On the horror of ongoing right-wing extremist mass violence in America

Comment published on New York Times online blog, in response to editorial, “We have a white nationalist terrorist problem,” August 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/opinion/mass-shootings-domestic-terrorism.html#commentsContainer&permid=101829582:101829582:

The frequency of these massacres calls for thought and action. What is wrong with a society in which this is so common? The Times's urgings fit the usual response to events like these in calls for more policing, often including its form as "mental health" services. Our governments have a reliable record of targeting for harassment or worse individuals with no connection to such crimes, as they cast a wide net in seeming blindness. I know something about this, having been caught in that net myself, for no obvious or clearly indicated reason, in 2013, after returning from studying in France.

It is worth asking:
Is a national war footing against right-wing extremist self-appointed warriors what we most need?
Or are these symptoms of the same malaise?
Among the questions we should ask: Why are so many (mostly white) American men driven to such rage? When is this linked to violence, when not?
Why is our "liberty" ideology so linked for many to property and guns?
What if some of these acts of terror are partly meant somehow to provoke the response of a particularly repressive state (or carried out with the expectation that they will)?
Are we being asked to believe that some of our nation's principal problems, including that of these crimes, are caused by these criminals and what they believe?

These horrific crimes call for a concerted national response. Yet, somehow combatting the horrible and stupid ideas that feed these killers may be too important to rely mainly on police powers.