Gun Store Says Sales Are Surging Over 90-Day Blackout Rumor

If you're planning on doing any Christmas shopping online this year, you might want to get those orders in early. According to the latest conspiracy theory making the rounds on social media, we're about to experience a nationwide blackout lasting 90 days, which would put a big hitch in Amazon's two-day shipping.

There's no credible evidence that such a blackout is coming, but that hasn't stopped some Americans from preparing for the worst. At least one South Carolina gun dealer says the rumor has led to an increase in firearm sales, with customers apparently deciding that if the lights really do go out for three months, they'd rather be armed than defenseless.

“People are going crazy. They think the world is going to end in one day,” said John “JC” Castillo, who owns Stock Pile Tactical. “We had a full rack of everything here and it’s been selling out, same for pistols.”

Castillo estimates his sales are up roughly 60% to 70%.

He says customers aren’t just buying one type of item – they’re buying like they’re preparing for a long emergency.

“They’re getting water, they’re getting ammo, they’re getting guns ready, and they’re just, they don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.

Anecdotally, that same sense of urgency is showing up in other places too. Employees at warehouse stores in the Augusta area tell us they’re seeing more people loading carts with “survival”-style products: dehydrated and long-shelf-life foods, cases of water, backup fuel and batteries.

There's nothing wrong with being prepared. I try to keep a week's worth of water on hand for both the humans and critters here at home, and I've got enough emergency rations and canned goods to keep us all fed for at least a couple of weeks as well. As for ammo, let's just say I've got enough on hand in multiple calibers that my family and I would have plenty to hunt with and defend our homestead if need be. 

I don't do this because I'm concerned about a 90 day blackout. I do it because we have had blackouts lasting almost a week on multiple occasions, and when we lose power at the farm we lose access to our well water too. 

So where are these rumors coming from? It appears that they stem from the Sec. Pete Hegseth's plan known as FORTRESS America, which calls for every military base and defense agency to be able to function on its own for at least 90 days in case of a cyberattack, sabotage, or large-scale disaster. 

Take an announcement like that, mix in social media alarmism, and you have all the ingredients for hysteria. 

For many people, their first encounter with the term “90 days” wasn’t in a defense briefing or a news story. It was on TikTok.

Stock Pile Tactical shopper Kayla Fairchild says she was scrolling when she started seeing video after video with the same ominous message.

“It was just videos of ‘the blackouts coming, the blackouts coming,’” she recalled. “And I’m like, what, what is this?”

The clips she saw, like many circulating now, were short and urgent: text splashed over footage of darkened city skylines, creators warning viewers to “stock up now before it’s too late.”

Fairchild admits those posts got into her head.

“I’m nervous, but also, like, I don’t want to not be prepared, but I don’t want to overdo it,” she said.

Still, she’s been stocking up on water, food and other basics because, as she put it, “I don’t want to not be prepared.”

I totally understand that impulse, especially since we're just a few years removed from the runs on toilet paper, bread, and other goods during the first few months of the COVID pandemic panic. 

Being prepared is a good thing. Freaking out over the possibility of a 90 day blackout is not. 

The best time to prepare for an emergency is before it happens, but that doesn't mean you need to treat every scary prediction on social media as a warning of impending doom. If you don't have any emergency supplies on hand, start putting some away. You don't have to spend a fortune or empty the shelves at your local Walmart to make sure your family can get through a few days without electricity, running water, or a trip to the grocery store.

And if part of your emergency preparedness plan involves buying a gun, that's fine too. But if this is your first time purchasing one, don't just shove it in a closet. Get some training. Take a basic pistol course. Familiarize yourself with your new firearm, and use some of that ammo you've purchased at the range. 

I suspect most of the folks rushing to stock up aren't really convinced that the country is about to go dark for three months. Frankly, most of us don't have the means to ensure that our life would be only mildly impacted by a 90 day blackout, regardless of how much prepping and planning we might do. I think most of these people are genuinely worried about what might happen if something goes terribly wrong, and they want to be able to take care of themselves and their families without putting a timeline on how long the impacts might last.  

That's a perfectly reasonable instinct, and it's one of the reasons the Second Amendment matters. We have the right to defend ourselves even when everything is working as it should, but that right becomes even more important as the need to protect ourselves and our loved ones becomes more acute. 

Still, there's no need to panic. In fact, a big part of being prepared is being able to think rationally in a crisis instead of panicking, and one of the best ways to do so is to get the heck off social media... or at least try to disrupt the algorithm feeding you a steady stream of doomerism. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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