Anti-Muslim, gun-toting protesters tear up Qurans at Gold Dome

Updated April 18 @ 6:50 p.m.

Armed protesters tore apart a Quran at an anti-Muslim gathering at Georgia’s State Capitol on Monday morning.

The April 18 protest, orchestrated by James Stachowiak, founder of right-wing talk show Freedom Fighter Radio, hosted a clamor of two or three conservative protesters who claimed immigrants seeking refuge are poisoning America.

James Stachowiak, the self-proclaimed “Armed Infidel and Crusader Against The Beast’s Organized Religion of Government (The BORG), Islam, and any other Satanic Death Cult that would destroy our Liberty,” led the small armed anti-Muslim rally from the Capitol to the CNN Center to protest Islamic presence in America.

His deep-red activism ranges from Second Amendment advocacy to freedom of religion rallies — not for Islam — and calls for America to “restore the anger.”

Sporting a carbine assault rifle slung from his shoulder and Rebel flag-emblazoned sunglasses, Stachowiak told onlookers his aim was to protest government funding going towards refugees instead of American war veterans.

“It would only take a fraction of the money that this administration is spending on refugees, than it would to help every single homeless veteran on the street,” he said.

Alongside Stachowiak, Pastor Terry Jones ripped out pages of a Quran, claiming it was not the Muslim religion they were hating on, but rather the violent texts of the book.

“Destroy the Quran, it deserves to be destroyed, it promotes violence – it is worse than any Playboy, worse than any other evil book of any nature.” Stachowiak said.

Jones added, “I believe it’s an evil book. If I want to rip it, it doesn’t mean I hate them, it means I believe the book is evil.”

An Atlanta grad student, Joshua Cubas, fired back at the pastor, citing questionable teachings of the Bible.

“If you’re going to condemn the Quran for its violent texts, then you should just as equally condemn the Bible for its violent texts as well,” he said. “More violence is being reported from ISIS, all of the stories, even stories that are happening now from the KKK who represent Christianity, if that same media attention was brought to that, that’s happening on our own homeland, I wonder how people’s perspectives would change.”

Stachowiak claimed if it wasn’t for America’s freedom of speech and his right to an armed-protest, the nation would be under Muslim rule.

“They are threatening to rape your women – the rapes are already happening in Europe by refugees and they’re threatening to rape women,” he said. “Not my words, their words.”

Atlantan Shannon Byrne, who passed through the rally, said the men’s only goal was to spread fear.

“I wanted to come by and see it for myself; just a news article wasn’t enough to describe that it’s just these two losers professing hate,” she said. “They’re ignorant and I feel sorry for them.”

Georgia State PantherExpress services rerouted Monday’s Blue line services going past the Capitol “out of an abundance of caution,” according to WABE.

Chris Connolly, Georgia State director of marketing, said Georgia Capitol Police put out a notice about the rally that spurred them into rerouting the system for one day.

“The Blue route, which travels near the Georgia Capitol Building, will travel around the Capitol towards Decatur St and to Turner Field all day Monday. We also told the students to expect delays in the route due to the event,” he said.

Wali Butt, an Islamic student at Georgia State said that this extreme behavior is nothing new.

“In terms of how America is represented in the world, it’s a typical Monday morning,” Butt said. “Only in the U.S. can you have armed protests for discrimination and people will just cross their arms and frown upon it.”

Georgia State University Police Chief Carlton Mullis said the campus’ police force lent a hand at Monday’s rally, with more help on standby, should things have gotten out of hand.

Christina Maxouris, Sean Keenan, Charles Bailey, Olivia Nelson, and Dominique Times contributed to this article.