THIS IS THEBLAZE’S POINT-BY-POINT SANDY HOOK CONSPIRACY THEORY DEBUNK

THIS IS THEBLAZE’S POINT-BY-POINT SANDY HOOK CONSPIRACY THEORY DEBUNK

By Billy Hallowell

Was Adam Lanza really the only shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School? Why are there supposed inconsistencies surrounding the weapons that were used during the attack? And are some of the parents really “crisis actors” brought in to make the situation that much more believable?

Those are only a few of the questions that have been posed by conspiracy theorists who have used the Internet to virally spread their doubt about the horrific massacre that unfolded in Connecticut on Dec. 14.

The main crux of the arguments presented in documentary-style videos is that the Sandy Hook massacre is either a government-planned hoax intended to lead the nation to overwhelmingly embrace increased gun control measures. Or, at the least, those who have put the videos out believe that essential information is being withheld from the American public surrounding multiple shooters and other game-changing elements. The motivations of those who have created these theories are difficult to pin down, as most are spouting their views anonymously.

A video documenting purported inconsistencies surrounding the tragedy that killed 20 children and six adults inside the school has gone viral, gaining more than 11 million views in just two weeks. And a follow-up “documentary” has also been released, adding further “evidence” to the claim that the event either didn’t unfold at all or that it happened contrary to the media narrative that has been advanced.

To most people, the idea that any of it is true is repulsive. So we decided to visit the most popular of the theories and break them down in a point-by-point debunk.

In addition to questioning the official account of weapons used and whether or not crisis actors were employed by the government, theorists have taken aim at parental reaction to the shootings and have claimed that memorial pages for the victims were published before the shooting took place. And these notions only scratch the surface that is the bizarre world of Sandy Hook Trutherism.

The shadowy individual behind the first video, entitled, “The Sandy Hook Shooting – Fully Exposed” (30 minutes in length), weaves together sparse details and attempts to poke holes in the overall story. As for the first video, Snopes.com, a web site known for debunking untruthful information, dismissed it as “a mixture of misinformation, innuendo, and subjective interpretation.” You can see the clip here:

The second part of the Truther initiative, titled, “Sandy Hook Fully Exposed” (19 minutes in length) tackles similar themes, builds upon the first video and attempts to defend those individuals who are questioning the details associated with the event. In addition to asking a variety of questions about family members who lost children, the videos even devote time to questioning whether “crisis actors” were brought in to speak with media in the wake of the attack. See Part II, below:

“Isn’t something like Sandy Hook just what the government needs to start disarming the public so they don’t have to worry about people being a threat to them anymore?,’ text embedded in the video reads.

TheBlaze has decided to go through both videos to provide you with a recap of the major points that Truthers are raising. In addition to presenting the arguments that those perpetuating an alleged hoax are positing, you’ll see reasonable explanations that essentially debunk their claims and questions. In any crime scene – especially one as traumatic and dramatic as what unfolded at Sandy Hook – information flows quickly and it isn’t uncommon for incorrect details to make their way into media. This, as you will see, is the case when it comes to numerous elements surrounding this tragic shooting.

THE MAN IN THE WOODS & ADDITIONAL SHOOTERS

Sandy Hook Truthers have spent a great deal of time and energy reporting about a man who was allegedly chased in the woods nearby the school; the individual was subsequently apprehended and the entire spectacle is captured on video — footage that is now being used to advance the idea that there was another shooter. The first “expose” shows media interviews with witnesses who claim to have seen this individual in handcuffs following the incident. If it is true that there was more than one shooter, this would obviously turn on its head everything that has been said about a lone murderer (i.e. Lanza).

The man in the woods, though, isn’t the only theory about additional shooters floating around. Additionally, others claim that there were two men who fled the scene in a van. Initial media reports did say that there may have been more than one shooter involved, but as the details came in and the events were clarified, Lanza was the only gunman named and the evidence cleared every other initial suspect.

While conspiracy theorists continue to question where these additional suspects are and why the media has allegedly failed to report about them, there are some pretty convincing counter arguments and debunks surrounding this matter.

The Newtown Bee, a local outlet, reported that a law enforcement official told them that the man seen in the woods had a gun and was nearby the school. He was apparently an off-duty tactical squad police officer from a nearby area. Also, Chris Manfredonia, the father of a 6-year-old student at the school, was handcuffed briefly by police after he ran around the school in an effort to find his daughter. And another unidentified man was briefly detained, but later released when he was found to be an innocent bystander, Snopes.com claims.

Those being interviewed by media likely saw one of these individuals, leading Truthers to suspect something sinister. Lt. Paul Vance, a media relations representative with the State of Connecticut, dismissed the notion that there were other shooters, while also highlighting and confirming the fact that authorities did end up detaining and quickly releasing other individuals.

“Were there other people detained?,” Vance rhetorically asked. “The answer is yes. In the height of the battle, until you’ve determined who, what, when, where and why of everyone in existence…that’s not unusual.”

THE WEAPONS USED INSIDE THE SCHOOL & THE VICTIMS’ BODIES

Another point of contention that Truthers seem to be focusing upon is the weapons that Lanza used in committing his crime. In the first video, the narrator claims that, according to media, three guns were found at the scene (two handguns and one assault rifle). Four handguns were also allegedly found inside the school. The inconsistency here comes from the Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, the chief medical examiner, who said following the incident that the assault rifle appeared to be responsible for the children’s deaths.

Here’s why Truthers are jumping all over the claims surrounding the assault rifle. The first video alleging a hoax claims that this particular weapon was later recovered from the trunk of the car that Lanza was driving. If this is the case, then critics are questioning how Carver’s claims could be possible. The shooter clearly couldn’t have used the assault rifle to commit his crimes if the weapon was in the trunk of the car the entire time.

But there’s an understandable answer here as well. A few days after the attack, clarity surrounding the guns finally emerged. Lanza left a shotgun in the car, but he had three other weapons that were brought into the school – a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, a Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9 mm (the latter two are handguns). The fourth weapon – the shotgun – was left in the vehicle’s trunk. Carver was correct in making his claim that it was the AR-15 that was responsible for the children’s deaths – a firearm that was not in the trunk as the first video indicates (CNN actually has a great primer on the weapons that expounds upon this in detail).

While we’re on the subject of Carver, it’s important to dispel another rumor – that the parents never saw their children’s bodies. While they did not identify the bodies in their entirety, pictures of the kids’ faces were provided to the families. This wasn’t done to be sinister or to hide details; quite the contrary, the doctor was trying to spare the families the pain of seeing the horrific injuries the children sustained, so photos of their faces were used instead.

SCHOOL NURSE’S ALLEGED CLAIMS ABOUT THE KILLER’S MOTHER

Andrea McCarren, a reporter for WUSA, reported in the wake of the killings about a conversation she had with Sally Cox, the Sandy Hook school nurse. Cox, who McCarren described as “fairly traumatized,” apparently told the reporter that she knew the killer’s mother, a kindergarten teacher at the school. Initially, media reported that Lanza may have been the son of a teacher, but this was soon dispelled.

Truthers are questioning this story, though, obviously wondering how McCarren was given information about the killer and his mother that ended up being entirely untrue (they argue that the school nurse should have had the information correct and that her mention of a teacher at Sandy Hook is curious, especially considering the details we now know).

During McCarren’s report, the journalist also said that the nurse expounded, claiming that Cox said that the kindergarten teacher was kind and exactly the person one would want his or her children to spend time with. Snopes notes that the USA Today also “mistakenly reported…that Nancy Lanza” was a teacher at the school. Perhaps this report and McCarren’s were based on the same misinformation.

Some have also claimed that Cox is also not a registered nurse, but her real name is Sarah and a search of that name does, indeed, yield results that show that the woman is a registered nurse in the state’s registration system. Since “Sally” isn’t her birth name, it’s obvious that a license attacked to that name isn’t available in the Connecticut database (see above).

ROBBIE/EMILIE PARKER & LYNN/GRACE MCDONNELL

Emilie Parker, one of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook, is a central character in Truthers’ questioning, as they throw a number of theories about her very person and her family’s reaction to her death into the mix. In addition to claiming that the young girl was Photoshopped into at least one family image, those questioning official accounts claim that her father, Robbie Parker, can be seen getting “into character” before a press conference — something they dismiss as proof that he may, indeed, be acting or playing the role of a grieving father.

This latter accusation relies upon footage of Robbie purportedly laughing before a press conference. In the clip, he can be seen smiling, taking a moment to compose himself and then allowing emotion to overtake him. “How many parents are laughing and joking a day after their first child has been shot,” a text message reads across the screen in the first hoax video. Later, the words, “I smell B.S.,” are added to describe the father’s reaction.

The video also claims that Parker wasn’t in her class photos and that she appears in images with President Barack Obama following the shooting (something that obviously wouldn’t be possible had she been killed during the incident). But the below video explains that the little girl shown in the image is one of Emilie’s sisters, not the young girl who perished just days before:

At least one other parent was targeted for the same reason – for appearing too chipper in the wake of losing a daughter in the horrific incident. Footage of Lynn McDonnell, mother of a child named Grace, came under scrutiny after the parent spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about her immense loss. While remembering her young child, she expressed facial expressions of joy. However, considering the content of her commentary (she was remembering her young child) it seemed entirely appropriate (in fact, TheBlaze covered the inspirational interview when it aired in December).

CHILD SECURITY EVENT PLANNED FOR DEC. 14

Those embracing the notion that Sandy Hook was a hoax also question an event that was put on by the Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (this department falls under the state’s Division of Emergency Services and Public Protection). This particular event was purportedly planned before the shooting and aimed at helping explore strategies for protecting kids in the result of emergency situations like what happened that same day at Sandy Hook.

 

This event did occur, but it isn’t as surprising as some might assume. On the surface, it may seem odd that the FEMA class, called “Planning for the Needs of Children in Disasters,” was offered on the same day that Sandy Hook unfolded. But this course was also offered six additional times in the state of Connecticut during November and December. It wasn’t a rare occurrence only planned on the day of the shooting; it was an event that had been repeatedly held within the state’s boundaries during recent days and weeks.

MEMORIAL PAGES & ASSOCIATED INTERNET TIMESTAMPS

The Truthers are particularly fired up about various memorial pages and social media initiatives that they claim were created days before Lanza’s crimes at the elementary school. In addition to teacher Victoria Soto’s Facebook memorial page, which they claim was created on Dec. 10, four days before the shooting, the individuals behind the video and movement also point to a GoFundMe initiative, among others, as also having timestamps that precede the event.

Inquisitr explained how the Internet, despite being quite advanced, still has its hiccups. Here’s a brief recap that explains some of the reasons behind date stamps seeming incorrect on various posts and web sites:

To understand the Sandy Hook websites that seem to have been published early, you must first understand the way the internet reconciles dates as well as how Google crawls them. If a page is repurposed to host other information than it originally displayed, it may show up as having been “published” earlier.

Further, servers and sites often have incorrect dates. Having used a number of WordPress panels in my career, it is a job to keep track of where dates and times are set in order to avoid publishing in the past when scheduling a post, something that could be at play and an easily explainable factor not often acknowledged by Sandy Hook truthers.

And given the fact material can run afoul on an individual computer, a site’s panel and then a search engine, sites like the United Way’s Sandy Hook page could easily register as a prior date on Google.

When it comes to Google results – another target the Truthers point to – the Internet giant isn’t always correct. Sometimes, search results have the incorrect dates associated with them, clearly a factor that is overlooked in the conspiracy theory videos. As for the web sites that seem to have an earlier date stamp, another theory is that certain donation and Facebook pages that were created for other reasons were edited and amended to assist with Sandy Hook efforts following the shooting. While they retained their earlier creation date, their intended purposes changed.

TheBlaze spoke with Justin Basch, CEO of Basch Solutions, a web site production company. The tech expert dismissed conspiracy theorists’ claims, calling them “nonsense.” He explained the many ways that dates can be manipulated in WordPress (the platform running at least one of the web sites at the center of the debate).

“It’s very, very easy to manipulate a date that content was published — whether it’s through text, whether it’s through date manipulation, etc.,” Basch explained.

THE SYMPATHETIC AND HELPFUL NEIGHBOR: GENE ROSEN

Then there’s Gene Rosen, the neighbor who lives nearby Sandy Hook. He began appearing in media immediately following the shooting, telling of his involvement in housing six children who had escaped the school that fateful morning. Rosen has been interviewed numerous times by the mainstream media and he has explained how he entertained the children inside of his home after they fled the school in terror.

The Truthers, though, claim that Rosen’s story has some troubling inconsistencies. Among them, they charge that he is a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), a professional union of acting professionals (thus, advancing the theory that he might be a crisis actor). They also claim that Rosen’s story about discovering the children in his driveway changed and evolved during various appearances. While in some interviews he described the six kids sitting with a female bus driver, in at least one other account, he described a male adult talking harshly to the children, the video proclaims.

Additionally, Rosen, a retired psychologist, told reporters that the children told him their teacher, Ms. Soto, was dead. Initially, some media reported that only one child escaped the classroom where the majority of the kids perished, but this ended up not being the case (others seemingly escaped as well). Rosen also said in one interview that he saw the list of victims not long after the shooting, but conspiracy theorists claim this isn’t possible, as it wasn’t released until after the time he claims to have seen it.

A list of casualties, though, was released the day after the shooting and, as Snopes documents, the Gene Rosen who is a member of SAG is a different individual – one who has never lived in Connecticut. The retired psychologist at the center of this particular case has always lived in the state (while both are in their 60s, the actor is 62 and the Newtown resident is 69).

LANZA’S VEHICLE ON THE DAY OF THE SHOOTING

In the second video, which spent some time defending Truthers against attacks, an bizarre claim is made about the vehicle that Lanza drove to Sandy Hook on Dec. 14. While it has been widely reported that the car belonged to his mother, whom he also shot dead before heading to the school that morning, hoax theorists believe that the car is registered to a man named Chris Rodia.

While it may be tempting for those looking for holes in the story to wonder if Rodia was complicit in helping Lanza with the attack, Snopes.com debunks this, claiming that Rodia was pulled over at a traffic stop and, thus, ended up being named on a police scanner. Salon recaps how this particular element of the story was debunked:

This one was debunked by the theorists themselves just a few days after the shooting. Blogger Joe Quinn obtained the police audio, which definitively debunking the myth. (Rodia appeared on the scanner because he was getting pulled over in a traffic stop miles away, but his license plate doesn’t match Lanza’s car). “This was a huge blow, because lots of people were making big leaps on this … but we now have to look elsewhere,” another amateur investigator said on YouTube.

To clarify: Rodia is not a suspect and he did not own the car that Lanza drove to the school, as the video seems to allege. Rodia was also not at the school at the time of the shooting. Snopes claimsthat “he was driving a different vehicle in another town at the time.”

CRISIS ACTORS DEPICTED IN MEDIA

Truthers’ have gone out of their way (there’s even a disclaimer at the start of the first video) to claim that they are not trying to dismiss the event as though it never happened. Instead, they say that they are merely asking pertinent questions and, in a sense, exercising their civic duty as caring and in-tune Americans (a tactic likely being used to separate themselves from the criticism being thrown their way). Among those curiosities, a consistent theme emerges: The idea that crisis actors were used.

We already covered Rosen and the theory that he is one of these individuals. But there are others who are being dubbed potential crisis actors. One couple in particularly has come under scrutiny. CNN interviewed Nick and Laura Phelps, parents of two children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the exchange, Nick becomes emotional while describing the principal at the school as “a very special person.” It’s clear that the family was impacted by what unfolded.

But Truthers question the motivations, sincerity and identity of Nick and Laura, claiming that they may actually be Richard and Jennifer Sexton, two actors from Florida. This bizarre claim — that the couple was brought in to merely depict parents who have children at Sandy Hook Elementary, is one of the more curious ones being floated. The evidence being posited?

The hoax video shows images from an alleged Picasa account belonging to Richard and Jennifer (the actors). Those who believe that something isn’t quite right about Sandy Hook claim that the photo album was deleted after it gained attention. In addition, Truthers are using a clip showing Laura (or Jennifer) giving what appears to be an audition or performance.

But Snopes claims that the husband and wife duos merely resemble one another and that they are not, in fact, the same individuals. While the videos seem to indicate that there may be a connection between the Crisis Actors company – a group that provides actors to simulate traumatic and disastrous events, there is no connection between the actors provided by the group and the individuals shown in media interviews. Plus, a simple web search shows that the family does, indeed, live near the school.

Crisis Actors (the company) also makes it clear that its performers do not engage in real-life events. While the video alleges connections between the Sandy Hook families and these individuals, no such connections exist. In fact, the company has gone out of its way to dispel such rumors.

See Anderson Cooper address some of these controversies:

UNDERSTANDING THE VIDEOS AND THEIR CREATOR

While the conspiracy-laden clips have intrigued some, others find themselves completely horrified, sickened and offended by their contents — especially considering the pain that the families of Sandy Hook victims have already endured. Following the publication of the first video, reaction and media coverage was swift. As noted, the creator of the videos made it a point to vehemently defend himself against critics.

“This video was made to clear up confusion and shed light on new information. Apologies to anyone offended by the past videos,” a caveat at the beginning of the second clip reads. “[W]e hope this one is easier to digest. Would you rather be hurt temporarily by the truth, or comforted forever by lies?”

Later, the anonymous individual behind the clips claims that it is unfair for critics to label him and others supporting his ideas as “Truthers” – or even “conspiracy theorists.” Such labels, text embedded in the video reads, implies that those questioning the event are “over the top, crazy, and against everyone else.”

“These are millions of everyday people that deserve answers to their questions,” the text continues. “And it seems by labeling them like that, it’s easier to dismiss them and not have to look at the facts.”

However, those looking to debunk the Sandy Hook debunkers would dismiss these views as fringe. Even the person who created, “The Sandy Hook Shooting – Fully Exposed” and its companion video was surprised by its viral nature. In an interview with Gawker before the video released, he seemed surprised by its viral nature, telling the outlet that he would have “spent more time on it” if he knew it would be so popular. TheBlaze reached out to him to get further comment, but we did not receive a response.

“[I]t all started when me and my friends used to research 9/11 in high school,” said the source, who refused to identify himself to Gawker. “That’s what really got me started when it came to researching government cover ups…Once I learned about all the false flag attacks in history that have been proven to be true, I knew it was only a matter of time before another came a long.”

Apparently, in the mind of the individual behind the videos (which were published on a YouTube channel under the account ThinkOutsideTheTV), Sandy Hook was next in this purported line of government cover-ups. The individual went on to tell the outlet that he felt as though the event was “too perfect” and that the people and the town involved had an “artificial vibe about them.”

OTHER THEORIES

Since Sandy Hook unfolded, other conspiracy theories have emerged, although the aforementioned YouTube clips have become the most pervasive and widespread. TheBlaze already told you about James Tracy, a communications professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and his controversial comments about the Sandy Hook massacre.

Tracy, too, appeared on radio interviews, where he advanced the crisis actor angle, claiming that the Obama administration might have deployed these individuals to stage the attack in an effort to further crack down on guns. On his personal blog, he cited InfoWars.com as well. Later, he clarified his comments, claiming that while “one is left with the impression that a real tragedy took place,” images and information have been withheld from the public.

The entire ordeal, which captured national attention and was covered by TheBlaze earlier this month, led FAU to separate itself from Tracy’s comments. Lisa Metcalf, director of media relations, said, “James Tracy does not speak for the university.”

In the same Blaze report, Jason Howerton covered Dr. James H. Fetzer, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). In an op-ed published in an Iranian (state-owned, of course) outlet, he charged that, perhaps, the Mossad (Israeli security forces) were responsible for the attack.

“The killing of children is a signature of terror ops conducted by agents of Israel,” he wrote. “[W]ho better to slaughter American children than Israelis, who deliberately murder Palestinian children?”

These, of course, of just two of the numerous alternative conspiracy theories being floated. There are plenty of other ideas that have circulated since Dec. 14. However, the growth in popularity of the latest videos creates some serious questions that deserve to be answered in order to properly educate readership.

At least one father of a first-grader at Sandy Hook took the issue to heart, showcasing his frustration in an on-air phone call that was placed to radio host Glenn Beck. The father, named “Pete,” expressed his dismay at the conspiracy theories, calling Trutherism an “unimaginable way to even look at a tragedy or horrific event.”

“I was there. I’ve been to the funerals,” he told Beck. “I know the families very closely. I know a lot of those children. It happened. It really happened.”

But if thats not convincing enough, consider BuzzFeed’s logic: ”The evidence on which these budding theories are based is, even by the standards of fringe conspiracy theory, remarkably thin, and demand massive collusion between hundreds of private citizens, the federal government, local authorities, and the news media.”

While the viral nature of the videos has begun to simmer, the mainstream media has not provided a level of coverage that would disseminate the truth fervently enough to dispel the rumors. Setting the record straight and showcasing the truth, though, is essential.

Related articles

• ‘Sandy Hook Truthers’ claim Newtown school massacre a hoax to spur gun control measures (news.nationalpost.com)
• Newtown school massacre a ‘hoax to tighten gun laws’ (thestar.com)
• Sandy Hook Hero Harassed by Burgeoning Truther Movement (newsfeed.time.com)
• Those Shameless Sandy Hook Truthers (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Your comprehensive answer to every Sandy Hook conspiracy theory (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• ‘Absolute Proof Sandy Hook Was Staged’ – ‘Newtown Truthers’ Hit A New Low (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)
• Snopes Deconstructs the Sandy Hook Truther Hoax (dianeravitch.net)
• Sandy Hook ‘Truthers’ Harass Newtown Man, Conspiracy Theories Go Viral (themoderatevoice.com)
• Why We Can’t Ignore the Sandy Hook Truthers (alternet.org)

Sicko Conspiracy Sociopaths Harass Man Who Sheltered Kids During Sandy Hook Massacre

This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it

Gene Rosen sheltered six kids during the Sandy Hook massacre. Now he’s become a target of conspiracy theorists

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Enlarge  (Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer)

“I don’t know what to do,” sighed Gene Rosen. “I’m getting hang-up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone posted a photo of his house online. There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the “emotional Jewish guy,” and dozens of blog posts and videos “exposing” him as a fraud. One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: “How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting’. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?”

“The quantity of the material is overwhelming,” he said. So much so that a friend shields him from most of it by doing daily sweeps of the Web so Rosen doesn’t have to. His wife is worried for their safety. He’s logged every email and every call, and consulted with a retired state police officer, who took the complaint seriously but said police probably can’t do anything at the moment; he plans to do the same with the FBI.

What did Rosen do to deserve this? One month ago, he found six little children and a bus driver at the end of the driveway of his home in Newtown, Conn. “We can’t go back to school,” one little boy told Rosen. “Our teacher is dead.” He brought them inside and gave them food and juice and toys. He called their parents. He sat with them and listened to their shocked accounts of what had happened just down the street inside Sandy Hook Elementary, close enough that Rosen heard the gunshots.

In the hours and days that followed, Rosen did a lot of media interviews. “I wanted to speak about the bravery of the children, and it kind of helped me work through this,” he told Salon in an interview.  “I guess I kind of opened myself up to this.”

The “this” in question is becoming a prime target of the burgeoning Sandy Hook truther movement, which — like its precursor that denied the veracity of the 9/11 terror attacks — alleges that the entire shooting was a hoax of some kind. There were conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting from Day One, but the movement has exploded into public view the past two weeks, and a Google Trends search suggests it’s just now picking up steam. It’s also beginning to earn the backing of presumably credible sources like a professor and a reporter.

Rosen,  a 69-year-old retired psychologist who now runs a pet-sitting business and volunteers to read books to kids in schools, initially called me to ask if I thought he should reach out to the FBI about the harassment. I said it probably couldn’t hurt. When I asked if I could tell his story, he was reluctant at first. “Here’s my fear: If I start talking like this, will one of these truthers read this and will it embolden them? Will they say, screw that guy, how dare he impugn our credibility or question our intellect, I’m going to go one step farther? Am I being stupid?” he asked.

After thinking about it, Rosen decided that he had to speak out: “I talk to you about this because I feel that there has to be some moral push-back on this.” Rosen said he’s a staunch believer in free speech, and realizes there is little legal recourse possible unless he gets direct threats, so he had a different idea.

“There must be some way to morally shame these people, because there were 20 dead children lying an eighth of a mile from my window all night long,” he said, choking back tears. “And I sat there with my wife, because they couldn’t take the bodies out that night so the medical examiner could come. And I thought of an expression, that this ‘adds insult to injury,’ but that’s a stupid expression, because this is not an injury, this is an abomination.”

The harassment has turned Rosen’s life upside down, and made him feel things once foreign to him, like searing rage. “I was sitting in a restaurant the other night and these guys who were part of a car club came up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘You know, you’re a hero to me.’ He had seen me on TV. So I said thank you. Then I’m sitting there and I hear this other guy, ‘Oh yeah, it was a conspiracy.’ He was a big guy,” he said.

“I tell you what, I had evil thoughts. I wanted to go over to the first guy, and he had about 15 big guys with him, and say, ‘I’m going to go talk to this other guy — just watch my back.’ And then I wanted to go over to the other guy and get up in his face and say, ‘See those guys over there, just know they’re keeping an eye out for me.’ And then I wanted to say, ‘I want to see what you look like. I want to see what a person who generates this kind of evil shit looks like. I want to look at your face and tell you you’re an asshole,’” he said.

He didn’t do it, of course. “But it tells me how rageful I am. And I am rageful about it, both for the children and for the mother of the child who came to my house looking for her son, and I wanted to look at this guy and I wanted to just fucking decimate him. That’s my rage.”

But when he starts to feel that way, Rosen can think of the first man. And the countless others out there who see Rosen as a hero, and not a tool of some shadowy conspiracy. Because for every angry call or email, there any many, many more praising ones: “I get the most beautifully written cards, wonderful calls.” Let’s hope they continue to be the majority.

            Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon’s political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.

Related articles

• Sandy Hook Conspiracy Therorists Call Gene Rosen, Newtown Hero, ‘Pedophile’ & ‘Satanist’ [VIDEO] (sfluxe.com)
• Is it okay for reporters to question the “official narrative” of Sandy Hook? (salon.com)
• Those Shameless Sandy Hook Truthers (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Conspiracy theorists claim Sandy Hook School mass shooting a ‘government-sponsored’ hoax (calgaryherald.com)
• But I’m sure the moon landing was a fake (snark) (southofheaven.typepad.com)
• Sandy Hook Hero Cruelly Harassed By Conspiracy Theorists (huffingtonpost.com)
• This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it (richarddawkins.net)
• Sandy Hook Hero, Gene Rosen, Now Being Called An “Actor” And “Pedo” (letsfindthem.wordpress.com)
• Conspiracy theorists claim Sandy Hook tragedy is elaborate government hoax (vancouversun.com)
• Grandfather who comforted Sandy Hook Elementary kids says ‘truthers’ are targeting him (usnews.nbcnews.com)

Religious Right Pseudo Historian David Barton Claims Few Gun Accidents During Founding Era

Barton: There Were No Gun Accidents During the Founding Era

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla

Today, Rick Green and David Barton weighed-in on the tragedy at Sandy Hook by laying out not only the standard Religious Right solutions of putting prayer and the Bible back in schools, but also adding a unique suggestion to start arming everyone from early childhood.

Explaining that he began teaching his own kids how to use guns at the age of four, Barton said that people only want to get rid of guns because they are afraid of them, which can be attributed to the fact that they don’t know how to use them.

As such, if everyone had a gun and was taught how to use it from childhood, there would never be any firearm incidents or accidents, just like during the founding era:

That’s what these guys do not see and do not look at; they’re just flat scared of guns.  And the solution to that is exactly what the Founding Fathers said and that is you start teaching kids to use guns when they’re very young because gun accidents are caused by non-familiarity with guns; once you’re familiar with them, you don’t have accidents with them.

I have searched and in the founding era I think I’ve only ever found two gun accidents and everybody was hauling guns back then; you took your guns to church, you were required by state law in some states to take your guns to church.  We didn’t have accidents because everyone was familiar with how to use them.  It’s not being familiar that makes is dangerous.

Related articles

• Stories From The Fringe – ‘David Barton Repeats Zombie Lie about President Obama and Thanksgiving’ (thelastofthemillenniums.wordpress.com)
• The year that was: Major church-state developments from 2012 (secularnewsdaily.com)
• Christian leader David Barton: “Whatever the government’s got, we’ve got to have the same thing.” (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)

Those Shameless Sandy Hook Truthers

Meet the Sandy Hook truthers

Conspiracy Theorists think they’ve found “absolute proof” that Newtown was a hoax. Have they no shame?

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

(Credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer)

Yes, there really are Newtown truthers.

But in the crazy world of Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, this one may be the worst yet. (Maybe you’ve already heard some of the others, like the one about fantasy ties between the gunman’s family and the LIBOR banking scandal and a related theory about the Aurora shooting and the “Dark Knight Rises.”) Most of the theories are really pieces of a larger meta-theory: that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, perhaps by the Obama administration, designed to stir demand for gun control.

In the latest angle, theorists think they have found “absolute proof” of a conspiracy to defraud the American people. “You reported in December that this little girl had been killed,” a reader emailed Salon in response to a story. “She has been found, and photographed with President Obama.”

The girl in question is Emilie Parker, a 6-year-old who was shot multiple times and killed at Sandy Hook. But for conspiracy theorists, the tears her family shed at her funeral, the moving eulogy from Utah’s governor, and the entire shooting spree are fake. Welcome to the world where Sandy Hook didn’t really happen.

There are dozens of websites, blog posts and YouTube videos extolling the Emilie Parker hoax theory. If you Google her name, the very first result is a post mocking her father for crying at a press conference after the shooting. One popular video, which already has 134,000 views, was made by the producers of a popular 9/11 Truther film. “Just as the movie ‘Operation Terror’ shows the 9/11 attacks were a made-for-TV event, so too were the mass shootings … There can be no doubt that Sandy Hook was a staged event,” the narrator intones. He goes on to say that the adults who participated in the media coverage of the shootings “should be prosecuted as accessories after the fact in a mass murder” — i.e., the parents whose children were murdered in the massacre should be thrown in prison.

The crux of the theory is a photograph of Parker’s sister sitting on President Obama’s lap when he visited with the victims’ families. The girl is wearing the same dress Emilie wore in a pre-shooting photograph of the family shared with media, so she must be Emilie, alive and well. “BAM! I cannot believe how idiot these people are [sic]… That’s her,” one YouTuber exclaims as he watches the two images superimposed on each other. (Apparently missed by these crack investigators is the possibility that the sister wore Emilie’s dress and that they look alike because they are sisters, after all.)

The supporting details to the hoax theory explanation are reminiscent of the arcana of any well-developed conspiracy theory. What about the car? What about the rifle? Why does someone off camera allegedly tell Parker’s father to “read the Card” (as in a cue card) before he goes on CNN? Why is he laughing? Who is the guy running into the woods? Why is there police audio referring to multiple shooters? Why does one boy who survived the shooting tell Dr. Oz it was like “a drill”? Why was the principal quoted by a local paper after she died? Why do some of the parents look like some of the victims of the Aurora shooting — are they “all actors”? All of these questions have simple explanations, but in each case, the theorists have sided more with less likely, but more nefarious possibilities.

One man has taken it upon himself to catalog all of the theories at SandyHookHoax.com. By way of credentials, creator Jay Johnson explains: “I am the only person in the world to solve LOST,” he writes (yes, the TV show).

In an email exchange with Salon, Johnson said he initially “wanted to help the kids express their feelings and memorialize the victims … But then I saw how the local paper interviewed the principal after she was dead, and I realized it was 99% odds another psychological operation that was going on,” he explained.

Noting that he started the website on “12/21/12” he explained, “since I am the New Age Messiah, with my Look Your Heart in the Mirror™ as the new revelation from the Goddess Tefnut, aka Ma’at, of Egypt, I thought the date was significant.”

But the hoax theory has even earned the backing for some presumably more credible sources. James Tracy, a tenured professor of communications at Florida Atlantic University, sparked controversy this week after he wrote a blog post suggesting the parents were “crisis actors.” “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described,” he wrote.

Websites owned by Alex Jones, the conspiracy theory pundit who helped start the 9/11 Truther movement and has millions of readers, are a virtual one-stop shop for Sandy Hook “false flag” miscellanea. So far, mainstream conservative figures haven’t hopped on board, though Gun Owners of American head Larry Pratt told Jones this summer that he thought there was a good chance the Aurora massacre was perpetrated by government agents.

Then there’s just the downright bizarre subgenre of theories. One posting on the community forum of Jones’ website connects Sandy Hook and Emilie Parker to Satanism, postulating that the school was a “recruiting center” for the Church of Satan. There’s even a low-budget slasher flick called “Sandy Hook Lingerie Party Massacre” — could that be connected?

Whether there is a connection or not, we can count on the Internet’s conspiracy theorists to find one, even if it means denying the legitimacy of the mourning families’ grief.

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon’s political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.MORE ALEX SEITZ-WALD.

Related articles

• Sandy Hook “Truthers” (geo-geek.blogspot.com)
• “BAM! I can’t believe how idiot these people are!” (cannonfire.blogspot.com)
• Internet crackpots believe Newtown massacre was staged, citing “absolute” Photoshop proof (boingboing.net)
• ‘Absolute Proof Sandy Hook Was Staged’ – ‘Newtown Truthers’ Hit A New Low (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)
• The worst Sandy Hook conspiracy theory yet (salon.com)
• Meet the Sandy Hook truthers (illuminutti.com)
• Meet the Sandy Hook truthers – Salon.com (tribuneofthepeople.com)

The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys

The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys

Mass shootings in the US are on the rise—and ordinary citizens with guns don’t stop them.

By Mark Follman

---

The gut-wrenching shock of the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14 wasn’t just due to the 20 unthinkably young victims. It was also due to the realization that this specific, painfully familiar nightmare was unfolding yet again.

As the scope of the massacre in Newtown became clear, some news accounts [1] suggested that mass shootings in the United States have not increased, based on a broad definition of them. But in fact 2012 has been unprecedented for a particular kind of horror that’s been on the rise in recent years, from Virginia Tech to Tucson to Aurora to Oak Creek to Newtown. There have been at least 62 such mass shootings in the last three decades, attacks in which the killer took the lives of four or more people (the FBI’s baseline for mass murder) in a public place—a school, a workplace, a mall, a religious building. Seven of them have occurred this year alone [2].

Along with three other similar though less lethal rampages—at a Portland shopping mall, a Milwaukee spa, and a Cleveland high school—2012 has been the worst year for these events in modern US history, with 151 victims injured and killed [3]. More than a quarter of them were young children and teenagers.

 

Tragedy in Newtown

• The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys [4]
• 151 Victims of Mass Shootings in 2012: Here Are Their Stories [3]
• MAP: A Guide to Mass Shootings in America [2]
• Read our in-depth investigation: More Guns, More Mass Shootings—Coincidence? [5]
• Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No. [6]
• Mass Shootings: Maybe We Need a Better Mental-Health Policy [7]
• WATCH: Newtown Residents Gather to Mourn and Reflect [8]
• DATA: Explore our mass shootings research [9]

 

The National Rifle Association and its allies would have us believe that the solution to this epidemic, itself but a sliver of America’s overall gun violence, is to put firearms in the hands of as many citizens as possible. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” declared the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre in a press conference a week after Newtown, the same day bells tolled at the National Cathedral and the devastated town mourned its 28 dead. (That day a gunman in Pennsylvania also murdered three people and wounded a state trooper shortly before LaPierre gave his remarks.) LaPierre explained that it was a travesty for a school principal to face evil unarmed, and he called for gun-wielding security officers to be deployed in every school in America.

As many commentators noted, it was particularly callous of the NRA to double down on its long-standing proposal to fight gun violence with more guns while parents in Newtown were burying their first graders. But more importantly, the NRA’s argument is bereft of supporting evidence. A closer look reveals that their case for arming Americans against mass shooters is nothing more than a cynical ideological talking point—one dressed up in appeals to heroism and the defense of constitutional freedom, and wholly reliant on misdirection and half truths. If only Sandy Hook’s principal had been packing heat, the argument goes, she could’ve stopped the mass killer. There’s just one little problem with this: Not a single one of the 62 mass shootings we studied in our investigation has been stopped this way—even as the nation has been flooded with millions of additional firearms [5] and a barrage of recent laws has made it easier than ever for ordinary citizens to carry them in public places [10], including bars, parks, and schools.

Gun rights die-hards claim the Portland mall shooter saw an armed good guy—who ran for cover instead of firing—and promptly shot himself dead. Obviously.

Attempts by armed citizens to stop shooters are rare. At least two such attempts in recent years ended badly, with the would-be good guys gravely wounded or killed [5]. Meanwhile, the five cases most commonly cited as instances of regular folks stopping massacres fall apart under scrutiny [6]: Either they didn’t involve ordinary citizens taking action—those who intervened were actually cops, trained security officers, or military personnel—or the citizens took action after the shooting rampages appeared to have already ended. (Or in some cases, both.)

But those facts don’t matter to the gun rights die-hards, who never seem to run out of intellectually dishonest ammo. Most recently [11], they’ve pointed to [12] the Portland shopping mall rampage earlier in December, in which an armed civilian reportedly drew his gun but thought twice about potentially hurting an innocent bystander and ducked for cover instead of firing. The assailant suddenly got scared of this retreating good guy with the gun, they claim, and promptly shot himself dead. Obviously.

Another favorite tactic is to blame so called “gun-free zones” for the carnage—as if a disturbed kid shoots up a school, or a disgruntled employee executes his coworkers, or a neo-Nazi guns down Sikhs at worship simply because he has identified the safest place to go open fire. All we need to do is make sure lots of citizens have guns in these locations, and voilà, problem solved!

For their part, law enforcement officials overwhelmingly hate the idea of armed civilians getting involved. As a senior FBI agent told me [7], it would make their jobs more difficult if they had to figure out which of the shooters at an active crime scene was the bad guy. And while they train rigorously for responding in confined and chaotic situations, the danger to innocent bystanders from ordinary civilians whipping out firearms is obvious. Exhibit A: the gun-wielding citizen who admitted to coming within a split second of shooting an innocent person [13]as the Tucson massacre unfolded, after initially mistaking that person for the killer, Jared Loughner.

The NRA’s LaPierre was also eager to blame violent video games and movies for what happened in Newtown, and to demonize the “unknown number of genuine monsters” walking among us. Never mind that the failure to recognize and treat mental health problems is a crucial factor in this dark equation: Of the 62 mass shootings we examined, 36 of them were murder-suicides, while assailants in seven other cases died in police shootouts, widely considered to have been “suicide by cop.”

Those who are serious about contending with the problem of mass shootings understand that collecting and studying data is crucial. Since we began our investigation after the attack in Aurora in July, we’ve heard from numerous academic researchers, legislative aides, and others wanting access to our full data set.We’ve now published it here [9].

The question now isn’t whether most Americans will take seriously the idea of turning every grammar school in the nation into a citadel. (Here, too, the NRA’s argument falls apart; an armed sheriff’s deputy at Columbine and a robust security force at Virginia Tech didn’t stop those slaughters from occurring.) Now that we’ve just witnessed the worst year for mass shootings in memory, including 20 of the most innocent of lives snuffed out, what remains to be seen is whether real reform is finally on the way on Capitol Hill. Despite years of this kind of carnage, next to nothing has been changed in our legal system with respect to how easy it is for a disturbed young man to get his hands on a military-style assault rifle and a stockpile of highly lethal ammunition.

Sen. Diane Feinstein has vowed to introduce a new ban on assault weapons when Congress reconvenes in January. President Obama has signaled that the gun issue will be a real priority going forward. But once the raw emotion of Newtown dissipates there will be the danger of slipping back into the same inertia and political stalemate so successfully cultivated by the pro-gun ideologues. Soon lawmakers will start eyeing their 2014 reelection campaigns and thinking about how much money the NRA has in its coffers to take aim at them with should they dare to dissent. This time, have we finally had enough?

---

Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/nra-mass-shootings-myth

Links:
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/no-rise-mass-killings-impact-huge-185700637.html
[2] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
[3] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-victims-2012
[4] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/nra-mass-shootings-myth
[5] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/mass-shootings-investigation
[6] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/armed-civilians-do-not-stop-mass-shootings
[7] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/jared-loughner-mass-shootings-mental-illness
[8] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/watch-after-shooting-newtown-calls-tighter-gun-laws
[9] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data
[10] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/map-gun-laws-2009-2012
[11] http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/19/we-know-how-to-stop-school-shootings/
[12] http://www.mrctv.org/videos/media-blackout-oregon-mall-shooting-stopped-licensed-gun-carrier
[13] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2011/01/friendly_firearms.html

 

Related articles

• The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys (motherjones.com)
• Former NRA President: Banning Assault Weapons Is Like Banning People Of Color (thinkprogress.org)
• NRA’s LaPierre calls for armed guards in schools after Newtown shooting (guardian.co.uk)
• O’Donnell calls NRA’s LaPierre a ‘lobbyist for mass-murderers’ (rawstory.com)
• The N.R.A. Has Lost It’s Collective Mind….All One Of Them. (theobamacrat.com)
• US NRA seeks armed guards in schools (bigpondnews.com)
• Bloomberg takes shots at NRA following shootings of N.Y. police officers (theprovince.com)
• While the NRA Was on TV Talking About the Need for More Guns Some Guy Was Walking Up and Down a Road in Pennsylvania Shooting People (gawker.com)
• Two decades worth of data on mass shootings in the U.S. (thesunnews.typepad.com)

Conspiracy Nuts | The Batman/Sandy Hook Delusion

The Batman/Sandy Hook Delusion

Posted by Mason I. Bilderberg

http://illuminutti.com/2012/12/26/the-batman-sandy-hook-delusion/

Have you heard the one about the latest Batman movie foretelling the shooting at the Sandy Hook school? The story has been floating around for at least two weeks now and i’ve been addressing the issue on a number of forums, so i thought i would bring the issue here to iLLumiNuTTi.com.

From our favorite morons over at infowars.com:

Bizarre evidence that the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut may have been staged has surfaced in the form of YouTube videos which point out the words “Sandy Hook” were written on a map that appeared in the most recent Dark Knight movie, a startling revelation given the deluge of mysterious coincidences already plaguing the movie.

According to numerous YouTube videos, a scene appears in which Commissioner Gordon points at a Gotham City map and confusingly, directly to the words “Sandy Hook.”

Here is a still shot from the movie The Dark Knight with an explanation below:

Click image for much larger view.

The top photo is a still shot from the movie showing the map of Gotham City. Allegedly (i’m not motivated enough to personally verify this ridiculousness) at 1:58:41 into the movie Commissioner Gordon sets his hand down on the map of Gotham City (lower left) on a location called Sandy Hook (lower right) and says, “To mark the truck. Get a GPS on it so we can start to figure out how to bring it down.” Also notice the words “strike zone” are written on the map (lower right). Shiver me timbers.

According to conspiracists, this can only mean one thing: It’s obvious the Sandy Hook shootings were foreseen by the filmmakers behind “The Dark Knight Rises“!!!!

Again from InfoWars.com:

“As more of these ‘strange coincidences’ continue to pop up, it would take a fool not to question the motive behind it all: Is this all part of an evil pre-conditioning program?”

“This definitely begins to tread into Satanic and occult territory, the purpose of which is known to only a select few in tight-knit circles at the very top branches of various secret societies.”

Yes, “evil pre-conditioning programming,” “Satanic and occult territories” and “the very top branches of various secret societies.” Are you scared yet? You shouldn’t be.

According to Batman co-creator Bill Finger, Gotham City is based on New York City:

«Writer Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, on the naming of (Gotham) city and the reason for changing Batman’s locale from New York City to a fictional city said, “Originally I was going to call Gotham City ‘Civic City.’ Then I tried ‘Capital City,’ then ‘Coast City.’ Then I flipped through the New York City phone book and spotted the name ‘Gotham Jewelers’ and said, ‘That’s it,’ Gotham City. We didn’t call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it.”

“Gotham” had long been a well-known nickname for New York City even prior to Batman’s 1939 introduction, which explains why “Gotham Jewelers” and many other businesses in New York City have the word “Gotham” in them. The nickname was popularized in the nineteenth century, having been first attached to New York by Washington Irving in the November 11, 1807 edition of his Salmagundi.»[1][2]

Look at a map of New York, there are A LOT of places in and around NY called Sandy Hook – most notably Sandy Hook Bay (only a stones throw away in NJ) and the 10-plus locations surrounding Sandy Hook Bay with “Sandy Hook” in the name.

Click image for much larger view.

Gotham City is based on the city of New York. New York is surrounded by many locales with the name Sandy Hook. Why do conspiracists ignore this obvious connection between the map of Gotham and the name Sandy Hook?

Conspiracists engage in confirmation bias to maintain their world of delusions.

Related articles

• The Batman, Sandy Hook Delusion (illuminutti.com)
• Conspiracy Nuts | The Batman/Sandy Hook Delusion (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Sandy Hook Shootings: Who Are We Supposed to Be Mad At?

Sandy Hook Shootings: Who Are We Supposed to Be Mad At?

Posted by Tracy Moore

Reading the responses across the Internet to the horrific Connecticut elementary school massacre, which as of this writing, has led to the deaths of 27 people, 18 of whom are children, and it’s clear that we, as a nation, are not exactly sure who we should be mad at. Hollywood? Washington? Fox News? The NRA? The schools? Angry white men? The lack of mental healthcare access? All of the above? Because just being mad at the disturbed man who did it doesn’t feel like enough. That leaves us as powerless bystanders in an increasingly familiar nightmare.

As the details pour out, it feels like déjà vu: The young, angry white man, the innocent children, the terror, the powerlessness and frenzy the parents feel, the mental block and deep, deep sadness of all the rest of us trying to process unimaginable horror. And then, the desperate pleas from average citizens to stop making this such a terribly easy crime to commit.

A few randomly plucked comments from this New York Times initial report on the massacre give you an idea of the general feeling:

Suspend the constitution, conduct door-to-door searches of EVERY private residence in the United States and confiscate ALL guns – YES, rifles too!

And then melt them ALL down.

We need to restrict movies, TV, and video games that glorify violence.

Do any of you honestly believe that there could have been anything done by this sleepy, little Connecticut town to prevent something like this from ever happening? 

Connecticut is already among the top five states with the most strict gun control laws, among the lowest for gun crime, and yet something like this still happened. The fact is that the man was a killer and if someone ever crosses a threshold to kill on a scale as this man had, then they would find a way to do it.

First the horror, then the compassion for the victims, the families.
Then the rage against a people for whom having and using guns is a national pastime.
How many senseless killings will it takes for the nation to awaken and revolt against the barbaric NRA type neanderthals running amok in the streets of America.

Every incidence of a shooting in a public place makes me more and more frustrated that we can’t have a serious political discussion about guns.

I feel such sadness for the children and their families, yet this is overridden by my anger at the NRA.

It’s really sad that it’s easier for a crazy person to buy a gun than it is to get proper mental healthcare.

What is the tipping point? When will Americans love their children more than they love their guns? How much more? How many more?

Everyone is right to one degree or another. But the answers to those questions, are, of course by now, 31 school shootings later, quite familiar: We are not supposed to talk about policies, but people, pundits and politicians remind us. We are not supposed to blame access to guns, but rather, the unstable individuals who purchase them for harm. We are not supposed to be mad at Hollywood, but rather, the people who cannot tell the difference between real life and the glamorized fantasy portrayed on screen. And we are not supposed to blame those angry, unstable young men, but rather, a mental healthcare system that failed them.

The problem is, none of that gets us any closer to an action to take, a plan to implement. Doing nothing is no longer an option, a frustration now part and parcel of the coverage of these events.

If we simply accept this kind of violence as the new normal, then what? Schools are more than just a vulnerable population of innocents — they are, for some people, symbols of their earliest exposure to the cruelty of fellow humans, badges for their failures, some of their first experiences with alienation, marginalization and the judgment of others.

For the mentally unstable, that symbol has proven to be a particularly irresistible outlet for revenge fantasies. Isn’t it time we regarded schools as the same vulnerable target as airplanes? Why are they not among our nation’s top-guarded entities? Because we simply cannot accept that they are no longer innocent places?

If we will not implement gun control, and will not make mental health a universal, destigmatized resource, then the least we can do is protect the most obvious targets of the mentally unstable people who commit these crimes. Because otherwise, our only choice is to become as jaded to this terrorism as we have to every other “unsolvable” issue in this country, i.e., issue at which we have reached another political, partisan impasse: homelessness, poverty, immigration, sexism, racism. Remember? There was a time all those things floored us too, when all those things seemed like unspeakable horrors. And their continued presence in our every day lives is the price we pay for our complacency.

Related articles

• For Sandy Hook’s sake: learning from the tragedy of Newtown | Michael Williams (guardian.co.uk)
• How Will NRA Explain Away Gun Shooting At Elementary School In Newtown, Connecticut? (dekerivers.wordpress.com)
• In the Shadow of Sandy Hook, a Pro-Gun Organization Keeps Silent (nation.time.com)
• NRA Under Twitter, Facebook Attack After Newtown Shootings (huffingtonpost.com)
• In the Shadow of Sandy Hook, a Powerful Pro-Gun Organization Keeps Silent (nation.time.com)
• Regarding Sandy Hook… (therealkenjones.wordpress.com)
• Is a Crisis in White Masculinity Leading to Horrific Gun Crimes Like the Sandy Hook Shootings? (alternet.org)
• Mike Huckabee Blames Sandy Hook Shooting On Absence of God in Schools (atlantablackstar.com)
• School killer’s mom made irresponsible, and fatal, mistake (star-telegram.com)