Americans love a good conspiracy.  It’s in our nature.  For decades, people have debated aliens at Roswell, bullet trajectories at Dealey Plaza, and why those pesky aliens only seem to like abducting people below the Mason-Dixon line.  We love a good mystery, especially if there’s a chance that They(tm) had something to do with it.  Who’s “they,” you ask?  Why, the government, of course.  Are those intricate circles in the cornfields just Uncle Jethro with too much moonshine and time on his hands late at night, or are they intelligent messages from another species that the government won’t let us know exist?  Did the CIA murder Marilyn Monroe?  What about JFK?  Yes, there’s nothing we love quite like conspiracies.

The problem with them is simple: Often, those who spend a great deal of time on conspiracies resemble Mel Gibson in the movie Conspiracy Theory more than they resemble intelligent, articulate people with hard evidence–or at least, they’re portrayed like it, thanks to ranting tinfoil lovers like Alex Jones.  We all want to believe, claimed The X Files, and certainly the truth is out there, but then we run into another problem: Would we recognize truth if we saw it?  More importantly, would we care?  Obviously not every theory is true, but by the same math, not every theory is hogwash.  The trick is knowing what the difference is–and as Americans, it’s pretty important that we take the time to investigate things, prove or disprove them, and make our own informed decisions about the evidence we see, hear, and take in.  If every joke begins with a kernel of truth, then every conspiracy theory begins with a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit the official story.  Granted, sometimes these aberrations can be explained easily, but what if they can’t?  Should you simply dismiss it?  Should you condemn those looking for the whole story?  Or should you be responsible enough–should you care about the truth enough–to do the work and find out for yourself?

Sandy Hook is the latest in a long string of government conspiracy theories.  It’s a particularly important one, because it is the impetus for the greatest push in history toward dismantling of the 2nd Amendment.  There are those who argue that it is “insensitive” or “disgraceful” to insinuate the idea that the government had anything to do with Sandy Hook.  Even die hard conservatives have engaged in some pretty strong language to denigrate those who have the gall to ask the hard questions.  Unfortunately,  evidence is mounting that at least calls for asking those questions.  It may not matter in the grand scheme of things whether aliens make crop circles, but it absolutely matters whether the federal government staged a school shooting for the purposes of ramming gun control measures down our throats under the guise of “public safety.”

This article will not be offering or debunking the various theories out there.  There are literally hundreds of sites doing that already, and the onus falls on the individual to perform their own research and come to their own conclusion.  My point is simply this: To automatically dismiss any notion of government involvement in Sandy Hook (or Aurora, for that matter) is just as irresponsible as blindly following every conspiracy theory out there.  We owe it to the future of the Second Amendment to do the research, investigate the evidence, and make an informed decision, because Sandy Hook has become the battle cry of the anti-gun liberal, and they’re playing for keeps.

One last thought: The federal government has already, just in the last year, been caught providing guns to cartels and felons for the purpose of inflating gun violence statistics in an effort to bolster their gun control lobby.  In addition, they’ve left Americans to die at a CIA safehouse in Benghazi to cover up the existence of operations there.  This administration includes a corrupt, ineffective, and outright unconstitutional Congress that currently has a 14% approval rate, and the President is enacting sweeping Executive Orders to push his gun control will upon a largely unwilling populace who has made it clear they will not comply.

Do you really think that the same administration who is on record as saying people shouldn’t have guns, who is actively working to confiscate, buy back, and limit gun ownership of everyone–not just felons–suddenly cares about your safety?  Do you really think for one second that in the grand scheme of things, they would find a few dead children to be too high a price to pay for the implementation of their endgame?  Are you willing to bet the future of your liberty on that?

If a conspiracy theory forces people to go find the truth, then it has value.  If that truth ends up being something innocent, great–it can join the oft-debunked stories about the supposed “fake” moon landing.  If that truth is more sinister, however, then we must expose it, deal with it, and end whatever evil is behind it–before we no longer have the means to do so.