WASHINGTON — In 1981, white supremacist James W. von Brunn tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve in a bid to overthrow a financial system he believed was controlled by Jews.

Experts say violent anti-Semitic outbursts, like von Brunn’s shooting Wednesday (June 10) that killed a security guard inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, are often fueled by extremist anti-government views.

Such anti-government extremism can also be found in the violent fringes of the anti-abortion movement. Thirteen years before he gunned down abortionist George Tiller in the lobby of a Wichita, Kan., church on May 31, accused gunman Scott Roeder was affiliated with the Freemen, a fringe right-wing, anti-government group.

Both cases, experts say, highlight the toxic mix of religious bigotry, apocalyptic militarism, social paranoia and anti-government radicalism that can lead to violence.

“There’s a total, with a capital T, connection,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate and Extremism at California State University. “… Not everyone who is anti-government has religious bigotry, but nearly all are anti-Semitic, and many other types of bigots are, in fact, anti-government.”

Hate-crimes experts say violence is often fueled by a belief that government institutions are hopelessly compromised because they are controlled by a single racial, ethnic or religious group — often Jews.

Most anti-government groups have anti-Semitic beliefs in their DNA, some more overt than others, said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist groups.

“All white supremacists are at heart anti-government, right?” she said. “They want this government overthrown. They want white dominance. They want minorities to lose their rights.”

Government is just one of many institutions that are to blame for social ills in the eyes of white supremacists, said Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. Churches can be another.

“Some conspiratorial thinkers are convinced that the conventional institutions of American society — religion, politics, government, the media — represent collectively a threat to their racial identity and way of life,” he said.

The recent spike in extremist right-wing violence does not appear to be an organized effort by known groups, but by lone actors, said Carol Swain, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and author of “The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration.”

“If we focus on the groups, we are going to miss the larger picture that the danger is not from the groups like the KKK or Aryan Nations … but from individuals like von Brunn who act alone,” she said.

What’s fueling acts of individual violence? Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, has a theory: the Internet.

“The Internet has a viral, social aspect,” he said. “It leads you to believe that you’re acting on behalf of the greater good, it gives you a sense of validation, without actually being a part of a real community. You have more people acting alone, but not with the same sense of isolation.”

That appears to be the case with Roeder — or at least someone with the same name — who was long known on anti-abortion Web sites. In 2007, a user with the name Scott Roeder asked on Operation Rescue’s Web site whether anyone had thought of confronting Tiller at his church.

While no one has accused Roeder of racist ideology, he nonetheless represents the sector of militant anti-abortion activists who believe that if a morally compromised government cannot or will not take measures to stop abortions, the task falls to lay volunteers who are willing to take the law into their own hands.

The election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president has only fanned the hatred among extremist groups, experts say. Combined with debates over immigration, a Latina poised to take a seat on the Supreme Court and advances for gay rights, you have the “perfect storm,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

“All of them fuel the anger and frustration of conspiratorial characters,” said Foxman, whose group had tracked von Brunn for years. “It’s the perfect storm of these areas coming together, which angers and frustrates them.”

Cooper, from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Obama’s recent visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany could have been what set von Brunn off.

“I don’t think it’s coincidence that it took place a week after America’s first African-American president walked side-by-side with Elie Wiesel, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, through the gates of Buchenwald,” he said.