"Wade Michael Page is dead, having shot himself in the head..."

"... after being wounded by police responding to the fatal shooting of six people at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee."

At the moment, detectives are sifting through the gunman's life, assembling the biography of a man who apparently had few relatives, a spotty work history and a thin criminal record. They have warned they might never learn for certain what drove him to attack total strangers in a holy place. [Teresa Carlson, FBI special agent in charge in Milwaukee] said Wednesday that investigators have not found any kind of note left by Page....

"We just want to get to the bottom of what motivated him to do it," said Amardeep Singh, an executive with the New York-based Sikh Coalition. "It's important to acknowledge why they lost their lives."

It's certainly important to know whether the murders resulted from one man who cracked or whether the groups he is associated with are fomenting murder. Reading about Page, we assume the racist groups were part of his action, even if he was a crazy loner. But that's an assumption, made from a distance, and loathsome as racists are, it's important to understand the extent to which they are actively inciting murder.