Interesting story. According to snopes he bought 2 acres in colorado for about $42k in 1989 and three years later the cement plant offered him $250k for it and he agreed, but then just kept rising the price. Now in my limited experience some land owners are greedy fools and think their dirt is worth its weight in gold.
He did attack a bunch of buildings, most of which were occupied and certainly not all those people had any idea about who he was and would just be potential innocent victims. His contraption was impressive, though.
1000 left wingers do as much damage as 1 right winger.
If we took the attitude that they have and responded in the numbers they have, the results would look like a combination of an A-team episode and the fire bombing of dresden.