However his hate-speech against believers has always seemed to me likely to incite violence against them and will lower the bar as to how likely it is believers will be subject to violence.
I am reminded of Mel White's campaign against religious bigots in the US who preached hate of gays - they weren't actually acting violently against gay people but incidents of violence against them went up after they turned their hatred from communists to the LGBT community - there was a link between the speech and the acts.
I'm therefore not surprised to hear a recent BBC news item about attacks on vicars.
National Churchwatch produces personal safety advice for the Church of England and Church in Wales.
The organisation's Nick Tolson said in 2007 about 12% of Anglican clergy had suffered some form of violence and he thought that figure remained unchanged.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17059909
There is also a disturbing report from the University of Exeter on the increase in attacks on Muslims:
http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/emrc/publications/IAMHC_revised_11Feb11.pdf
Of course all this can't be blamed directly on Dawkins, he is part of a culture of secularism that stereotypes believers as extremists, fools, ignorant and dangerous - while believers are portrayed in this manner in books, films, soaps and dramas the violence will continue.
Update - while searching on this topic I came across this fascinating article
http://www.thinkingchristian.net/C1983916159/E20071017100620/index.html
It seems to suggest disturbing links between these lone shooters in the USA and atheism:
A fight broke out at a Cleveland school last week. The fight was about God. We don't know nearly enough about what happened there, but we do know that it was the student who did not believe in God who brought back a gun and shot four people before killing himself. The Columbine shooters tried to get Cassie Bernall to recant her faith in Christ--she refused to do it--just before they killed her.
