A gun range owner who in 2014 banned Muslims from her business as a matter of 'public safety' has announced that she now intends to stand for governor in the US state of Arkansas.

Republican Jan Morgan officially announced her candidacy at a New Year's Eve event in her hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas. She will be challenging incumbent Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson in May.

Ms Morgan, who has served as national spokesperson for Citizens for Trump, created a storm in 2014 when she claimed Islam was 'not a religion' and should not be afforded protections under the US Constitution.

Ms Morgan, who says she has been threatened before, wrote a rambling blog post two years ago: 'Why would I want to rent or sell a gun and hand ammunition to someone who aligns himself with a religion that commands him to kill me?'

Ms Morgan's Facebook account reflects her fervent support for the right to bear arms

Ms Morgan says that Nazis and Ku KluxKlan supporters would be equally unwelcome on her gun range

Ms Morgan has regularly appeared on Fox News to articulate her conservative views

Commentators say that Ms Morgan's bid to become Arkansas governor is unlikely to succeed

Ms Morgan has served as national spokesperson for Citizens for Trump

She agains drew publicity two years ago when she turned away a Hindu father and son from her gun range.

The men, of Indian descent, said they had arrived hoping to shoot but were immediately asked where they were from and told it was a Muslim-free range.

Ms Morgan has claimed that business is booming since her Muslim ban and that threats of a lawsuit by federal civil rights enforcers have failed to materialise.

In a bizarre blog post two years ago, she asked why she should 'rent or sell a gun and hand ammunition to someone who aligns himself with a religion that commands him to kill me?'

The shooting range owner said she made the decision after two customers she deemed suspicious visited. She said their furtive behavior and cellphone ringtones of 'Allahu Akhbar' prompted her to revise her range's policies.

Ms Morgan said she excluded from her range those she believes to be Muslim by assessing their names.

'We are dealing in lethal firearms,' Morgan she told FoxNews.com at the time. 'I'm not going to let a Nazi shoot in here, or a Ku Klux Klan member in here, either.'

She added in her blog that she believed the Koran contains '109 verses commanding hate, murder and terror,' and claims threats on her life have been made by Muslims.

The gun range owner has made no secret of her patriotism or her conservatism

The gun range owner says that she chooses to err on the side of caution when it comes to the safety of her patrons

The Council on American-Islamic Relations recently asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Ms Morgan on the grounds of racial and religious discrimination

Ms Morgan's critics say that not all Americans are as welcome on her gun range as she would have people believe

'I understand that not all Muslims are terrorists," she said at the time.

'I also believe there are as many Muslims who do not know what is in their Koran as there are Christians who do not know what is in their Bible.

'Since I have no way of discerning which Muslims will or will not kill in the name of their religion and the commands in their Koran, I choose to err on the side of caution for the safety of my patrons.'

Comentators say that although Ms Morgan has already created a campaign website and has started to solicit campaign contributions for her 2018 push, she is not expected to unseat Mr Hutchinson who she has has consistently described as 'RINO' - 'Republican in name only' - on her Facebook page.

She has accused Mr Hutchinson of 'campaigning like a conservative Republican but governing like a liberal Democrat'.

In addition she has alleged that that the sitting governor of not sufficiently conservative on gun rights and not sufficiently combative when it comes to challenging sharia law.