Why Won’t Donald Trump Denounce Sandy Hook Deniers?

In the rank confusion of Donald Trump’s preparations to assume power, there are some decisions that look as if they should be easy. Last week, Erica Lafferty wrote the President-elect an open letter asking him to cut ties with the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Lafferty is the daughter of Dawn Hochsprung, who was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut. On December 14, 2012, Hochsprung was shot to death while trying to stop Adam Lanza, who murdered twenty children and six other adults that morning, before killing himself. Jones, who is based in Austin, Texas, and runs a radio show and Web site called Infowars, has repeatedly argued that the mass killing at Sandy Hook was a hoax, that it was staged by the government and performed by paid actors. Jones and many of his fans contend that the government has orchestrated a number of mass shootings and national tragedies, including the September 11th terror attacks and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, but their Sandy Hook denial has a particular cruelty. They actually seem to make special efforts to torment the bereaved.