+
“A balm for the soul”
  review on Goodreads
GOOD PEOPLE Book
upworthy

sandy hook

Pop Culture

‘I deserve to be hated’: Ronda Rousey finally apologizes for Sandy Hook conspiracy video

It took 11 years, but she has some harsh truths for people who spread conspiracies.

via Liam Enea/Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons

The Sandy Hook memorial and WWE star Ronda Rousey.

UFC Hall of Famer, former WWE star and actress Ronda Rousey had a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Tuesday, August 20, to promote the Kickstarter page for her first graphic novel. But things didn’t go as she planned.

The post was flooded with Redditors asking her about the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 people dead, including 20 young students. A month after the tragedy, Rousey posted a link to a YouTube conspiracy video about the shooting that she called “extremely interesting” and “must-watch.”

She deleted the post but didn’t exactly back down from the decision.



The top comments on the Reddit AMA were all about the shooting. “Over a decade ago, you tweeted, ‘I never meant to insult or hurt anyone, sorry if anyone was offended. It was not my intention in the least.’ after sharing a video that you called ‘must-watch’ and ‘interesting’ that had claimed the Sandy Hook School Massacre was part of a government conspiracy,” the top commenter wrote. “Considering 20 children were slaughtered and one was shot as many as 11 times, is it fair to say that you owe a much better public apology than the one you issued?”

Three days after the AMA and 11 years after posting the controversial video, Rousey posted a heartfelt apology on Twitter.

“I can't say how many times I've redrafted this apology over the last 11 years. How many times I've convinced myself it wasn't the right time or that I'd be causing even more damage by giving it. But eleven years ago I made the single most regrettable decision of my life,” she wrote.

“I drafted a thousandth apology to include in my last memoir, but my publisher begged me to take it out, saying it would overshadow everything else and do more harm than good. So I convinced myself that apologizing would just reopen the wound for no other reason than me selfishly trying to make myself feel better, that I would hurt those suffering even more and possibly lead more people down the black hole of conspiracy bullshit by it being brought up again just so I could try to shake the label of being a ‘Sandy Hook truther,’” she wrote.

Rousey sided with those who have criticized her and said she deserved to lose opportunities because of her actions. “But honestly I deserve to be hated, labeled,detested, resented and worse for it. I deserve to lose out on every opportunity, I should have been canceled, I would have deserved it. I still do,” she continued.

Rousey then addressed those who were personally affected by the shooting.

“I can't even begin to imagine the pain you've endured and words cannot describe how thoroughly remorseful and ashamed I am of myself for contributing to it. I've regretted it every day of my life since and will continue to do so until the day I die,” Rousey wrote.

She ended the apology by addressing those who continue to embrace conspiracy theories, warning them to avoid falling into the same trap that she did.

“And to anyone else that's fallen down the black hole of bulls**t. It doesn't make you edgy, or an independent thinker, you're not doing your due diligence entertaining every possibility by digesting these conspiracies,” Rousey wrote. “They will only make you feel powerless, afraid, miserable and isolated. You're doing nothing but hurting others and yourself. Regardless of how many bridges you've burned over it, stop digging yourself a deeper hole, don't get wrapped up in the sunk cost fallacy, no matter how long you've gone down the wrong road, you should still turn back.”



It’s impossible to know what’s inside another person’s heart. But Rousey’s apology did a commendable job of atoning for her mistakes and attempting to prevent others from doing the same.

Ultimately, it’s not up to the general public to decide whether Rousey’s apology was adequate to make up for her actions. It’s up to those who were personally affected by the tragedy, who had to endure countless attacks by conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones. One can hope that the apology provided solace to those who’ve suffered an unimaginable loss and can help prevent others from inflicting the same pain.

From Your Site Articles
sandy hook
Wellness

Sandy Hook survivors are in high school now and talking about their trauma. We need to listen.

Newtown Action Alliance/YouTube, @indigogloves/Twitter

Sandy Hook school shooting survivors are growing up and telling us what they've experienced.

This story originally appeared on 12.15.21


Imagine being 6 years old, sitting in your classroom in an idyllic small town, when you start hearing gunshots. Your teacher tries to sound calm, but you hear the fear in her voice as she tells you to go hide in your cubby. She says, "be quiet as a mouse," but the sobs of your classmates ring in your ears. In four minutes, you hear more than 150 gunshots.

You're in the first grade. You wholeheartedly believe in Santa Claus and magic. You're excited about losing your front teeth. Your parents still prescreen PG-rated films so they can prepare you for things that might be scary in them.

And yet here you are, living through a horror few can fathom.

The trauma of any school shooting is hard to imagine, but the Sandy Hook massacre was in a league of its own. These were first graders. Twenty babies, shot and killed in a matter of minutes. Six educators who tried to protect them.

That was nine years ago. Now the kids that survived Sandy Hook are in high school, and some of them are opening up about their experiences. Their voices deserve to be heard.

In February of this year, Sandy Hook survivor Ashley shared her story with NowThis News. Some of the scenario above was taken from her account:

Sandy Hook Survivor Speaks Out for the First Time

Ashley was 7 when she went through the trauma of Sandy Hook. She said she has experienced survivor's guilt and the pain of people claiming that the shooting was a hoax. "I can’t give you proof except for my trauma," she said.

Another Sandy Hook survivor, Maggie LaBlanca, shared her story at this year's National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence last week. Her best friend, Daniel, was killed in the shooting.

"It's been almost nine years since I endured that day. Everything has stayed with me so clearly," she said. "The trauma never went away, and I still feel sad all the time that I'm here and they're not. I look for Daniel everywhere because it's hard to accept that I lost him."

We mourn those who are killed in school shootings and focus on the numbers of deaths, but the survivors deserve just as much of our thought and emotion. It's traumatic for anyone to have a loved one murdered or to witness someone being killed in front of them. In the worst scenarios, both of those things happen at the same time. And when it's children who are the witnesses, that's just a tragedy none of us should accept as normal.

This TikTok video from a Sandy Hook survivor sums it up succinctly.

At the time, we thought Sandy Hook had to be the last straw. We thought surely 6-year-olds shot and killed in their classrooms would change things. Our lawmakers would surely unite to take action—to do something, anything—to try to prevent this kind of thing from happening. People pleaded. Activists organized. And our laws have barely budged, especially at the federal level, where they have the greatest chance of actually being effective.

It doesn't have to be this way. Most Americans agree on some very basic gun legislation. A 2019 poll reported by Politico showed that 70% of Americans support banning assault weapons, including a majority of both Democrats and Republicans. Also in 2019, a National Public Radio (NPR), PBS NewsHour and Maris College poll found that 83% of Americans want Congress to pass legislation requiring background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or via other private sales.

Why wouldn't we want to make it harder for abusers or people with a history of violent or threatening behavior to get firearms? Why wouldn't we want to make it harder for troubled teens to get a hold of guns in their household?

Gun rights activists will argue that no law will prevent all shootings, which is true. The U.S. has far too many guns in circulation to curb all gun violence. But some will prevent some, and some is better than none, especially when we're raising generations of kids who have to practice what to do if a gunman starts shooting up their school.

What we have now is not normal. It's not freedom. It's a tragic embarrassment and a stain on our nation—one that we don't have to accept without a fight. We owe these kids at least that much.

To learn more about common-sense gun legislation and how to make a difference, check out Everytown for Gun Safety at everytown.org and Sandy Hook Promise sandyhookpromise.org.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
democracy
Culture

Obama responded to the Atlanta shooting with a renewed call for 'common sense' gun control laws

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a grim time in American life, with death and illness dominating the national consciousness. But there has been one thing notably absent from the nightly news: stories of public mass shootings.

A database compiled by USA Today, The Associated Press, and Northeastern University found there were only two public mass shootings in 2020 and both occurred before the lockdown. That's a steep drop off from 2019 and 2018 when there were nine and 10 such shootings, respectively.

Public mass killings are defined by the database as events where four or more deaths occur, not including the shooter, and are not instances of domestic violence or associated with gang conflict, drug trade, or other criminal activity.

According to researchers, there were two major reasons for the decline. First, people have been leery about going out in public for the most part of 2020, creating fewer opportunities for slayings at schools, workplaces, or movie theaters.

Second, Americans were so focused on other tragedies that shooters were less likely to consider vicious acts.

"The thing about mass shooters is they tend to be people who feel that they are the victims of injustice. Well, lots of people now are suffering, not just them," James Alan Fox, a criminologist, and professor at Northeastern University, told AP.

"It's hard to say right now that your own plight is unique or unfair. It may not feel good, but there's certainly reason for it. And it's not because of something someone's doing to you. It's really the pandemic, which is a thing not a person," Fox continued.

The murder of eight people at Atlanta massage spas on Tuesday was a grim reminder of the type of violence that was rampant in pre-pandemic America. It felt like a wake-up call to the country saying that a return to public life may mean a resurgence in these senseless acts of violence.

Former President Barack Obama, a staunch supporter of gun control measures, used the Atlanta tragedy to call on Americans to renew their commitment to gun-control policy.

"Even as we've battled the pandemic, we've continued to neglect the longer-lasting epidemic of gun violence in America," Obama said on Twitter Wednesday.

"Although the shooter's motive is not yet clear, the identity of the victims underscores an alarming rise in anti-Asian violence that must end," he continued.

"Yesterday's shootings are another tragic reminder that we have far more work to do to put in place common sense gun safety laws and root out the pervasive patterns of hatred and violence in our society," he said.

Obama's call for the country to enact sensible gun laws is a policy priority that reaches back to his days in the oval office. The 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newton, Connecticut caused him incredible anguish.

The failure of Congress to address the gun violence problem with gun control measures caused him further frustration.

"I will say that was not only maybe the saddest day of my presidency, but when Congress failed to do anything in the aftermath of Sandy Hook was probably the angriest I ever was during my presidency," Obama said.

"I was disgusted and appalled by the inaction because you had parents who had just lost their children sitting in front of senators and asking for very modest, reasonable approaches," he continued.

Obama has an ally in the White House with his former Vice-President, President Joe Biden. Currently, a bipartisan group is pushing measures that would require background checks for all gun purchases.

Biden has also called for "universal background check legislation, requiring a background check for all gun sales with very limited exceptions, such as gifts between close family members."

The president also wants to "keep guns out of dangerous hands" through background checks and by closing "other loopholes that allow people who should be prohibited from purchasing firearms from making those purchases."

As the country prepares to get back to normal, let's hope that one far-too-common aspect of American life, public mass shootings, is something we leave in the pre-pandemic past.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
gun control
Most Shared

Alex Jones gets sued for his relentless campaign to torment Sandy Hook parents.

On Monday, April 16, parents of two students who died during the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting sued conspiracy theorist and media personality Alex Jones.

Jones, who runs the far-right conspiracy site Infowars.com, is no stranger to lawsuits. To say he plays fast and loose with facts would be an understatement, as he's pushed a number of absurd conspiracy theories over the years, including the idea that the government can control the weather and summon tornadoes at will, that Hillary Clinton has personally murdered people and runs a child sex trafficking operation out of a Washington, D.C.-area pizza place, and of course, his belief that the government is putting chemicals in our water supply that is making frogs gay.

None of his ridiculous conspiracy theories have had as lasting and as painful an effect as what he did to the Sandy Hook parents. More than five years after the tragedy, Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son died in the shooting, and Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, whose 5-year-old son also died, filed suit against Jones, Infowars, and a company called Free Speech Systems LLC.

Neil Heslin testified before congress in February 2013. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

His lies have turned these parents' lives into a living hell.

With an intense fanbase conditioned to not believe anything the mainstream media says, Jones should know better than to share baseless and dubious accusations about these families, lumping them into bizarre conspiracy theories.

Jones' YouTube page is riddled with videos related to the shooting, many pushing the idea that the whole thing was a "false flag" (in this case, the argument seems to be that the shooting was ordered and carried out by members of the government or some other shadowy organization to pressure Congress into taking away everyone's guns ... or something like that), that the entire thing was a hoax where no one died, that victims or their families were "crisis actors," and so on. A lot of this is pushed out there under the guise of "just asking questions" or some larger quest for truth that's being hidden.

Days after the shooting, community members grieve at a makeshift memorial for the Sandy Hook victims. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

Here's just a small sampling of some of the videos still live on his page: Is Connecticut Shooting a False Flag?, Connecticut School Massacre Looks Like False Flag Says Witnesses, Sandy Hook, False Narratives Vs. The Reality, Sandy Hook: The Lies Keep Growing, New Sandy Hook Questions Arise from FOIA Hearing, Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed, Were Crisis Actors Used in Sandy Hook Massacre?, Creepy Illuminati Message in Batman Movie Hints at Sandy Hook School, Crisis Actors Used at Sandy Hook! Special Report, Dr. Steve Pieczenik: Sandy Hook Was a Total False Flag!, Retired FBI Agent Investigates Sandy Hook: Mega Massive Cover Up, Revealed: Sandy Hook Truth Exposed, Sandy Hook "Officials" Caught In Coverup And Running Scared, Bombshell: Sandy Hook Massacre Was a DHS Illusion Says School Safety Expert, and Why People Think Sandy Hook Is a Hoax.

A headline on Jones' website pushing a false claim about an FBI report. Image from Infowars.

In 2016, one fan of Jones' Sandy Hook commentary was arrested for sending death threats to Pozner. The woman, Lucy Richards, allegedly sent Pozner messages like "you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon" and "LOOK BEHIND YOU IT IS DEATH."

These families just want to be left alone, but Jones and other conspiracy theorists won't let up.

Pozner founded the Sandy Hook Honor Network in hopes of fighting back against the conspiracies about his son and the others gunned down. Still, the attacks continue from Jones and others. The internet makes spreading misinformation easier than ever, and conspiracy theorists like Jones have thrived as a result.

This lawsuit is about more than just Sandy Hook. This lawsuit is about fighting back against conspiracy theories and no longer allowing people to profit off disinformation. How many more people need to be tormented by Jones and others before we say enough?

From Your Site Articles
Trending Stories