Sarah Palin E-Mails Glenn Beck: 'I Hate Violence'

Sarah Palin is fighting back against speculation in some quarters that her often-fiery partisan rhetoric may have contributed to a climate that encourages political violence.

Sarah Palin speaks during a press conference with Franklin Graham in a supply warehouse on the grounds of the Samaritan's Purse compound on December 12, 2010 just outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Allison Shelley, Getty Images

Sarah Palin has come under scrutiny since Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting because Palin posted an electoral map on her Facebook page last year that marked with rifle sights Arizona and other locations.

"I hate violence," Palin wrote in an e-mail to right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck, apparently responding to critics who've tied the deadly Arizona shootings over the weekend to overheated political discourse. "I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence."

Beck read the e-mail on his show this morning and issued a response to Palin: "I want you to know you have my support. But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down."

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who appeared to be the target of the gunman, was shot in the head and is in a medically induced coma.

An electoral map Palin posted on her Facebook page last year that marked what appeared to be rifle sights on Arizona and other locations has also come under scrutiny. Sunday, a Palin aide said the marks were not intended to be gun sights, but simply designated congressional districts that may be electoral wins for the tea party movement.

On his talk show this morning, Beck said he wrote to Palin over the weekend and encouraged her to seek protection for herself and her family after liberals began questioning whether the vitriolic tone of American politics -- fueled, some critics argue, by polarizing figures like the former vice presidential nominee -- played a role in the Saturday shootings that left six people dead at a political rally for Giffords in Tuscon, Ariz., including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.