Um, nothing I mentioned could be construed as being intended to "minimize deaths", that's why I chose the examples I did. That they're "permitted to happen" as an irrelevant but known and predictable collateral damage to achieving the stated goal (just like civilian deaths in wartime) was exactly my point, I'm not even sure why you rephrased it since it doesn't even sound nicer in your formulation.

Using state violence to kill American citizens en masse would certainly be crossing a line, the whole idea behind Constitutional government which most of the country seems to subscribe to is that so long as government is held back by certain limitations (no military action against its own citizens being one) it can save itself from becoming totally depraved. It's a line we've been toeing for a good long while without most people raising too much of a stink, though.