Shooting fallout: Civil war, survivalists on lockdown, gun sales to spike

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on the eve of the Republican National Convention has raised new concerns that anger at his historic comeback could lead to more violence and even civil war.

With multiple polls already showing that voters were concerned about political violence before Saturday’s shooting at a Pennsylvania Trump rally, the assassination try has supercharged civil war concerns, forced professional survivalists to go into lockdown, and put gun retailers on alert for a surge when they open their doors on Monday.

“In like a lamb, out like a lion might be the way of things before 2024 is over,” said Matthew Miller, the CEO of online retail sites CashForArms.com and FirearmLand.com.

Up until now, gun sales have been steady and haven’t seen the typical election year spike. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry trade group, however, said that there were over 1 million a month in June for the 59th month in a row.

“That is a steady signal from America as we approach election season that the right to keep and bear arms matters to law-abiding citizens,” said Mark Oliva, the spokesman for NSSF.

Before the attempt on Trump’s life, Miller told Secrets that he thought sales would spike if the nation experienced political violence before Election Day.

“Along with blistering temperatures may come increased crime, the potential for migrant-enabled terrorism, expanding anti-Jewish violence, and the likelihood of chaos and rioting surrounding the party conventions and the election. If even some of these events unfold as feared, gun sales will spike,” said Miller last week.

Today he added, “We fear an increase in violence, including political violence, along with the potential for migrant-enabled terrorism and the likelihood of chaos and rioting surrounding the party conventions and the election. If even some of these events unfold as feared, gun sales will spike.”

Survivalists have similar concerns.

Drew Miller, who operates the Fortitude Ranch survival resorts, has recently been testing civil war scenarios and said that he fears political violence occurring after Election Day.

“Our ‘Collapse Survivor App’ civil war scenario starts just like this — small, isolated election violence, with retaliations, escalations in severity of attacks and then quantity of attacks. To me, it’s a fairly obvious course of events; doesn’t take an intelligence analyst to figure it out. Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Founder/CEO, warned of a 30% chance of civil war after this election over a year ago, and earlier this year he raised the estimate a bit,” Miller said.

“We have told our Fortitude Ranch staff not to take vacation or travel far from their locations during this period,” he said, adding that he plans to advise people “not to travel, be far from home during November to January as well.”

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Several polls have found that the public is concerned about a political breakdown. A recent Rasmussen survey said 41% of likely voters believe the country is likely to experience a second civil war within the next five years. The March Georgetown University Civility Poll also said concern about civil war is high, with a rating of 70 out of 100.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said that voters are “concerned about the level of division in the country, which they see as remarkably close to civil war.”