The trend of “white right” violence is definitely increasing – we’ve had the abortion doctor murder, the austin suicide plane, and now a shooting at the Pentagon in Washington DC:

Officials said the man, indentified as John Patrick Bedell, 36, of the US state of California, died on Friday from head wounds recieved in a shoot-out with police near the US Pentagon building outside of Washington, DC.

Police said Bedell pulled out a gun at the busy commuter rail subway entrance that serves the Pentagon, shooting and injuring two police officers. Police returned fire, shooting Bedell in the head.

Richard Keevill, the chief of Pentagon police, said Bedell was “well armed” with two 9-mm handguns and several magazines.

“There was no distress,” Keevill told reporters at a press conference on Friday.

“When [Bedell] reached into his pocket, they assumed he was going to get a pass and he came up with a gun. He wasn’t pretending to be anyone. He was wearing a coat and walked up and just started shooting.

I was reluctant to label this terrorism last time but I’m increasingly convinced otherwise. It looks like this guy was a 9-11 truther believing that the attacks were a government conspiracy. Just as Joe Stack did, it seems that Patrick Bedell also had an internet rant or two which may shed light on his motivations. (Note – its not clear whether JPatrickBedell really is the same person – the FBI are still investigating).

UPDATE: Charles Johnson authoritatively documents Bedell’s extreme right-libertaran political views. Right wing commentators are scrambling to distance themselves, but less and less convincingly so. The Department of Homeland Seccurity report from last year warning of increasing right-wing extremism has been prophetic, indeed.