In addition to using Erick Erickson's website to spread their twisted ideology, it appears those alleged right wing terrorists borrowed ideas from a book written by Fox News Channel contributor Mike Vanderboegh.
According to the complaint, one of the arrested repeatedly cited as the source of their plan the novel Absolved, authored by Fox News expert Mike Vanderboegh, the former militia member famous for urging his blog readers to hurl bricks through the windows of Democratic offices.
In Vanderboegh's novel, which was self-published online, underground militia fighters declare war on the federal government over gun control laws and same-sex marriage, leading to a second American revolution. In the introduction to Absolved, Vanderboegh calls the book "a cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF" and "a combination field manual, technical manual and call to arms for my beloved gunnies of the armed citizenry."
I've never heard of this guy or his book, but it sounds like it's in the same wheelhouse as G. Gordon Liddy's infamous recommendation for killing ATF agents: "Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests."
Also, anyone pushing for war in order to combat same-sex marriage has really lost his or her marbles. Killing people (some of whom are ostensibly married) as a means of protecting marriage is both psychotic and typical of backwards right-wing logic.
Again, these aren't video games or suggestive music lyrics. We're talking about fanatical ideologues writing fanatically violent things with utter seriousness, and it's being absorbed by similarly fanatical people with guns and a grudge. It's a toxic combination.
(This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters’ mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.)