Newtown, Connecticut

        The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut.  The perpetrator, Adam Lanza, fatally shot his mother before murdering 20 students and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, and later committing suicide.  A number of conspiracy theories have surfaced that either doubt or dispute what occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary.

        Most events that produce conspiracy theories have important social and political implications, and the Sandy Hook shootings are no exception.  No one, regardless of what side of the gun control issue they are on, can deny that guns played a key role in the Sandy Hook killings.  So the conspiracy theorists must instead challenge the claim that the attack even occurred.  Some theorists believe that it was all a hoax to scare people into supporting more gun control and a step toward a repeal of the Second Amendment.

        People went even as far to claim that they have absolute proof that the shootings were a hoax by pointing to a 6-year-old girl named Emilie Parker, who was shot to death at the school massacre.

        Or was she?  They claim that the proof was in a photograph of Emilie after the shooting with President Obama while he was visiting the families.  The girl was actually Emilie’s sister, wearing the same dress that Emilie wore in another photograph.  

        In the crazy world of conspiracy thinking, any little girl who resembles Emilie and is wearing the same dress as one she owned must be her.  It could not possibly be her sister, who could not possibly be wearing either Emilie’s dress or an identical one, instead, it’s obviously proof that the whole shooting was faked.

        I think that if this claim were true, it raises even more questions than it answers.  For example, if Sandy Hook was a staged event as claimed, with Emilie Parker alive and the president part of the conspiracy, why would the government be so careless to release a photograph of Emilie, knowing that she had been reported dead in a carefully thought out, well prepared hoax? Is a widely published photo op with the President of the United States really the best place to hide someone that is supposedly dead?

        Conspiracy theorist websites offer many more examples and pieces of evidence, ranging from real to conflicting news reports.  Many are just as bizarre to me as the idea that Sandy Hook was all a hoax.

        The idea that the Sandy Hook massacre was faked is not only ridiculous, but also an insult to the victims of the tragedy.  The victims are really gone, they are not safely hidden away somewhere until the Sandy Hook shooting has served its goal of taking away America’s guns.  The children and adults are dead.  Crazy conspiracy theories, however, will live on.

         One reason that conspiracy theories live on, is that any contradictory evidence, no matter how believable, can just be dismissed by claiming that it’s part of a cover-up. There is basically no evidence that would satisfy most conspiracy theorists.  People who do not trust the government will use any excuse to support their beliefs whether they seem logical or not.  Conspiracy theorists prefer mysteries over truth and will try to find mystery when none may exist. I think this is exactly what happened in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.

                                                                  Works Cited

Radford, Benjamin. "Sandy Hook Massacre Conspiracy Theories." Live Science, 16 Jan. 2013,  www.livescience.com/26314-sandy-hook-massacre-conspiracy-theories.html.

"Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting Conspiracy Theories." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_shooting_conspiracy_theories.