A friend of mine was talking about this a few days ago, and I'm wondering what the not-crazy consensus is. My main argument against a lot of these claims, with the understanding that I did not know all the facts at the time, was that there was a lot of confusion amongst the media and incorrect information was being reported at the time, but the CTs treat every word reported, no matter when or by whom (including panicked children hours after the incident), as indisputable fact.
I'll take this moment to state I know next to nothing about guns, and have done very little research beyond the wiki page on the shootings and conspiracy theories, but here's my attempt to debunk the arguments presented in the video:
Second gunman running from school, apprehended, then left in front seat of police car -He was probably found to be innocent of involvement, but police wanted him kept in custody for either further questioning or his own protection from people still under the impression he was a shooter
Disputes on the number and type of guns used -The official account says that two handguns, a Glock and a SIG Sauer, and an XM15 Bushmaster assault rifle were found inside the school, with an Izhmash Saiga-12 combat shotgun found in the car he drove to the school in. Theorists say the xm15 (also referred to as an ar15, but from my limited understanding, the only difference is who made it) was the gun removed from the car, but in the video provided it looks like a shotgun. Reports stating that no rifle was taken into the building do not provide a source (save "government officials"), and the medical examiner states that all the inflicted GSWs were from an assault rifle, so I won't give that any credit.
Inconsistent dead/wounded ratio to other mass shootings -Oh, yeah, every shooting is the same. Forgot about that. And here I was thinking that this took place in a school with one-entrance rooms, frightened children freeze up in scary situations, and this guy was well trained in using the guns. Silly me. The video does claim that he was autistic and had no weapon history, yet reports from family friends say he had aspergers, not autism, the argument being he couldn't have been capable of that kind of rage. Personal experience, but when I was a kid I gave a titty-twister to another kid, who had aspergers (I learned this after the incident), and he flipped the fuck out. My physics teacher had aspergers as well, and whenever anyone disrupted the lecture he too would respond with atypical anger. Further, it's stated that Lanza's mother frequently took her kids to the shooting range, giving the guy more than enough experience to make accurate shots.
He had his brother's current ID, despite not having been in contact for over two years -Does this mean no other member of his family had been in contact? Could it be his mother had it in her posession, for whatever reason, and Lanza took it? Could it be he obtained the ID before becoming estranged, as validity sometimes lasts for more than 2 years? The nature of the ID (driver's license, school ID, etc) is never disclosed. There are a lot of ways this could have happened, but really, it's a red herring.
Official statements show Mrs. Lanza was not a Kindergarten teacher, but the school nurse of 15 years says she was. Also, the woman's name does not show up on any Nursing License registry -Ooh, this one's easy. Yes, that woman was delusional, because as you just proved, she was not a nurse, and therefore could not have been the school's nurse. She wanted attention, and the reporter was giving it to her in spades.
Robbie Parker, father of one of the victims, is seen laughing and joking before a press conference, not realizing the cameras are rolling. -Grief is a fickle beast, especially so soon after a tragedy. Also, your first time on national tv is a bit nerve wracking, and I would get just as giddy and out of breath when talking to a crowd of people I already know with no cameras rolling. However, it is possible this man is an actor, filling in for a truly grief stricken father. Despicable, yes, but proves nothing about the legitimacy of the shooting.
Facebook Page set up before a victim was confirmed dead -Initial posts stated that the girl was lost, but later posts confirmed that the status was yet unknown. They did know she was a victim the whole time, though, and for many people, the word 'victim' in the case of a shooting automatically equates to 'dead' in their mind. A simple mistake, one noted and apologized for in the later post. Splitting hairs, man. He goes on to say that the parents are awful for starting a collection before knowing the fate of their child, but the first post he was showing shows explicitly that they did not start the page: "[We] have set up an account at America's First Credit Union to help Robbie Parker and his family for their immediate needs..."
Robbie Parker of Newtown is listed as 57, too old for the pictures provided -Well, the Parker family that lost a child probably does not live in the confines of Newtown. My elementary school had kids from several different townships, as the school served a large area and not just the town it was seated in. Or, perhaps, in light of these events, publicly available information on the families has been removed from online registries for privacy's sake.
Emily Parker is seen with Obama after the shooting -Stupids, that's her sister wearing the same dress Emily wore in the compared photo, which was taken months before. Children grow out of clothes quickly, and hand me downs are a part of younger siblings' lives, especially with nicer clothes like that dress.
The video then goes into an interview with Gene Robinson, the man who found six kids in his driveway, arguing non-issue statements or calling out chaos-induced inconsistencies. Frankly, he's nit-picking over details that I would question if this man was an authority figure responsible for handling an emergency like this, but he's not. He's just an old man who was just as confused as the children he took in, and there is no evidence of anything besides his MAYBE questionable decision making skills. The video calls out Robinson's statement that he was looking over a casualty list on that day, saying that's impossible because the casualty list wasn't released for two days. Uh, no, the official list wasn't given out, but I'm more than sure there were some early drafts going around the local commuinity before every kid was accounted for.
The video goes on to a second interview, picking up on a gender identification inconsistency that, oh my, proves nothing. Hey, sometimes it's really hard to tell, especially among women who've made the choices in life to land them a bus driving position.
After a few minutes of stupid claims, the video goes back to parents that don't look sad enough. This is two days after, and as I said with the Parker interview, grief can come in waves, and you can find yourself in a perfectly good mood between episodes. Hell, with how soon after the loss of their children these interviews came, they were probably chock full of denial yet. The funerals couldn't have happened yet, and that's usually the final stage of the closure process, until which mood swings abound. Also, during the time between, you spend as much time as you can trying to focus on the happy memories you share with the deceased, but god forbid you show signs of joy at those memories. The video gives no audio to the interview to the McDonald interview with, I think, Anderson Cooper, so we don't know what they're talking about. Probably their daughter, would be my guess.
Then we're treated to the medical examiner making a comment and laughing, after a nice edit that puts him making a comment about being able to use photographers to put an image to a situation. I don't know the context of the comments, because of said editing and the annoying music overplaying a lot of what he says (done earlier during quotes supporting the gun discrepancies, to the point where you cannot hear what he's saying until the "golden quote"). This guy deals with death daily, and has done so for years. Of course he's not going to be overwrought with emotion. Also, they're not his kids. Yeah, seems a bit cold to you and I, but how often do we see death? The video then goes on to take his statement that he'll do the autopsy of Lanza and his mother last as some sort of proof, asking why save the most important casualties for last, and asking "Aren't they the most pertinent to the case?" Well, maybe, but it matters not when they're done, as a real investigation will take a lot longer than two days. Perhaps it was his way of showing respect, to examine the innocent victims and release information on them first before tackling the perpetrator. Again, none of this proves anything.
Then, a few cuts of him stumbling through his words, but Thunderf00t's experience with PCS shows this is just being a bully on the accuser's part, unless it's changed since then and everybody's perfected their public speaking skills when I wasn't watching. We get a repeat clip of him stating that the rifle was the sole weapon used on the victims, and text at the top says "We've already proven the rifle was in the trunk of the car, how can this be?" No, you're going on your misconception that the shotgun in the car was the rifle, and that he didn't have anything other than pistols in the school, as reported in the chaos. This, to me, seems to be his strongest argument so far, and it's all based off of the media's word made in the initial hours of the incident.
Oh man, this next one got me going. They show clips and photos of the school, saying that there is no footage of children leaving the school, no kids, dead or alive caught on camera, no ambulances on scene, the entrance way was blocked off so no EMS could get in or out if they wanted, no teachers, parents, etc. Well, would a major news outlet show pictures of dead children on TV? Did the media get there the moment shit went down? This incident was over and done within 15 minutes, and like hell they're going to keep them in a school with all the bodies lying around. They probably got everyone out as soon as possible, EMS arriving at the evacuation point(s). By the time the reporters got there, chances are most, if not all of the surviving people were long gone, no reason to have EMS on scene. He quotes a kid talking to reporters, and the video narrator seems to treat this testimony as more reliable than every adult involved. Because kids never elaborate, and they immediately grasp the gravity of what happened to them, therefore his description of what something (nice editing, ThinkOutsideTheTV!) sounded like. Also, children are expert audiologists with the life experience necessary to properly equate sounds.
We're then shown a video of people walking around an area beyond the school grounds, saying "No children, no EMS workers, nice and quiet..." Well, except for that ambulance, the Fire Police truck, and the three children I counted in the video. Plus, when was the video taken? Judging by the shadows, I would say some time in the afternoon, easily after many parents came and picked up their children, or if not, then they must be inside the firehouse (focus of the video clip) that is constantly referred to as where everyone went. I wouldn't go outside if I didn't have to, considering this was December in Connecticut. He comments about how everyone is just milling about, but considering this was, in fact, after everything came to an end, what rush is there to be made? Shooter is confirmed dead, the kids are safe and not at the school, and anyone left in the building is either dead or investigating. The tone of the narration is cocky, like he's holding the golden evidence of everything here. The part that gets me is how he mentioned he slowed the footage down 50%, then goes on about how slowly the emergency workers are moving around. Then, a satellite picture of the area, with big red arrows pointing at "School Entrance" and "Emergency Crews", conveniently forgetting that where the EMS are is also where all the survivors are.
Then we get the typical "There is so much wrong with this whole crime scene, but I'll let you check it out on your own" Oh gee, thanks, because before this video I was on my way to not knowing anything about this, and as we all know the internet is where you go for unbiased and completely not crazy statements, especially when doing so blind.
Ugh, comparing it to "'disasters' such as 9/11, Aurora, and the London Bombings" where drills were being carried out identical to the incidents that occurred that same day, or the next. One, how often do emergency crews drill? All the fucking time, otherwise they'd show up on scene and be clueless, or arguing about what to do because they didn't plan for it. They show a screen grab of a DoES/FEMA training schedule, titled "Planning for the needs of children in disasters" The course was to go from 9am to 4pm. I don't think 45 minutes would be enough time to adequately train for this situation, nor was it about a school shooting. FEMA classes, I know firsthand, cover a wide ass range of possibilities, from hurricanes to terrorism. Plus, if you wanted to train people to respond to a disaster 45 minutes away, you would not take them to a FEMA course. They are boring as hell, and probably put the workers into a daze. Plus, there was a recent disaster, Hurricane Sandy, that probably made local EMS go "hm, we should probably brush up on our protocol for kids." Lastly, why wouldn't you hold the course much earlier than that? I would say this training would have had no effect on anyone present adequate enough to actually prepare them for the situation.
It references Newtown FD having trained with Homeland Security for a year before this, and asks why. I'll tell you why: Newtown is how far from NYC, a known target for terrorism, and who responds to terrorist attacks? Besides police and EMS, the fire departments do. Probably preparing for the possibility that out of state departments would be summoned to respond to an emergency, something that happened exactly like that during 9/11 and Katrina. The video also mentions that Sandy Hook was part of a Special Beautification Project for the last ten years, a point that is never explained or given context. Well no shit, my local metro area has been beautifying since I moved here in the 90s. Also, what does that have to do with anything?
The final nail in the coffin, the 'smoking gun' as he puts it, was the RIP Victoria Soto page, created December 10th. Now, I'm no expert on Facebook's procedures, but is it not possible that the page was going to be made for something else, then with the events four days later the name of the group was changed to reflect the current needs of the group? A commenter even states that the page admin could change the name of the group, and I'm pretty sure any unrelated posts could be deleted or hidden from the timeline. The video says there is no explanation, but I think there's one right there. Plus, the quality of the feed is much lower than any other screen cap in the video, obscuring a lot of comments and making a lot of the page unreadable, something that seems a tad suspect. Then a bunch of other donation sites that show creation prior to the shooting. Again, I'm no expert, but aren't digital mediums very capable of being edited at later times to change their purpose? Yes, this is a lot more compelling than any other piece of 'evidence', but by no means does this prove anything.
The final statements make claims like the parents weren't allowed to see the bodies, security tapes were confiscated, stating these are tell tale signs of deception. Not at all could it be that they are evidence in an ongoing investigation and sealed by a court. I'm sure in time we'll see the tapes, as most schools are well monitored, and when was it the parents weren't allowed to see the bodies? Right after the shooting, before the medical examiner could complete his work? Because I think that's standard procedure.
In the end, this smells exactly like Loose Change, cherry picked quotes and pictures without a shred of counterargument being acknowledged or offered, most of the evidence being the chaotic misconceptions and discrepancies. I don't want to throw my opinion into the argument, so I'll leave it at the video itself, but the main argument is that this was all staged (and includes the Aurora movie theater shooting as being falsified too, something new to me) in order to rally support for gun control laws. Makes sense, but then again, so does reacting to the many gun deaths by means of gun control.
The guy in the video is either delusional, and seriously thinks the shoddy investigation he made is concrete evidence, or he's just looking for attention from a crowd of people he knows will buy in to all of this. What do you chaps think?
edit: I realize, not being an expert investigator, that I may have missed a few things or got a few points wrong, so feel free to correct me or add in what you see.
"I'm not stupid, I just have a command of thoroughly useless information." Watterson
Fri Jan 25, 2013 2:49 am
DaealisPosts: 235Joined: Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:48 pmLocation: Tampere
I was first made aware of this with a link to someone debunking it, and it was a good debunk at that. Short and to the point, destroying every single argument. When you take a look at the clip through the debunk video there's not a single thread of evidence that looks even plausible.
The problem was that I couldn't for the life of me remember how I stumbled upon that debunk. Maybe a conspiratorial plot is a foot, hiding the response.
There are several plainly dishonest pieces on that video, like the laughing parents(couldn't have just lost their girl, since they're laughing). It's basically quotemined, since in the full interview(or just the audio on, if I remember correctly) they've just been telling a story, reminiscing how their daughter loved to go to school and play and whatnot, evoking happy memories and they're obviously smiling remembering their daughter being happy. This fucking cuntnugget blames them for being actors because "no true scots...er, parent would laugh at a time like this". Yeah, and no family member tells a joke at a funeral. No close friend smiles at a fond memory of a lost one, ever.
Fuck this guy up his ear.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:35 am
LallapalalablePosts: 1205Joined: Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:35 pmLocation: That place between childhood and adulthoodGender: Male
Lallapalalable wrote:Found this one. Nicely done, short, sweet, thorough and not so condescending as to appear provoking, plus sources.
The one I saw was similar, stretched out to about 8-10 minutes, with audio. Essentially the same details. But yeah, bull-to-the-shit, the whole conspiracy.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Fri Feb 01, 2013 10:20 am
LaurensPosts: 2995Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:24 pmLocation: Norwich UKGender: Male
I think its rather shameful that conspiracy theorists jump on tragedies like flies onto a turd just to further their agenda and get a name for themselves among their community and on the internet.
And their hounding and accusations of victims families and of witnesses is profoundly immoral. I mean if they did have some legitimate evidence why go about it using such despicable tactics? Surely if the evidence spoke for itself then they could push towards some sort of inquiry rather than pointing fingers and hounding people. I can't imagine how it must feel to have lost your child in such a way, only to then be harassed by paranoid geeks saying that you're an actor in some kind of sick plot to take away people's guns.
I don't think we should give any credence or sympathy to the views of these despicable conspiracy nuts.