Confession: I’ve just never been much of an Alex Jones fan. I never saw the value, or even very much of the fun, some of my libertarian friends found in his crazed, bombastic commentary.

Nonetheless, I’m a free speech fundamentalist  who’s appalled that the court system allowed bad actors to enrich themselves at his expense by standing atop the corpses of dead children to complain about Jones doing … well, pretty much the same thing.

Jones was sued by family members of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, who managed to shift legal blame for their harassment, apparently by Alex Jones fans, to Jones himself.

I was momentarily encouraged when I learned that Jones’s “Infowars” brand had been purchased at auction by venerable satire publication, The Onion. They seem well-equipped to do fun things with his crazed presentation style and eclectic obsessions.

Unfortunately, according to reporting from Rolling Stone, The Onion “also announced that it had partnered with the gun-control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety,” presumably to advocate for the evil cause of victim disarmament, aka “gun control.”

It’s depressing to learn that Jones’s former property will be used to promote exactly the same kind of harm done to the Sandy Hook victims and their families, in the name of “justice” for the latter and at the expense of someone who didn’t do that harm.

The United States and the state of Connecticut have, and have had for many years, plenty of “gun control” laws.

Those laws didn’t stop Adam Lanza from stealing a gun  (a crime) from his mother, murdering her with it (another crime), then violating the Gun Free School Zones act to commit 27 more murders at Sandy Hook elementary.

Those laws did, however, ensure that when Lanza arrived at the school, his victims were, by force of law, disarmed for convenient slaughter.

That kind of situation is exactly what the “Everytown” group advocates for in the name of “Gun Safety.”

That outcome is exactly what Everytown for Gun Safety and other victim disarmament advocates thought of as “justice” when they encouraged and manipulated the Sandy Hook families to pursue meritless and vexatious litigation against Alex Jones.

But while I’m sad that The Onion chose to make itself part of these vile proceedings, I remain a free speech fundamentalist and won’t support such litigation against them when the wickedness they advocate results in more innocents’ deaths.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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