One of my big concerns over recent years is the idea that we’re heading toward a civil war in this country. I’m far from alone in this fear, to be sure.

Recent months have done little to quell those concerns in the least. Arguably, we’re in one right now. The Antifa goons may not be particularly effective in their tactics, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stay that clueless. Oh no, they’re likely to learn, then things get stupid.

However, we’ve also seen an escalation in violence where many on the left are using firearms. In particular, there’s a viral image of “protestors” holding guns in front of a pickup truck.

That’s what ran through my head when I saw this story this morning.

A U.S. Air Force helicopter was shot at while flying over Virginia and was forced to make an emergency landing, McClatchy is reporting.

While the event is being initially revealed on Wednesday, the event occurred on Monday, according to military officials.

A crew member, who was not identified, was injured and was treated at a hospital and later released.

The FBI “dispatched Special Agents and its Evidence Response Team to the Manassas Airport after receiving reports that a helicopter was shot at from the ground nearby,” the FBI’s Washington Field Office said in a statement to McClatchy.

…

“The FBI Washington Field Office is working jointly with our law enforcement partners, including the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident. One individual in the helicopter sustained a non-threatening injury, for which he was treated and subsequently released from the hospital,” the FBI said in additional statements to McClatchy.

Officials at Manassas Regional Airport told McClatchy they received a call around 12:20 p.m. alerting them of the emergency landing.

Not good.

Joint Base Andrews said in a statement, “The Office of Special Investigations is fully engaged with our FBI colleagues on this incident. OSI takes threats to our Airmen and our resources very seriously. As this is an ongoing investigation, no further investigative details can be released at this time.”

To be fair, this may have been a simple case of negligence. Maybe someone hit the helicopter because they were shooting up a hill and didn’t have an appropriate backstop. Maybe someone was just shooting in the air and didn’t realize the aircraft was even there.

It’s possible.

However, we also have widespread civil unrest all over the nation, particularly near our nation’s capital. Further, the helicopter in question was a UH-1N Huey (not represented in the image above, to be clear), one similar in appearance to many police helicopters. That means someone might have thought it was a police chopper and took a shot.

That doesn’t make it any better, of course. It just means their target identification skills suck.

Regardless, this is an incident we should all be paying very close attention to. Our best-case scenario is that this was some sort of negligence or accident. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone can assume such a thing. Not with things as they currently are.

Instead, stock up on ammo as best you can and prepare to hunker down.