Saturday, December 29, 2012

Incendiary Raids on Japanese Cities

 

General LeMay expressed surprised at using the atomic bomb against the Japanese as he felt no military targets remained – his incendiary bombing had already destroyed nearly everything. The use of it is explained by Truman’s desire “that the [atomic] bomb would provide diplomatic benefits by making the Soviets more tractable” in postwar negotiations.
--Bernhard Thuersam

Incendiary Raids on Japanese Cities

“Army Air Force General Curtis LeMay ordered the American strategic bombers to begin night incendiary raids on Japanese cities rather than attempting daylight precision bombing of industrial centers. The [B-29] Superfortresses honed their skills in three raids against Tokyo. A single bombing raid in February [1945] destroyed at least 25,000 buildings. But the most devastation attack of the war, more deadly perhaps than both atomic bombs together, occurred on March 9, 1945.

Two hundred seventy-nine Superfortresses, sortieing from Guam, Saipan and Tinian, dropped firebombs from 7,000 feet on Tokyo’s residential areas.  The paper and wood city erupted in inescapable flames. Sixteen square miles were completely destroyed. 

During this single raid, approximately 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed. Many died from being scalded as they tried to save themselves by crowding into the city’s canals, which boiled. By comparison, 100,000 civilians died in the Hiroshima nuclear attack, while 35,000 died at Nagasaki.  The raid lasted three hours. American Superfortress pilots and crews in the last wave vomited in their aircraft from the stench of burning flesh carried to their mile-high altitude. 

Over successive days, the B-29s progressed to other Japanese cities. The United States burned Nagoya, Osaka, Yokohama, then Kobe. Then the bombers moved on to the lesser cities. As Japan had few [anti-aircraft] guns left, the B-29s could strike with impunity.  

Citizens were warned with leaflets that their neighborhood would be razed. But few had anywhere to go. By the end of the war, nearly 400,000 Japanese civilians would be killed, mostly in American bombing attacks. 

[From] April 1 until mid-June 1945, less than three divisions of Japanese held out in Okinawa, without support….Fourteen Japanese divisions and five….brigades protected Kyushu. President Truman later claimed, and many American sources agreed, that an invasion of Japan could have cost a million American casualties. This is far from accurate. 

General Dwight Eisenhower said that he felt that the atomic bombing was unnecessary from the point of view of saving American lives. Admiral William Leahy, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, and Army Air General Henry “Hap” Arnold, all thought that dropping the bomb was unnecessary. Japan was broken and would have surrendered without an invasion. 

The Japanese had no fuel, fewer than 10,000 trucks, almost no ability to manufacture weapons or ammunition, nor to transport supplies to Japan. They had almost no tanks left and remained wholly unable to defend themselves from air attack. Famine and disease threatened most of the population. Millions of Japanese civilians remained homeless. One by one, their cities were being razed. Japan’s air forces had been ruined, her navy wrecked. The bulk of Japan’s army was withering away in South Asia.

Nevertheless, on August 6, the first atomic bomb, dubbed “Little Boy,” was dropped on Hiroshima. [Three days] after that, the second atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” was detonated over Nagasaki.”
(Danger’s Hour, The Story of the USS Bunker Hill, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Simon & Schuster, 2008, pp. 195-196; page 443)

Secession Allegiance and Religion


Most people, or shall I say, most conservatives see something is terribly wrong
with the country today, but they blame everything but the right things. One of
the top comments I get from people is that we are not patriotic enough, or that people
such as myself are unpatriotic. People do not know what true patriotism is any
more, and I doubt if many of you reading this do either. So to clear up some
confusion, I am going to give you the order of where you should place your allegiance
and patriotism.

We hear people complain about the government and how it has lost touch with
the people. I am told, VOTE, be patriotic, do your duty. I ask; What is my duty;
to vote?  Honestly, do you ever see this changing anything? Has anything in the
federal government changed for the better in your lifetime? You dad's lifetime?
His dad's lifetime? The question is; What are you gonna do about it?

The following bears worth repeating. People are so dumbed down they have little
or no idea how or where they are to place their allegiance and patriotism. They
don't have a clue as to the order, with most everyone thinking or acting as if the
federal government is all there is to follow and place their allegiance in. They
think they can take a tyrannical government and correct it simply by voting, which
is what they equate to patriotism. Or they think joining the military, fighting and
dying is being patriotic. Nothing could be further from the truth as I tried to explain
to others at a blog who accused me of being unpatriotic and un-American because
I would not fight to restore DC and their form of pseudo "conservative" government.
I was told to leave the united states if it was not worth fighting for. Here is what
I posted back. Keep in mind that people in general do not know their order
allegiance, so you have to remind them... Your allegiance is NOT to the federal
government, that is a lie you've been indoctrinated into accepting in order that the
federal government may have a free reign to go to war anywhere it likes and to
pass whatever laws unto you that it deems necessary for it's safety, NOT yours!

My response: 

My state of North Carolina is worth fighting for. That is my home and my country!
Your state is worth fighting for, as that is your home and country! Patriotism originally
comes from the Greek meaning inheritor of my father’s land. (Or very similarly stated.)
Specifically; What and where is your father’s land? How did he get it and how did he
pass it to you? Your father’s land originally was the state, which is also the country he
lived in. He did not originally live in Washington DC, but in the state he called home.
This was completely true and accepted until Lincoln’s War changed this thinking with
reconstruction. (The whole nation was reconstructed, not just the South.) The union and
federal government is NOT worth fighting for. The united states is NOT my home nor
my country! It is merely a representative of our many countries, our many states.

The order in which one *supposed* is to show honor and respect is as follows.

1-God
2-Family
3-Friends and neighbors
4-Neighborhood or locality or community
5-Area region
6-State (State and country is dependent upon structure.)
7-Country
8-Nation
9-Government (Government would apply in place of No. 8 if a nation did not exist.)
Notice I did NOT add religious denominations, but religion is to be understood to be
the Christian religion including Catholicism.--NOT Mormonism or Judaism or such..
Neither is a part of Christianity.

Note: the above is a general order according to the structure of a geographic location
that would end up being a nation. A nation is simply a geographical area that
includes a people with like minds, philosophies, religion, culture and heritage.
There can be deviations but the overall effect is that the vast majority of people hold
these same or similar ideals. Note the similarity as stated in the Declaration of 
Independence from Great Britain, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…..”  As a nation all people are *supposed* to accept this basis as their basis of national unity. Sadly this does not exist today.

Note: The order is correct but there can be additions when properly placed, or there can
be certain omissions when need be, but the order remains the same in accordance to
importance. Good government is ruled from the bottom up, not from the top down, and 
your allegiance should be in like order.

Note: The government is nothing more than the will of a unified people, doing their 
bidding on a larger scale, before the countries and nations of the world. This is also why
the Federal Government *supposed* to be an agent of the states, of which the states are
representative countries. This is also why the STATES have the Inalienable Right to secede.

Note: A country by itself is not necessarily a nation, but it can be an independent country
with all the rules, laws and government of a nation when independent of national status.
A nation is merely several states with a central government representing them. 

I owe NO allegiance to any nation or government that does not fully recognize my sovereignty and right to self-determination. There is no way humanly possible, short of conflict that I can make a national government recognize my Inalienable Rights if they choose to ignore them. This is what the Federal Government in Washington DC has chosen to do. I owe them and such people as those that place their allegiance in the Federal Government NOTHING! I owe you nothing because you are part of the problem, if you are in standing with a degenerate nation and federal government in DC! The federal government is far past the point of ever correcting it's wrongs, it's usurpation of our Inalienable Rights, our states and countries. I ask you; Who has benefited from this?


Michael– Deo Vindicabamur

What will be the likely model of american insurrection, if "gun control" doesn't "go well?"

Via Angry Mike


america is an armed society.

every year a huge number of americans take to the woods in pursuit of deer, elk and other critters of the fur, feathers and flesh persuasion.   and, if you read hunting magazines and gun magazines, you will well recognize that they are armed with very sophisticated weapons, in some measure, such as optics and ballistic aids, the rival of the most modern military organizations.

so, say that america erupts in rebellion against the gun confiscation measures being cooked up by obama and minions, apparently to be spearheaded in congress by the likes of pelosi, reid, feinstein and others of that ilk.  senator feinsteins pronouncements relative to her legislative aims include words like "confiscation," and "registration," long despised and detested words among pro-gun americans.

if she wanted to "press some buttons," she's pressed some buttons.

what can we view as the likely model of american insurrection?

well, it won't be along the lines of major tank battles on open terrain, such as witnessed recently in the middle east.  syrians, iraqis, egyptians, hezbollah and hamas have proved it foolhardy to go up against the modern armor of the west, principally the armies of the u.s. and israel.

fighting modern armies on open terrain is a rather foolhardy proposition, unless you are the top of the military food chain.

no, i believe that the model of conflict in the middle east as we have witnessed the last several years during the "arab spring" and other insurrections provides the proper intellectual modality to anticipate the outlines of such conflict by civilians against an established and entrenched regime.

Pizza Hut Delivery Man Demoted After Defending Himself Against Attackers

http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories//images/wbff_top_stories_20121228_PizzaHutMan_2Dpqo.jpg 

Sam Swicegood, a Pizza Hut delivery man in Maryland fought off a group of attackers as he was attempting to deliver pizzas, and what happens? Pizza Hut gave him a demotion.

According to Swicegood, he was sucker punched, which caused his glasses to “fly off.” He then dropped the pizzas he was carrying and began to swing a small piece of a tent pole he had at his attackers, while covering his face. “It’s a little fiberglass road I had up my sleeve not thinking I would actually have to use it but more or less having a little comfort up my sleeve,” recalled Sam.
Swicegood faced five attackers and said those odds “is just not a good situation to be in.”

He said, “I thought I was about to die.”

The attackers fled without his money or his pizzas. However, Fox News Insider says that Pizza Hut cut his hours and his pay for violating their “no weapons policy.”

More @ Fox

A college student trying to make ends meet delivering pizza says he lost his job because he fought back as a group of teens attacked him. Sam Swicegood,a pizza-delivery driver, says he lost his job fighting back after he was attacked while making a delivery. Sam said something didn’t feel right so he grabbed a piece of a tent pole to protect himself just in case. Pizza Hut has a no weapon policy drivers must adhere to; in Swicegood’s case he’s now a cook and his pay and hours have been cut. Delivery-pizza’s has become a risky business, so much so police are issuing flyers that describe how drivers can and should protect themselves. Sam told FOX45 that what he did was necessary to protect himself, and he has since paid a hefty price for it. For Sam the job was helping to pay for college: “I was making about 11 or 12 dollars in tips.” It was enough to make ends meet, but that all changed a few weeks ago after Sam was attacked making a delivery in a Glen Burnie neighborhood. Sam said, “I’m pretty sure they called and ordered a delivery driver.” Sam admits he began to feel a little uneasy so before he got out of his car, he grabbed something to protect himself. It’s a decision that may have spared him from being seriously injured. “It’s a little fiberglass road I had up my sleeve not thinking I would actually have to us

Read More at: http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/-delivery-driver-demoted-after-fighting-back-during-attack-17136.shtml#.UN-LYTmouM9
A college student trying to make ends meet delivering pizza says he lost his job because he fought back as a group of teens attacked him. Sam Swicegood,a pizza-delivery driver, says he lost his job fighting back after he was attacked while making a delivery. Sam said something didn’t feel right so he grabbed a piece of a tent pole to protect himself just in case. Pizza Hut has a no weapon policy drivers must adhere to; in Swicegood’s case he’s now a cook and his pay and hours have been cut. Delivery-pizza’s has become a risky business, so much so police are issuing flyers that describe how drivers can and should protect themselves. Sam told FOX45 that what he did was necessary to protect himself, and he has since paid a hefty price for it. For Sam the job was helping to pay for college: “I was making about 11 or 12 dollars in tips.” It was enough to make ends meet, but that all changed a few weeks ago after Sam was attacked making a delivery in a Glen Burnie neighborhood. Sam said, “I’m pretty sure they called and ordered a delivery driver.”

Read More at: http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/-delivery-driver-demoted-after-fighting-back-during-attack-17136.shtml#.UN-LYTmouM9
A college student trying to make ends meet delivering pizza says he lost his job because he fought back as a group of teens attacked him. Sam Swicegood,a pizza-delivery driver, says he lost his job fighting back after he was attacked while making a delivery. Sam said something didn’t feel right so he grabbed a piece of a tent pole to protect himself just in case. Pizza Hut has a no weapon policy drivers must adhere to; in Swicegood’s case he’s now a cook and his pay and hours have been cut. Delivery-pizza’s has become a risky business, so much so police are issuing flyers that describe how drivers can and should protect themselves. Sam told FOX45 that what he did was necessary to protect himself, and he has since paid a hefty price for it. For Sam the job was helping to pay for college: “I was making about 11 or 12 dollars in tips.” It was enough to make ends meet, but that all changed a few weeks ago after Sam was attacked making a delivery in a Glen Burnie neighborhood. Sam said, “I’m pretty sure they called and ordered a delivery driver.”

Read More at: http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/-delivery-driver-demoted-after-fighting-back-during-attack-17136.shtml#.UN-LYTmouM9
A college student trying to make ends meet delivering pizza says he lost his job because he fought back as a group of teens attacked him. Sam Swicegood,a pizza-delivery driver, says he lost his job fighting back after he was attacked while making a delivery. Sam said something didn’t feel right so he grabbed a piece of a tent pole to protect himself just in case. Pizza Hut has a no weapon policy drivers must adhere to; in Swicegood’s case he’s now a cook and his pay and hours have been cut. Delivery-pizza’s has become a risky business, so much so police are issuing flyers that describe how drivers can and should protect themselves. Sam told FOX45 that what he did was necessary to protect himself, and he has since paid a hefty price for it. For Sam the job was helping to pay for college: “I was making about 11 or 12 dollars in tips.” It was enough to make ends meet, but that all changed a few weeks ago after Sam was attacked making a delivery in a Glen Burnie neighborhood. Sam said, “I’m pretty sure they called and ordered a delivery driver.”

Read More at: http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/-delivery-driver-demoted-after-fighting-back-during-attack-17136.shtml#.UN-LYTmouM9

Hundreds of Ohio school workers want to carry guns


More than 450 teachers and other school employees from around Ohio have applied for 24 spots in a free firearms-training program being offered by the Buckeye Firearms Association.

“We’re pleasantly surprised, but it’s not shocking,” Ken Hanson, legal chairman for the association, said today of the response since the group began taking applications on its website 10 days ago. “The demand has been there for quite some time.”

The issue of arming school employees to protect students has been “on the radar” of school boards in Ohio for several years, he said, but the organization decided to launch its training program after the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.

“That was the breaking point,” he said. “We decided it’s time to quit talking about it and move forward.”


Plunge! Ammunition Levels Less Than 10% of Pre-Election Levels

 Via Don

VERBATIM

Plunge92 

Ammunition Stock levels have fallen by more than 90% from the pre-Election Day levels. Less than 10% remains available.  Available Ammunition links will be updated throughout the day.

Handguns are down by 80%, Long Guns by 63% for an overall 72.2% reduction in firearms inventories.

AR pattern rifles are becoming particularly difficult to source.

The Mandate Amendment To The Constitution

Pass the Mandate Amendment

What is the Mandate Amendment? 

Presently, the mandate amendment is in the  planning stages, but it is intended to be an amendment to the United States Constitution making it illegal for Congress to mandate citizens purchase anything from a private company. It presently reads:


Congress shall make no law mandating the purchase of a product or services from a private company. 

More @ TMA
 

NC: Gun Buying


How quickly the world changes. I stopped by the Hickory gun-show on my way to work this morning and got there a little after 8:00AM. The line was already out the front door. By the time the show opened the doors at 9:00AM the line wrapped all the way around the building. I went in and did a walk around speaking with some vendors that I know and some other show goers. AR's and AK's are more than double in price compared to just two weeks ago when I was at the Raleigh gun show. 

AR's going for $2500.00-$2600.00. Most gun prices up and ammo doubled as well. One vendor I spoke with yesterday cancelled his table space earlier in the week because his inventory was all sold out. I have a couple fireamrs on order and the supplier honored earlier prices. I did pick up a holster and a few magazines for my son's Mini 14. When I left the show was almost full to fire capacity and the line still wrapped around the building with those waiting to get in. 

Michael

New York newspaper plans to publish more gun owner information, according to report

Via Billy

We'll have to ramp it up. 


A suburban New York newspaper that caught flack earlier this week for publishing the names and addresses of pistol permit holders, along with a map, has emerged from cover and come out firing again. 

The White Plains, New York-based Journal News plans to add names and address of gun owners from an additional county, Putnam, to its map, according to Reuters. The paper has already released the data for two neighboring counties, Westchester and Rockland.

The Journal News launched its first volley on Christmas Eve with a story called "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood." The story included a database and an interactive map with the names and addresses of area pistol permit holders.

More @ AL

The Bill of Rights is not negotiable

Via Billy

 

There is a destructive, delusional meme spreading like a virus among many misguided Americans. It pushes the idea that government can pick and choose which rights codified in the Bill of Rights it wishes to recognize or discard on any given day.

This delusion is predicated on the concept that if a popular majority can be emotionally whipped into a frenzy over one particular right, then that right can simply be discarded and stricken from the Bill of Rights.

But no such power exists to discard any portion of the Bill of Rights, at least not without proper ratification by three-fourths of the fifty states. There is no such power found solely in the federal government. There is no such power placed solely in the executive branch, nor in Congress, nor in the White House.

The Bill of Rights describes a set of individual rights and liberties which are not granted by government, but recognized as DIVINE rights given to use by our Creator. Because government never granted the rights in the first place, it has no authority to take them away.

"The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting." - William J Brennan Jr.

The individual liberties described in the Bill of Rights cannot be infringed, nor deleted, nor overridden by popular opinion... not even loudly screamed opinion. America is not a nation ruled by the tyranny of the mob. It isn't even a democracy -- it's a republic, where certain inalienable rights describe the protection of each individual, even if that individual is the lone voice of sanity in a majority gone mad. The Bill of Rights protects individuals from the tyranny of mob rule -- a phenomenon that routinely rears its head in any society where historical illiteracy is rampant and the masses are lulled into a state of complacency by charismatic but dishonest leaders.

It was the extended amendments attached to the Bill of Rights that outlawed slavery, guaranteeing individual freedom to those of African descent even in a time and place when the majority of voting citizens believed slavery was socially acceptable. And it was the Second Amendment that put firearms into the hands of those recently-freed slaves, ensuring that they could defend themselves against attackers of any color through the powerful expression of armed defense (aided by the laws of physics and certain materials from the table of elements, notably lead).

Another amendment beyond the Bill of Rights granted women equal voting rights in an age when the majority believed women should not be allowed to vote. It was the Bill of Rights that decriminalized prohibition, ending a dark era of mass criminalization of everyday citizens who suffered under the oppression of government law enforcement gone bad.

Yet today, incredibly, many African-Americans and women are actively assaulting the very document that first secured their own freedoms. They now wish to take their freedom and power and use it to enslave someone else by revoking other people's rights under the Bill of Rights. This is the ultimate social betrayal, and it is a powerful demonstration of the principle that those who do not respect freedom for others do not deserve it for themselves.

The Second Amendment is not negotiable

More @ Natural News

A rifle behind every blade of grass

Via Terry

 

"Diane Feinstein (besides being a raging hypocrite, since she had a concealed carry permit and now has armed bodyguards) knows darned good and well that nearly everyone who possesses the firearms or accouterments listed in her legislation won’t passively turn them in, register them, allow themselves to be fingerprinted or photographed, or otherwise compromise their right to own their guns free and unfettered and un-infringed. She knows that. 

Rather, her unstated goal is to turn tens of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens – zap! – into criminals at the stroke of a pen. The government initially won’t “go after” anyone with these newly illegal firearms; but when they want to nail someone for a minor offense, they’ll already have a rap sheet for him. If this legislation passes, then potentially as much as half of America automatically and instantly becomes “domestic terrorists” for possessing illegal weaponry. After all, who but a terrorist would want to possess scary-looking firearms? 

More @ WND

10 Rules for Trading in Long Term Survival Scenarios

 

All of us rely on our skills when SHTF. So we all hope that we can cover all of major skills that can lead us trough all basic needs in order to survive. So we choose to learn lot of things, how to fight , how to can, how to grow food, how to heal people. And we are buying equipment and learn things.

We choose different approaches, someone chooses to learn just basics from one skill, or someone chooses to learn one particular skill in depth. Like to be very good in growing food when SHTF.

But most of the people take trading and bartering in long term survival scenarios for granted. Most of the people see trading like scenes from the movies. So there is some kind of accepted picture that man gonna be able to go out with bag of potatoes for example and trade it for something, for batteries or whatever.

Or there is gonna be something like trading place, where you can go and check what is on offer there.
It is actually strange how lot of things are covered good at lot of places on forums and blogs when it comes to some skills and equipment, but when it comes to trading it is accepted more or less that it is common sense that it is gonna be easy to trade things.

When SHTF we all going to trade things, no matter how great we are prepared, because it is gonna be way of living, one of the few ways of obtaining the things we need, especially for long term survival.

It makes sense to think today about trading when SHTF. It can be major source of resources and provide for your living in hard times, and if you prepare carefully and act smart when SHTF, you can live much better than other folks around you.

Because differences between regions in the world some things about trading can not apply everywhere, just like advice about which weapon you should have.

But some things are common everywhere, just like you can say that shot in the head can kill you, no matter what kind of gun we are talking about.

So here are some things to keep in mind. 

1. SHTF (real SHTF) = no law anymore 

More @ SHTF School

Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry: the Untold Story of an American Legend

Via SHNV

 

Since his death in 1873 at age 26, the musical idea of the indomitable steelworker John Henry has inspired our imaginations.  Labor unions, miners and railroad workers, especially, have taken him as their Everyman.  As such, the man who “whupped” a steam drill has become synonymous with triumphant human spirit.

The results of our fascination with this legendary figure may be seen in the hypermuscular, larger-than-life Depression-era frescoes that portray him.  Musically, there are at least 200 recordings of the ballad of the man who “died with a hammer in his hand.”  There isn’t a folk performer who hasn’t sung the song or a southeastern state that hasn’t claimed him.

But who was John Henry?  Before publication of Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry: the Untold Story of an American Legend by historian Scott Reynolds Nelson, speculation was that John Henry was an amalgam of archetypes, or maybe a real man who had died in Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi -- even the Caribbean.

Scott Nelson’s painstaking research and unimpeachable primary sources now give us a more definitive view.  The facts are these: John Henry was 19 when sentenced to 10 years in Virginia Penitentiary.  Along with other convicts, his labor was leased to the C&O Railroad at Lewis Tunnel in Virginia, where he became a driller.  One day, a boss brought in a steam drill to run alongside the convicts’ manual labor.  All but John Henry balked.  He swore no machine could beat a man as he raced the machine.  Before the contest was over, he had drilled 13 feet, the steam drill just nine.  Moments later, he collapsed and died.  His last request was for a cool glass of water.

In telling this complex tale of a doomed convict, Nelson also draws a disturbing portrait of an agrarian America driving relentlessly toward industrialization.  To Americans, progress meant higher living standards; to the railroad barons, it meant pushing their empires relentlessly westward.

Global Research: The Sandy Hook School Massacre: Unanswered Questions and Missing Information

Via comment by Anonymous on Miracles never cease: A fair article on guns from USA Today!

 school

 Inconsistencies and anomalies abound when one turns an analytical eye to news of the Newtown school massacre.

“[My staff] and I hope the people of Newtown don’t have it crash on their head later.” –Connecticut Medical Examiner D. Wayne Carver II, MD, December 15, 2012

Inconsistencies and anomalies abound when one turns an analytical eye to news of the Newtown school massacre. The public’s general acceptance of the event’s validity and faith in its resolution suggests a deepened credulousness borne from a world where almost all news and information is electronically mediated and controlled. The condition is reinforced through the corporate media’s unwillingness to push hard questions vis-à-vis Connecticut and federal authorities who together bottlenecked information while invoking prior restraint through threats of prosecutorial action against journalists and the broader citizenry seeking to interpret the event on social media.

Along these lines on December 19 the Connecticut State Police assigned individual personnel to each of the 26 families who lost a loved one at Sandy Hook Elementary. “The families have requested no press interviews,” State Police assert on their behalf, “and we are asking that this request be honored.[1] The de facto gag order will be in effect until the investigation concludes—now forecast to be “several months away” even though lone gunman Adam Lanza has been confirmed as the sole culprit.[2]

With the exception of an unusual and apparently contrived appearance by Emilie Parker’s alleged father, victims’ family members have been almost wholly absent from public scrutiny.[3] What can be gleaned from this and similar coverage raises many more questions and glaring inconsistencies than answers. 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.

The Accidental Medical Examiner