Opinion
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Early Monday morning, a North Carolina gun range, Triad Active Shooters Klub (TASK), outside Greensboro/Winston Salem North Carolina lost multiple structures and covered firing ports in an apparent case of sophisticated and deliberate arson carried out by numerous unknown perpetrators.
The fire started around 4:33 a.m. on April 2nd, 2018 at Triad Action Shooters Klub on Fuller Mill road in Trinity NC.
Here’s the statement on the event and the evidence that was found from the club president
“There was arson at the TASK early Monday morning range. Three of the five covered firing points were completely destroyed. The remaining two had five one-gallon plastic containers of gasoline placed strategically next to the wooden posts that support the roof and under the piled up shooting benches. Two covered firing lines were not burned because the fuses to the gas failed.
We believe that more than one arsonist was involved, maybe several. This belief is because, at a minimum, twenty five individual containers of gasoline were used. We found five at each of the unburned structures and assume that there were at least that many at each of the other three. It would take quite a while for one person to remove 25 one-gallon containers from a vehicle and set them out out beside the posts and under the shooting benches. Moreover, our shooting benches are too heavy for one man to lift. Two men can move one but it would require three or four to stack one upon another.
The TASK members have been great about this. The BODs and volunteers have already cleaned up the debris and stacked all of the burned tin roof panels. The metal will be taken to a salvage yard and the wood will be placed in a safe place and burned. The ground was swept with a magnetic broom and approximately two gallons of nails and screws were recovered for disposal.
All five firing lines are open now but the burned ones lack everything except the concrete floor.
The contractor who built all of the structures has surveyed the scene and he is working with us. In addition to the cost of reconstructing the covered firing lines, we are looking at an unknown cost for a video/motion-detecting security system.
Six years were required to build the structures and to clear the new 100 yard range. We did it one step at a time as our dues came in. The club lacks enough funds to pay for all of the reconstruction at this moment but construction will begin anyway on a pay-as-you-go basis.
We will not allow a group of anti-Second Amendment NAZIs stop us from peaceably assembling to enjoy ours Second Amendment rights.
Any financial help that can be provided will be appreciated. Even if none is though, TASK will rebuild. It will just take a little longer.”
A $5,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office at (336) 318-6699 or Crime Stoppers at (336) 672-7463.
Here’s a link to the clubs Facebook page if anyone wants to follow up with support or offer assistance in rebuilding. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Triad-Active-Shooters-Klub-TASK/557521154408987
No official word has been released from local authorities as of the writing of this article concerning an investigation, suspects or leads.
Its crystal clear from the on-site reports from the club president that this was a deliberate and intentional act, carried out by multiple people. This case of arson should be declared an incident of domestic terrorism under current federal law and guidelines. Especially when one considers the catalyst for the armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in 2016.
That event came about as a result of a local cattle rancher and his son being charged under domestic terrorism laws. Dwight and Steven Hammond set a controlled burn on their land back in 2001 in order to control invasive plants and reduce the fuel load on their property that could contribute to a nearby wildfire spreading.
Their controlled burn accidentally scorched acres of Fed land adjacent to their property, resulting in no loss of life, structures or animals, but the Hammonds were maliciously pursued by the federal government over an unintentional act. Federal prosecutors charged, tried and convicted the Hammonds under the 1996 antiterrorism act. This legislation was passed by Congress in the wake of the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing—at the time the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
If federal anti terrorism laws can be applied to an accident of a controlled burn encroaching on to federal lands, a situation the federal Bureau of Land Management was quoted as saying improved grazing conditions in the area affected, then the intentional and malicious act of engaging in arson to destroy a gun range is a more significant crime. One that could plausibly even be pursued under RICO statutes if suspects can be apprehended and it can be shown they actively engaged in a conspiracy to commit the crime.
Even more alarming, this crime shows a glimpse of how far anti-gun fascists are willing to go in their efforts. In previous incidents, legal concealed carry permit holders have been physically attacked in public by gun haters, in the lobby of a Florida Walmart, as well as on the streets, and of course swatting. social media (especially Twitter) is filled with tweets advocating all manners of violence, including death, to be directed at gun owners and even the NRA offices.
Now the fanatical, gun control fans have graduated to sophisticated arson. The next step up the ladder of criminality is going to result in someone being seriously injured or killed. Either a law-abiding gun owner and or their family, may be assaulted, or run off the road by an unhinged anti-gun lunatic, or worse. Or that same gun owner will have no choice but to resort to lethal force to defend and protect themselves and they will be demonized for having done so.
Local and federal authorities need to be pressed to identify the arson perpetrators, have them arrested and charged accordingly.
More articles, commentary and information by D. Roberts available at That Every Man Be Armed.com