," "forced redistribution of wealth," and "Marxist code words." Not exactly the message of Dr. King.