It’s tempting to wish these people away. It’s a big country and there will always be malcontents and criminals. If you wanted to see the glass as half full, you could say that Charlie Kirk denounced the call to violence. Though to be honest, Kirk’s disavowal didn’t inspire much confidence. He rejected the call to murder not because it was wrong but because it would “play into all their plans”—you can guess who “they” are here. And Kirk then qualified this by saying that “we must exhaust every single peaceful means possible”—which sure seems to leave open the question of what to do after all of the peaceful means have been exhausted.

And the glass-half-empty view seems pretty convincing. America has a rapidly growing authoritarian army comprised of thousands of men like that fellow in Idaho. They have been groomed by Trump acolytes such as Kirk and Steve Bannon. They have also been developed as avatar customers by the gun industry, meaning that they are well armed.

But what non-gun owners may not understand is that these men are not your average gun-owning Americans. They are people who have fallen into a cult where it is normal to organize your entire culture around weapons of war. Some make it official by claiming membership in the Oath Keepers or Three Percenters. Some are just average suburban dads who’ve been radicalized. They laugh at “Let’s Go Brandon” chants, drink Black Rifle Coffee, and wave “Come and Take It” flags at political rallies.