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You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Long Read: “The Sandy Hook Hoax”

Long Read: “The Sandy Hook Hoax”

by Anne Laurie|  September 28, 20168:57 pm| 123 Comments

This post is in: domestic terrorists, Excellent Links, Gun nuts, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

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If you stare too long into the abyss… Reeves Wiedeman, in NYMag: “Lenny Pozner used to believe in conspiracy theories. Until his son’s death became one“:

On December 14, 2012, Lenny Pozner dropped off his three children, Sophia, Arielle, and Noah, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Noah had recently turned 6, and on the drive over they listened to his favorite song, “Gangnam Style,” for what turned out to be the last time. Half an hour later, while Sophia and Arielle hid nearby, Adam Lanza walked into Noah’s first-grade class with an AR-15 rifle. Noah was the youngest of the 20 children and seven adults killed in one of the deadliest shootings in American history. When the medical examiner found Noah lying face up in a Batman sweatshirt, his jaw had been blown off. Lenny and his wife, Veronique, raced to the school as soon as they heard the news, but had to wait for hours alongside other parents to learn their son’s fate.

It didn’t take much longer for Pozner to find out that many people didn’t believe his son had died or even that he had lived at all. Days after the rampage, a man walked around Newtown filming a video in which he declared that the massacre had been staged by “some sort of New World Order global elitists” intent on taking away our guns and our liberty. A week later, James Tracy, a professor at Florida Atlantic University, wrote a blog post expressing doubts about the massacre. By January, a 30-minute YouTube video, titled “The Sandy Hook Shooting — Fully Exposed,” which asked questions like “Wouldn’t frantic kids be a difficult target to hit?,” had been viewed more than 10 million times…

“I prefer the term hoaxer to truther,” Lenny said, kicking a pair of jeans and Adidas flip-flops onto the footrest of a leather Barcalounger. “There’s nothing truthful about it.” There is no universal Sandy Hook hoax narrative, but the theories generally center on the idea that a powerful force (the Obama administration, gun-control groups, the Illuminati) staged the shooting, with the assistance of paid “crisis actors,” including the Pozners, the other Sandy Hook families, and countless Newtown residents, government officials, and media outlets. The children are said to have never existed or to be living in an elaborate witness-­protection program…

Lenny may have been the first Newtown parent to discover that conspiracy theorists didn’t believe his son had been killed, because he used to be a serious conspiracy theorist himself. “I probably listened to an Alex Jones podcast after I dropped the kids off at school that morning,” Pozner said, referencing the fearmongering proprietor of InfoWars. Pozner had entertained everything from specific cover-ups (the moon landing was faked) to geopolitical intrigue (the “real” reasons why the price of gold sometimes shifted so dramatically) and saw value in skepticism. But for him, the appeal of conspiracy theories was the same as watching a good science-fiction movie. “I have an imaginative mind,” he said…

But by the spring of 2014, as he watched the hoaxer movement bloom, Pozner decided to try fighting back. He released Noah’s death certificate, to convince those who believed he had not been killed, and his report card — “Noah is a bright, inquisitive boy” — for those who believed he had never lived at all. One Friday night, a year and a half after the shooting, he joined a Facebook group called Sandy Hook Hoax, one of the more prominent hoaxer meeting grounds. (Its logo features a ghostly child holding an index finger to her mouth.) Pozner told the group he was there to answer questions, and he expressed empathy for their mind-set. “I used to argue with people about 9/11 being an inside job,” he wrote. Some members of the group asked earnest questions about inconsistencies in the official account. Others simply lobbed bombs. “Fuck you Lenny fuck off and fuck your fake family, you piec [sic] of shit,” one woman wrote. Pozner chatted for more than four hours, but his patience wore thin as the questions grew more absurd:

why don’t u want to look into the newtown police feeds of the nun n the guy in ski mask

cuz my son is dead and it doesnt matter

Pozner was kicked out of the group, but several people sent him messages saying they had more questions. “There was a segment of the population that wanted to have these things debunked,” Pozner said. “All they know is what they’re seeing online, the buzz of all of this dis­information, and someone needed to provide the service of offering accurate information should they want it.” Eighteen months after his wife had found her mission, Pozner found his, and the next day he started a group called Conspiracy Theorists Anonymous, dedicated to debunking hoaxer theories. He also took his fight public, writing an op-ed in the Hartford Courant in which he called out hoaxers by name, including Wolfgang Halbig, a 70-year-old retired school administrator in Florida. Halbig had become the hoaxers’ lead investigator, filing Freedom of Information Act requests for documents relating to the shooting and posting his findings on a website called Sandy Hook Justice Report. In May 2014, Halbig spoke at a public meeting of the Newtown Board of Education. “These are your children,” Halbig told the board, which sat in silence. “We want truth.”

After the meeting, Pozner emailed Halbig saying that he’d like to talk to him. Halbig didn’t respond, but Pozner says another hoaxer sent a reply: “Wolfgang does not wish to speak with you unless you exhume Noah’s body and prove to the world you lost your son.”

Wolfgang Halbig lives 45 minutes northwest of Orlando in a gated golf-course community. He is a large and gregarious grandfather to three who pushed back my initial request to meet so he could join his grandkids at the beach. “A man who’s 70 only gets to go to the beach so many more times,” he said.

Halbig says that, initially, Sandy Hook had horrified him, and he donated $200 to the town of Newtown and the local United Way. “The first ten days, they had me hooked,” Halbig told me over lunch at the golf-course clubhouse. He had worked in school security for a number of years, and he said that it was only after he was asked to give a presentation to the Florida School Boards Association about preventing such an attack that he began seriously investigating the shooting. “I didn’t have the answers,” Halbig said. “So, I said, ‘I’ll find out.’ ”…

… In 2009, Halbig was let go as the director of risk management for another school district, which he told the Orlando Sentinel was due to the fact that he had confronted district officials about mold problems. (The district said his contract had simply run out.) Halbig had been the victim, he believed, of a conspiracy.

In a deposition given several months before Sandy Hook as part of a personal-injury lawsuit — Halbig lost the case because he “failed to produce evidence supporting the essential elements of his claim” — he testified that losing his job left him depressed and a psychiatrist had prescribed medication to help him deal with his “anger and frustrations.” Injuries left him unable to play tennis or golf, and he had spent the past few years looking for something to do. He launched several school-safety consultancies, none of which survived; ran for county commissioner, winning 5.7 percent of the vote; and started writing a movie in which four of the Founding Fathers travel to 2018 and discover a secret government program also involving time travel. “I am a nobody with a great idea,” he tweeted at Jimmy Fallon, asking him to look at his script. He spent considerable time commenting online about an alleged cover-up involving a Photoshopped version of President Obama’s college ID.

Two months after Sandy Hook, Halbig sent an email to an employee of the Newtown school district suggesting that the full story of the massacre had not been told and offering his services as a school-safety consultant to investigate. The board, flooded with such emails, never responded, which Halbig took as an affront. He began making FOIA requests and peppering people in Newtown with questions. In one email, he asked Sally Cox, the school’s nurse, who hid in a closet when Lanza opened fire, “Why close your eyes when you have seen blood before you are a nurse?”

Not long after he emailed Cox, Halbig says, two Florida police officers visited his home to relay a message from police in Connecticut that he risked being charged with harassment if he continued contacting people in Newtown. The incident made him a celebrity in the hoaxer world: Here was a real example, they believed, of the authorities trying to silence their investigation. Alex Jones invited Halbig on his show to share his run-in with the police and to detail the 16 questions Halbig believed needed to be answered about Sandy Hook. (“12. Why did the parents of the two children who died at the Danbury hospital not allow their children to donate their organs to other children waiting for the gift of life?”) Halbig told Jones the stress of the investigation was threatening his marriage, but said in another interview that nothing could stop him. “You’re willing to die for this?” the host asked.

“Yes, I will,” Halbig said…

Pozner kept Conspiracy Theorists Anonymous going for more than a year, but because he couldn’t bring himself to read the state’s official report on his son’s death, he largely depended on a stable of volunteers to do the debunking. Most of them had no personal connection to Newtown, and many, Pozner found, were recovering conspiracy theorists just like him. While the hoaxer world was filled with anti-government and pro-gun supporters, whose vested interest made them impossible to convince, others simply couldn’t fathom a man killing 20 children and were looking for a more comforting explanation. Pozner found that the forums were filled with mothers who had children who were Noah’s age. “I was really traumatized by what happened at Sandy Hook,” Tiffany Moser, a 36-year-old California mother of two, told me. Moser kept her children out of school for a few days after the shooting and was looking for information about how the families were holding up when she stumbled upon the Sandy Hook Hoax group. “I told them, ‘I don’t really know what the heck you people are doing, but I’d like to believe these little babies didn’t die,’ ” Moser said.

She started spending her free time investigating Sandy Hook. At one point, she helped Halbig scour Newtown Board of Education documents for evidence supporting a theory that the school had been closed before the shooting. Instead, she found evidence to the contrary, but when she brought this to Halbig, she says he dismissed her. “They could never admit when they were wrong,” Moser said…

Moser’s experience clarified for Pozner something he had begun to understand: Debunking had run its course. “I realized there was no one left with questions,” he said. “The only people left were trolls.” When we first spoke, Pozner showed me an email he had received that day, asking for “proof that anyone died at that dilapidated dump of a school,” then adding: “One more thing before I close, your wife is uglier than sin.” As Pozner started to take on the hoaxers more directly, trolls had begun posting rumors on social media that he was a child pornographer. “They aren’t attacking the event,” he said. “They’re just attacking me.”…

Everybody’s looking for something to believe in; when events gets too complicated or too heartbreaking, some people will settle for horror stories that at least have the virtue of tying together all the loose ends and putting them in the hands of — somebody. Somebodies. Better a dark but unified narrative than the unruly truth of our joint and multifaceted universe!

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123Comments

  1. 1.

    aimai

    September 28, 2016 at 9:00 pm

    So horrifying. And yet humans have always been this way. Its just that in the days before the internet these pockets of believers of crazy stories generally had to know each other, meet face to face, to share their beliefs. But people have always believed crazy, asshole, angry, spiteful, things. Just read Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style to see the longevity of certain rumors and conspiracies. Some go back centuries with just the names and the religions or ethnicities of the guilty party changing.

  2. 2.

    raven

    September 28, 2016 at 9:01 pm

    Good night.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    September 28, 2016 at 9:05 pm

    living in an elaborate witness-­protection program…

    Growing up inside the tunnels connecting those abandoned Walmarts in Texas must be hard.

    The word idiot doesn’t begin to describe these folks.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    @NotMax:
    http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKAr5R7UwAAJ2PF.jpg

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    September 28, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    @aimai

    It’s like the 27% huffs ditto fluid and glue 24/7.

  6. 6.

    Eric U.

    September 28, 2016 at 9:08 pm

    too bad that magnet isn’t real

  7. 7.

    eemom

    September 28, 2016 at 9:09 pm

    @raven:

    Yes, good night. We’re in the realm of the unspeakable when the murder of children is a political tool. There’s nothing to be discussed or debated.

  8. 8.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 9:11 pm

    The problem with engaging these nutjobs is that they aren’t interested in rational explanations or dialogue; they want you to believe. If you aren’t careful, they’ll pull you right down the rabbit hole with them. Worse than xtian proselytizers in some ways. If forced to deal with these yammerheads, the only appropriate thing to say is “Fuck off and die” while walking away as quickly as possible.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 9:11 pm

    @Eric U.: Just go to one of those do it yourself sites and make one yourself.

  10. 10.

    geg6

    September 28, 2016 at 9:11 pm

    Read this a while back. It’s just horrifying. These poor people. First, they lose a child in the most horrifying way possible. And then these sick mother fuckers torture them for the rest of their lives. These conspiracy mongers are true monsters.

  11. 11.

    Luthe

    September 28, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    If it were any other conspiracy I would read this, but I live a mile from Newtown. The local paper runs enough stories on the hoaxers as it is.

  12. 12.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 9:15 pm

    @geg6: The NRA fucks who enable the conspiracy mongers are worse.

  13. 13.

    lollipopguild

    September 28, 2016 at 9:16 pm

    +
    We are dealing with candidate for the white house who lies every single time his lips move and when caught lying just keeps lying. All that matters to his party is getting power and keeping it.

  14. 14.

    Joel

    September 28, 2016 at 9:17 pm

    God, these people are less than worthless.

  15. 15.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 9:17 pm

    @Luthe: But both sides! And now mass killings have been normalized.

  16. 16.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    September 28, 2016 at 9:18 pm

    I fucking hate conspiracy nuts. I hate them. One of the lowest kinds of life crawling on this earth. I guess some of them have psychological problems, but a lot of them are no more than titanic assholes.

  17. 17.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 9:18 pm

    @Joel: No, some of these people have been extremely valuable to the gun lobby.

  18. 18.

    Nom de Plume

    September 28, 2016 at 9:19 pm

    Sandy Hook “truthers”: worst people in the world, or worst people in the universe?

  19. 19.

    geg6

    September 28, 2016 at 9:19 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    True. As an atheist, I’m not comfortable using the word evil because of its religious connotations, but the NRA and their enablers are truly evil.

  20. 20.

    Luthe

    September 28, 2016 at 9:23 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Oh, all the articles are about the civil and criminal cases brought against the hoaxers for harassment. Because they are all loathsome fuckers.

    There is no “both sides” in the greater Newtown area.

  21. 21.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 9:23 pm

    @lollipopguild:

    in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily

  22. 22.

    bcw

    September 28, 2016 at 9:26 pm

    I think the anti-vaccination nuts come from the same place – parents terrified about the danger their kids live in and and refusing to admit to that danger by vaccinating them – instead they do something special for just their kid: concoct a denial ritual where they fight the world to give their kid “special protection” where with his strong immune system and special diet he is uniquely safe and their baby doesn’t have any risk from those horrible diseases. They create a world of secret knowledge and denial and reject those horrible diseases as just lies.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 9:29 pm

    @bcw:
    http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/09/anti-vaxxer-mom-admits-shes-wrong-after-her-family-got-sick.html

    Kristen O’Meara had researched the potential harms of vaccines and decided not to vaccinate her three daughters, one 5-year-old and 3-year-old twins. Then her entire family got rotavirus, including O’Meara and her husband. The illness can cause severe diarrhea and lead to dehydration, and O’Meara said they were sick for weeks.

    She admitted that she put her children’s health at risk. “It was awful and it didn’t have to happen because I could have had them vaccinated. I felt guilty, I felt really guilty,” she told Good Morning America.

    Her daughters are now fully vaccinated after an “aggressive” schedule to bring them up to date — a decision she said cost her some friendships. A recent study found that 87 percent of pediatricians have encountered parents who refuse vaccines.

    “I wish that I had taken more time to research both sides,” O’Meara said. Or, you know, you could trust your doctors. But overall it’s a good thing that she’s speaking up. “I wanted to share my personal story, and if it does help someone change their mind, then that’s great.” If anti-vaxxers aren’t concerned about risking the health of others, reminders that their own well-being could suffer are more than welcome.

  24. 24.

    sherparick

    September 28, 2016 at 9:31 pm

    @NotMax: There is a word. Trolls. May they turn to stone in the Sunlight.

    To play the game of amateur psychologist, note that this character lost his job at about 65 and retired before he wanted to, and then became physically unable to pursue his sports interests of golf and tennis. Become a Newton Massacre Hoaxer gave his life meaning and importance. Alex Jones put him on the radio! Proof of the saying “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.”

  25. 25.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    September 28, 2016 at 9:32 pm

    So, if you assemble a random group of humans, a certain number will be consistently stupid, intellectually incurious, bigoted, homophobic, smug, violent, etc.

    A certain number will be consistently kind, empathetic, intellectually curious and bright, humble, etc.

    There is, of course, crossover: the hard-working, educated person still prone to acts of domestic violence, substance abuse, etc.

    Hopefully, we will never reach the singularity of stupidity seemingly ever increasing in some segments of society.

    Anyway, that’s my hot take tonight.

  26. 26.

    schrodinger's cat

    September 28, 2016 at 9:34 pm

    Not only is Sandy Hook a hoax so is every mass shooting and also too 9/11. Thinking Housewife told me so. Also everything is the fault of Jewish pplz and Holocaust is hoax. The things these people believe is mind boggling and Trump is bringing them to the mainstream.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    September 28, 2016 at 9:36 pm

    Ghouls. Soulless gouls.

  28. 28.

    Mary G

    September 28, 2016 at 9:47 pm

    Why can’t they just stay under their bridge and leave the rest of us alone? I am starting to wonder if FOIA should be limited somehow.

  29. 29.

    itf

    September 28, 2016 at 9:47 pm

    I met one of the Newtown families this January. I will not name them here, but they lost their daughter in the Sandy Hook shooting.

    I talked to the mother for about ten minutes or so, but it took a lot less than that to realize how broken she was inside. I was convinced after talking to her that not only is she not okay, she will never be okay. She is broken, probably forever. She might be the saddest person I ever met. If she is an actress and was just playing a part, then I know nothing, about anything.

    I haven’t seen her since the one time we met, but I think of her often. She comes to mind every time I read about a mass shooting, which is far too frequent.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    September 28, 2016 at 9:47 pm

    @shomi:
    They let you post, so the asylum thing seems to be a go.

  31. 31.

    LAO

    September 28, 2016 at 9:51 pm

    @Nom de Plume: Universe.

    May there be a heaven and hell so that they may suffer an eternity of relentless pain.

  32. 32.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 9:53 pm

    I can’t get out of my head the image of those poor small children, terrified, being gunned down in their classroom. It’s like the one of the worst things I can imagine.

    And there’s aggressive Truthers on the subject? Fuck you! You should be committed.

    I assume they’re all Republicans, or Paulites.

  33. 33.

    greennotGreen

    September 28, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    Sandy Hook happened.
    aviellefoundation.org

  34. 34.

    greennotGreen

    September 28, 2016 at 10:03 pm

    @itf: That’s the way it is with my friends who lost their daughter at Sandy Hook. The father says, “Our hearts are broken, and they will never not be broken.”

  35. 35.

    singfoom

    September 28, 2016 at 10:05 pm

    @efgoldman: Festering cockwombles is the best I could come up with for these scum. The worst part is, for what? Making others suffer to reconfirm your preexisting biases and reinforce your crazy ass narrative about people coming for your guns?

  36. 36.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    September 28, 2016 at 10:05 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    they want you to believe.

    No, they want you to disbelieve. In everything.

  37. 37.

    Gravenstone

    September 28, 2016 at 10:08 pm

    @redshirt: I was at work when I read the first news reports about the shootings. Reading that the authorities “couldn’t account for one class” just made me nauseous. Knowing that there are ghouls preying on the memories of those innocents is so far beyond the pale of human behavior … I really don’t even have the words.

  38. 38.

    greennotGreen

    September 28, 2016 at 10:08 pm

    @singfoom:
    Here’s what I don’t get: How can anybody be so attached to their guns/ so terrified of living without carrying death sticks with them wherever they go, that they’re willing to sacrifice little children at that altar? Or doesn’t it matter as long as it’s other people’s children? Or maybe it doesn’t matter even if it’s their own children.

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 28, 2016 at 10:14 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: If this country were actually serious about terrorism, they’d shut down the NRA.

  40. 40.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 28, 2016 at 10:14 pm

    @greennotGreen: Moloch demands sacrifices.

  41. 41.

    Shantanu Saha

    September 28, 2016 at 10:16 pm

    It’s things like this that makes me think that the Singularity can’t come soon enough. First task for Skynet is to neutralize these muthafuckas.

  42. 42.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 10:18 pm

    @Gravenstone: It is beyond words, and yet, what changed because of it? Nothing? If anything, the NRA and allies doubled down.

    I drive by a gun store, and the of course have a sign they can put up slogans on. After the Orlando shooting they had a sale on AR-15’s and offered a free cleaning for anyone bringing in their AR-15.

    Just recently they put up all their Trump yard signs and their sign now says “We are Trump deplorables”.

    They revel in this horror. They love it, are proud of it. And I bet you they think they are good Christians to boot. It’s horrifying.

  43. 43.

    OGLiberal

    September 28, 2016 at 10:21 pm

    If a black kid had shot up Sandy Hook i doubt these folks would be talking about conspiracies….they’d be ranting about how some savage killed our babies and we must get tough on crime and black people have too many babies and this is proof that black parents raise their kids to hate white people. And it would have been Obama’s fault because he’s the real racist and blacks get all the goodies and think they can get away with anything because of pc and affirmative action, argle, bargle. Conspiracy theories is their way of dealing with a well to do troubled white kid with a conspiracy theorist mother committing horrible murder.

    And if it had been a black kid shooting other black kids, they’d shrug and say “typical”, until somebody says something about making guns less accessible, whereupon we’d hear them yelling about why blacks and liberals don’t care about black on black crime and Obama is the real racist.

  44. 44.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    September 28, 2016 at 10:22 pm

    These people are nuts. I wonder if some of this crap doesn’t come from watching Hollywood conspiracy movies. Everytime I want to believe in a conspiracy I remember that its way too difficult to keep a conspiracy a secret. And with cell phones,cameras,social media and hacks it’s even more difficult to keep it a secret.

  45. 45.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 28, 2016 at 10:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Kristen O’Meara had researched the potential harms of vaccines

    I imagine her research entailed long days in the local med school library, paging thru studies and research papers.

    I never researched it, but it’s funny that the garage that burned down was the one that the children were always playing with matches at. Geez.

    It’s a shame her kids had to put up with the shitz for weeks. For her and the Hubby, just desserts.

    Ohm, bad karma.

  46. 46.

    hellslittlestangel

    September 28, 2016 at 10:24 pm

    Yeah, everybody needs something to believe in, but the people who need to believe in this stuff are despicable shit-heads.

  47. 47.

    amk

    September 28, 2016 at 10:27 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    If you aren’t careful, they’ll pull you right down the rabbit hole with them.

    Too late. Why are we even talking about these extreme nutters here?

  48. 48.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 10:31 pm

    @efgoldman: I hate evening depressing threads. Drop that shit around 11 AM or so. Evening threads should be fun.

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:31 pm

    @greennotGreen: @efgoldman:
    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/09/robert-farago/ttag-publisher-to-defend-guns-rights-at-the-new-yorker-festival/

    I don’t think I’ll ever forgive The New Yorker for firing Gun Guys writer and former TTAG contributor Dan Baum. While the left-leaning scribe makes prickly pears seem baby’s bottom smooth, and he’s pro-gun control, Dan’s easily one of America’s greatest writers. Was. Mr. Baum is currently fighting brain cancer and spending his days helping Mexico’s City’s underprivileged. I wish him Godspeed and good luck.

    Meanwhile, The New Yorker called me to join their New Yorker Festival panel Armed Citizens: The Fight Over Gun Rights in America. Here are my fellow panelists, links added. (For some reason, The New Yorker didn’t include my bio in the official description.)
    …

    There’s no word on exactly what will be discussed. But aside from Mr. Mossberg — whose “smart gun” technology appeals to proponents of gun control (if few others) — I reckon I’m charged with defending gun rights against the forces of civilian disarmament. Not to tip my hand (much), here’s my opening statement, regardless of the initial question.

    Thanks for inviting me to The New Yorker Festival. Before I answer that question, I want to say that the right to keep and bear arms is a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right.

    Just like the right to free speech, it’s not subject to arguments about social utility; whether or not gun rights are “good” for society as a whole is irrelevant. And as a Constitutionally protected right, the right to keep and bear arms is not subject to the democratic process.

    So while I’m happy to discuss social policy and politics, keep in mind that nothing said here today changes the fact that every American has an individual right to keep and bear arms.

    And don’t forget the comments. That’ll tell you everything you need to know to answer your question.

  50. 50.

    Mike J

    September 28, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    Jesus Christ Red Sox, I know Baltimore won, but don’t do this.

  51. 51.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Hey Adam, can you start a light hearted Open Thread? Something about bears maybe?

  52. 52.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:35 pm

    @Sm*t Cl*de: More complicated than that. There are at least two camps here: the conspiracy buffs, like Pointer used to be, who fervently believe that the world is controlled by a vast secretive, amorphous them that are guiding the world to some probably nefarious design. This group wants you to wake up and see the world the way they see it. The other group are the ones that exploit the first group, to spread doubt about every institution.

    Check out Barkun’s A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America for an interesting view.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:37 pm

    @OGLiberal: That would be these two:
    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/09/robert-farago/breaking-least-3-wounded-sc-elementary-school-shooting/
    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/09/robert-farago/breaking-protesters-take-streets-el-cajon-police-shoot-black-man/

    Again, you have to brave the comments.

  54. 54.

    Mark B

    September 28, 2016 at 10:37 pm

    The bit about the Mom finding something comforting in believing the conspiracy theories was especially touching, and a little bit frightening. It’s a luxury that the actual victims of the shooting don’t have. Taking comfort in lies will be the death of us.

  55. 55.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 28, 2016 at 10:42 pm

    @redshirt:

    Evening threads should be fun.

    5 yards for piling on.

    A 14-year-old boy shot a teacher and two young pupils, one of whom was critically wounded, at a South Carolina elementary school Wednesday, and his father was later found dead by the suspect’s grandmother at a home nearby, authorities said.

    Never stops.

  56. 56.

    Schlemazel

    September 28, 2016 at 10:43 pm

    @efgoldman:
    From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of 6 year old tyrants.

    I am not a religious person but I do believe there is evil. Evil not caused by some supernatural demons, just plain evil. Evil done by people either through stupidity or, more often, with malice of forethought. They should be publicly shamed & called evil, there is no excuse.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:44 pm

    @redshirt: I can. Don’t know if I should…

  58. 58.

    NYCMT

    September 28, 2016 at 10:46 pm

    Sandy Hook trutherism is isomorphic to Holocaust denial. For the latter, the denial exists to defend indefensible bigotry, and the former fends off doubts about gun rights absolutism.

  59. 59.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 10:47 pm

    @Prescott Cactus: I read the story and my honest first response was “wonder why more didn’t die”.

    We’re a fucked up society, and about 27% of the population is responsible for it.

  60. 60.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:47 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Instead, according to the Small Arms Survey, the US has 112 guns per 100 people. Murika, fuck yeah!

  61. 61.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Please. This is such a sad topic.

  62. 62.

    Miss Bianca

    September 28, 2016 at 10:50 pm

    @Mark B: I can’t imagine taking comfort in lies. I can’t imagine taking comfort in half-baked bullshit. I can’t imagine why so many of my fellow Americans are so invested in believing shit that isn’t true. Gun nuts, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers…the people on the bus who are convinced aliens are bombarding them with radio waves…

  63. 63.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:50 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: You could try a thread about keeping and arming bears, mebbe.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 28, 2016 at 10:51 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Not defending the NRA, but, if one hunts, it is not unreasonable to have 3-5 guns.

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:51 pm

    @redshirt: Its up!

  66. 66.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    @Miss Bianca: But the lizard people thing, that’s real.

  67. 67.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    September 28, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    @efgoldman:

    ETA: When we went to PA in August, we passed the Newtown exit on I-84, and I swear I felt a disturbance in the force. And I don’t believe in that stuff.

    Two years ago this month, when I first came to New England (and first met you and Mrs. efg in meatspace), I drove past the Newtown exit heading east, and it really kind of freaked me out. When I returned to Boston for another visit a year later, I took a completely different route. Didn’t think about it consciously, but I’m sure it was partly because I didn’t want to be close to that reminder, even fleetingly.

  68. 68.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Like I have 3 bowling balls?

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:54 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Well everyone should have a handgun (either pistol or revolver), a rifle, and a shotgun. So that’s three. Then you need a back up for each one, so that’s six (and might as well diversify – so one pistol one revolver). Then you should have a back up for the back up, so that’s nine. And a trunk gun. So if you have two cars that’s 11. So that gets you pretty close to the numbers.

  70. 70.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:55 pm

    I remember Columbine, what a big thing that was. I don’t think it would make much of a ripple in the pond now.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 28, 2016 at 10:56 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Do you? It is like screwdrivers. Different sizes and types for different things.

  72. 72.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 28, 2016 at 10:56 pm

    @redshirt:

    Something about bears maybe?

    Requesting non Chicago type if possible.

  73. 73.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 10:57 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: I once enjoyed reading The Weekly World News for a laugh at these types of ideas.

    It’s not funny anymore.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:57 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: They live in your closet!

  75. 75.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 10:57 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: You know my brother, don’t you? Two floor to ceiling gun safes. A room the size of my living room devoted to reloading equipment. When society falls, by God, he’s ready.

  76. 76.

    Lizzy L

    September 28, 2016 at 10:58 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: If the Supreme Court of the United States were to re-examine the question, and were to decide that the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution doesn’t state that “every American has an individual right to keep and bear arms” (which it didn’t, until Antonin Scalia got ahold of it) do you think most of the folks who now carry their weapons down the public sidewalk and into schools and churches would quietly tuck their guns into gun safes?

    Why do these people think that it is acceptable to sacrifice other people’s children to Moloch so that they can continue to fetishize personal weapons? What if the dead children were their own — would that make a difference?

  77. 77.

    hovercraft

    September 28, 2016 at 10:59 pm

    These people are disgusting. My parents speak Ndebele ( a Zulu dialect), we have a saying,” u tuvi gu ncono”. Which means- shit at least has a function. In our culture this is the worst insult you can give. And it’s too good for these creatures.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 10:59 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: I know people like your brother.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 28, 2016 at 11:01 pm

    @Lizzy L:

    What if the dead children were their own — would that make a difference?

    They love their guns more than they love their own children.

  80. 80.

    Bl

    September 28, 2016 at 11:01 pm

    I am traveling so don’t have the reference with me, but there was a paper published in a peer reviewed article not too long ago that studied the type of people who tend to believe in bulls**t (as defined for example by motivational like statements that sound profound but are really nonsense). The title of the article actually had bulls**t in it. The article found that people who rated the nonsense statements as profound tended to be people who also believed in conspiracy theories among other characteristics. It was an interesting article.

  81. 81.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 28, 2016 at 11:01 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: and one for the nightstand. and something for under the bed. The garage, if you ever are out there and the door is open, you have to be prepared.

  82. 82.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    @Lizzy L: Some of these people are the same ones who think that Jesus will gather these children into his loving arms, and we’ll all be together in the sweet by and by, so no big, yo?

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 28, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    @hovercraft: That is awesome. Pronunciation question: Are the “U”s long or short?

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    September 28, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Well everyone should have a handgun (either pistol or revolver), a rifle, and a shotgun. So that’s three. Then you need a back up for each one, so that’s six (and might as well diversify – so one pistol one revolver). Then you should have a back up for the back up, so that’s nine. And a trunk gun. So if you have two cars that’s 11. So that gets you pretty close to the numbers.

    Plus, some of us are girls and need everything duplicated in pink.

  85. 85.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 11:04 pm

    @Bl: You can say bullshit here, you know.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:04 pm

    @Lizzy L: You’re really asking an apples and oranges question. Open carry, concealed carry, shall issue vs may issue are all set at the state, and to a certain extent, local level. If Heller is reversed all that will happen is we go back to the pre-Heller status quo, which, to be perfectly honest, looks a lot like things look today. Almost all of the Federal District and Appeals courts have basically ignored Heller and just continue to do business they way they did pre-Heller. They base this on Scalia’s wording in Heller that preserved the “subject to reasonable regulation” concept that existed pre-Heller. So the states that have Constitutional carry (no permit required to open and concealed carry), permitted concealed carry, permitted open carry, and permitted open and concealed carry will continue on as they have. Those states that are shall issue will remain shall issue and those that are may issue will remain may issue. Nothing much will change.

  87. 87.

    redshirt

    September 28, 2016 at 11:06 pm

    @Prescott Cactus: Don’t forget under the couch and in the top cupboard of the kitchen too. Ya never know when a Terminator might crash through your door.

  88. 88.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 11:06 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Pink handguns are a thing, you know.

  89. 89.

    Bl

    September 28, 2016 at 11:07 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: I was afraid I would be in moderation hell.

  90. 90.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    September 28, 2016 at 11:07 pm

    @redshirt: Or lizard people.

  91. 91.

    Lizzy L

    September 28, 2016 at 11:09 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I hope this is not true.

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Some of them, perhaps. Not many.

    I shouldn’t be here; this is going to fuck up my whole evening. ‘Bye.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:09 pm

    @Prescott Cactus: Home carry!!!!

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 28, 2016 at 11:10 pm

    @Bl: No, you can fucking swear all you fucking want up in this shit.

  94. 94.

    Lizzy L

    September 28, 2016 at 11:12 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: It was really a rhetorical question, Adam. As long as the open carry states have Republican legislatures and governors, nothing will change. I just like blaming Scalia for stuff, because…

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:12 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Here you go:
    http://s895.photobucket.com/user/dcayer190/media/6237a176.jpg.html
    http://www.xdtalk.com/attachments/s-w-m-p-22-hello-kitty-jpg.14966/
    http://s26.photobucket.com/user/Kay_to_the_Tay/media/HelloKitty1.jpg.html
    https://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/01/1-17-08-hk_ar-15.jpg

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:13 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: This is why I arm up. Those things give me the creeps!

  97. 97.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 28, 2016 at 11:15 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Just as you can in the day room of any company sized unit in the US Army.

  98. 98.

    Bl

    September 28, 2016 at 11:15 pm

    Since I can swear, Google “on the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit”. Helps explain trump supporters.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:15 pm

    @Lizzy L: Okay, please disregard then.

  100. 100.

    hovercraft

    September 28, 2016 at 11:23 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    The ‘u’ sounds like the ‘u’ in uber, tuvi sounds like twovee, gu sounds like goo, ncono is complicated, ‘nc’ is basically sucking your teeth, then ‘ono’ sounds like Yoko. Good luck with that. But yeah it’s my favorite curse.

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 28, 2016 at 11:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Funny how he doesn’t mention anything about a “well regulated militia” in there.

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 28, 2016 at 11:26 pm

    @hovercraft: Cool. Thanks. I think I can say it with that coaching.

  103. 103.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 28, 2016 at 11:29 pm

    @redshirt: and something near the computer. Small, but large capacity. Maybe a Glock with a happy stick?

    Never, never in the toilet tank. That’s the first place the look. Then they got you with your own piece.

  104. 104.

    TriassicSands

    September 28, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    Sandy Hook conspiracy — the “believers” are probably all voting for Trump.

  105. 105.

    andy

    September 28, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    I hate these people. It’s like they dug up the corpses of those people and killed them all over again.

  106. 106.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): Its because what he is, though he doesn’t know it, is a radical localist. This was the minority, anti-elitist offshoot of the anti-Federalists/(Jeffersonian Democratic-)Republicans of the late 18th and early 19th Century.

  107. 107.

    Lizzy L

    September 28, 2016 at 11:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I appreciate the time you took to answer, thank you.

    I have close friends who, if they were strangers, I might call them gun nuts. Some of them have kids. I don’t know what to say to them, and it makes me miserable, and a little crazy.

  108. 108.

    Prescott Cactus

    September 28, 2016 at 11:41 pm

    @Lizzy L: Fear less if they are in safes or at least each of them (the guns) has a lock on them.

  109. 109.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 28, 2016 at 11:48 pm

    @Lizzy L: There have always been three views of the 2nd Amendment from the time of the 2nd Founding and the drafting of the Bill of Rights. The first was that of the Federalists that it created an explicit right to keep and bear arms for those belonging to the militia and that the militia of the several States were, ultimately, under Federal control by the President and should be resourced not by the several States, but by the Federal government to ensure uniformity across all the states. The second was of the anti-Federalists who also held that the militia created an explicit right to keep and bear arms for those belonging to the militia and that the militia of the several States were under the control of each state, should be resourced by each state, and that the Federal government should keep their hands off unless there was a clear threat to the entire Nation. The fight between these two groups of Founders and Framers was over who would control and resource the militia, what they would and could be used for, and who, ultimately, controlled them. For them there was, of course, an implicit individual right to keep and bear arms, but that this was an issue, if it was an issue at all, for the state governments to enumerate and/or regulate.

    The third view comes from a minority offshoot of the anti-Federalist/(Jeffersonian Democratic-)Republican movement and party of the late 18th and 19th Century known as the radical localists. This view argues that all government above the municipal level is, at least, proto-tyrannical. This includes not just the Federal government, but also the state government as well. The radical localists believed that the 2nd Amendment created an explicit individual right to keep and bear arms specifically to allow citizens to form local militias and that these militias were to be organized at the municipal level in order to guard against the potential tyranny of both the state and Federal governments and that the power of the militia allowed for proper Constitutional dispute revolution by allowing nullification of laws, regulations, and judicial rulings that did not have support of the citizenry at the municipal level. The 2nd Amendment Absolutists are radical localists, they just don’t know that they are.

  110. 110.

    Lizzy L

    September 28, 2016 at 11:54 pm

    @Prescott Cactus: Yes, that’s so.

    I don’t actually fear for the children of my friends, almost all of whom (the adults, not the children) are Marines or retired Marines. They would never endanger their own or anyone else’s children. But it seems to me that they are at one end of a rope and at the other end is Adam Lanza and his mother. And it doesn’t seem that way to them, at all. And when I point to the thousands of people, including 1500 children under 18, killed by guns in this country every year, they say, Yes, it’s terrible, but it’s not my problem. And I don’t know what to say because I think it is our problem.

  111. 111.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    September 29, 2016 at 12:12 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    There is something profoundly sad about the fact that there are lethal killing tools which are not only pink but which are also emblazoned with “Hello Kitty.”

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    September 29, 2016 at 12:15 am

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: yes, yes there is

  113. 113.

    Miss Bianca

    September 29, 2016 at 12:31 am

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: OK, well…except for the Lizard People.

  114. 114.

    Mnemosyne

    September 29, 2016 at 12:49 am

    @NYCMT:

    This, and also what bcw said.

    I’ve thought for a while now that people who believe in conspiracy theories actually find them strangely comforting. I can kind of see why someone with young children would prefer to think that it was all an elaborate hoax than to realize that his or her own children or grandchildren could be murdered in such a horrific way.

    The other comforting thing about a conspiracy theory is believing that the universe is not a random place where terrible things happen to people because they’re unlucky. Someone is in charge. It may be an evil someone, but at least life isn’t totally random.

    This is part of the nuttier forced birthers, too. They don’t want to believe that sometimes a pregnancy can go horribly wrong and result in a baby that can’t survive, or could kill the mother and baby. They don’t want to think that anyone is so impoverished that they can’t possibly support another child, or that a woman could be in an abusive relationship, or have been raped. Therefore, they don’t believe it, and insist that all pregnancies would proceed completely normally and all parents could cope with 6 or more children, because believing otherwise would force them to realize that the world is harsh and random and sometimes bad shit just happens.

  115. 115.

    Mnemosyne

    September 29, 2016 at 12:50 am

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:

    On the other end of the scale, there are also Hello Kitty vibrators. If that helps.

    It may not.

  116. 116.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    September 29, 2016 at 12:52 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    On the other end of the scale, there are also Hello Kitty vibrators.

    But are they pink? Asking for a friend.

  117. 117.

    Miss Bianca

    September 29, 2016 at 12:59 am

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, well…”taking arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, ending them” has always seemed to me like the nobler course of dealing with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than by going, “oh, it’s just too horrible to believe that bad things might happen, so I’ll just pretend that people PRETEND that they happened!”

  118. 118.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    September 29, 2016 at 1:59 am

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    More complicated than that. There are at least two camps here: the conspiracy buffs, like Pointer used to be, who fervently believe that the world is controlled by a vast secretive, amorphous them that are guiding the world to some probably nefarious design. This group wants you to wake up and see the world the way they see it. The other group are the ones that exploit the first group, to spread doubt about every institution.

    But how many conspiracy theorists have just the one conspiracy? How many restrict their creation of an alternative everything-is-staged reality to a single topic? Like martinis, one is not enough. You have the whole crank-magnetism phenomenon, chemtrails and anti-vax and fluoride and Climate-Change denial and holocaust denial and colloidal-silver self-medication and Trump support. They are not in the least bit worried about logical consistency or empirical disproof. To my mind, the multi-conspiracy crowd ultimately believe in nothing (except their own superiority over the Sheeple).

  119. 119.

    Anne Laurie

    September 29, 2016 at 5:56 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh, damn. I hadn’t previously known that Dan Baum was ill.

    Think I’ve said this before, but Gun Guys is well worth reading. (I even suggested doing a ‘BJ book club’ read together, but all the opinions offered were extremely negative.) Baum is, indeed, both pro-gun (within reason — it can be done) and left-wing (he believes that stronger gun safety regs are not only possible but essential).

  120. 120.

    NorthLeft12

    September 29, 2016 at 7:31 am

    I am thankful that I have never met a person like Mr. Halbig. If I was an adult relative or close personal friend of a person like that I wonder how I would handle the relationship knowing that he is mentally and emotionally torturing people like that.
    It is easy for me to sit here and type that I would confront him and repeatedly suggest that he seek some kind of help for his mental illness [sorry if this characterization offends some, but I have to believe that something like this is an illness of some kind] and failing that sever all contact with him. Easy to say, but probably very difficult to do in practice.
    This is just so far beyond my experience that I just do not know. What happened in Mr. Halbig’s life that would turn him into such a cruel monster to people who are obviously in pain and suffering? Losing a job? Really?

  121. 121.

    Bitter Scribe

    September 29, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    The gun laws of this nation are so ridiculously lenient that literally anyone can obtain a deadly weapon, walk into a school and kill as many children as possible.

    And some people are so invested in keeping things that way that they will believe literally anything but the truth of a mass murder.

  122. 122.

    Dice

    September 29, 2016 at 5:06 pm

    @bcw: They rely on the vaccinated population to keep their kids safe and unexposed. Only works if you never come into contact with the disease in question at all, ever, anywhere.

    Please, can we stop legitimizing illogic and just call it bullshit? Or would that put too many people out of work? There is a faith/belief side to conspiricism that makes my skin crawl. Ew.

  123. 123.

    Bill Arnold

    September 29, 2016 at 7:24 pm

    @shomi:

    These people are deranged.

    And they vote (many of them). And there are perhaps more of them than you realize. (Or not; FWIW I discuss politics with wingnuts F2F fairly often.)

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