For nearly three weeks, the people of Austin and San Antonio were terrorized by news of a bomber among them. A guy who killed two people, wounded four more, and left two cities on edge. His first victim, Anthony Stephan House, a prominent member of Austin’s African-American community, was initially treated as a suspect in his own bombing death. But after police identified Mark Anthony Conditt, who is white, as the bomber who killed House, Austin’s police chief sounded a sympathetic note: “This is a very troubled young man who was talking about challenges in his life that led him to the point in his life that led him to take the actions that he took.”

We have seen this juxtaposition before: a suspicion of black victims, coupled with compassion for violent white perpetrators. Conditt may have killed innocent people, but he is still redeemable in some way, or at least understandable.

It has since emerged that Conditt was homeschooled in a conservative Christian environment. One of Conditt’s childhood friends, who “ran in the same conservative survivalist circles as Conditt in high school,” said they were both involved in a group called Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT), which taught kids how to use guns, identify dangerous chemicals, and bond over weapons. Another childhood friend described the experience of a lot of his homeschooled friends as one of “loneliness. ... It’s just very difficult for a lot of kids to find a way to fit in once they are out in the real world. I have a feeling that is what happened with Mark. I don’t remember him ever being sure of what he wanted to do.”

None of this background necessarily provides a motive for Conditt’s bombings. But between his background and his final, horrifying actions, Conditt comes across as a white Christian man who addressed his problems with violence, in a country that allows and even encourages men like him to resort to violence. In America white guys receive lots of signals—from the news, from their communities, from elected leaders—that violence might be an acceptable answer to their troubles. People of other colors and non-Christian faiths don’t.

Over the weekend, white armed protesters faced down gun control advocates at March For Our Lives events around the country, serving as a visual threat to people who oppose gun violence. One guy in Arizona with an AR-15 over his shoulder said, “If they attack, I will attack back.”