Hey John,

Yesterday, I felt a major sense of relief when I learned that a jury ordered far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay nearly $1 billion to the families of the children killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting. I applaud the jury for delivering justice to these families by holding Alex Jones accountable for spreading lies through his Infowars platform.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Alex Jones spent years falsely claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax and that the families of the victims were paid actors complicit in the plot. This led to the families — who were already grieving the death of a child — being threatened both in-person and online by followers of Alex Jones families.

John, the whole saga makes me sick to my stomach. When my son Jordan was shot and killed, it was unimaginably painful to deal with two trials just to get justice for his murder. It’s the last thing anyone wants to handle on top of the grief of losing a loved one.

The victims’ families had to deal with handwritten messages, emails, and even notes left on car windshields accusing them of being part of this hoax. These bogus accusations take a major toll, especially when conspiracy theorists and their followers go so far as to publish names and addresses online so the families can be harrassed. I can’t even imagine the pain they went through.

I hope that this verdict brings them some sense of closure. On their behalf, I’ll continue fighting for gun reform so that tragedies such as the Sandy Hook massacre don’t happen again. We won’t let evil people like Alex Jones scare us away from tackling these issues.

Sincerely,
Lucy McBath