“The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ InfoWars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax,” the Associated Press reported Thursday.
That absurdity has been compounded with another:
“[I]t will relaunch the InfoWars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about gun violence prevention from the group Everytown for Gun Safety.”
“We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told,” Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, gloated to AP.
Gun owners who don’t revel in the cruelty of personal destruction aren’t laughing, and it has less to do with fidelity to Alex Jones than it does with an award that seems insanely disproportionate to the offense—it wasn’t Jones who killed anyone, and whatever he said could hardly be credibly equated with the “settlement” awarded.
And curiously, the ones not held liable who are high-fiving and profiting from this all demand their children and your children be placed in compulsory “gun-free” predator empowerment zones.
While the damage done by the killer is incalculable, and no amount of money could ever compensate a parent for the loss of a child, how much damage could what Jones said have really done? To put things in perspective:
“The average verdict for a paraplegia case is $13,854,040… The average settlement for high quadriplegia is $1.6 million in the first year, and $185,000 each year after that. The average settlement for low quadriplegia is $770,000 in the first year, and $114,000 each year after that… The average compensation for medical malpractice claims is around $329,565.”
Who would rather suffer one of those injuries than have an internet commentator, who many have probably never even listened to, say what Jones did?
The verdict seems excessively cruel, unusual, and vengeful. It seems as much of an indictment against the stupid, biased jurors who awarded it and hardly indicative of the better angels of plaintiffs’ natures. And this may be a case of what goes around comes around, especially if we’re going to start quantifying damages done to psyches over the propaganda masquerading as “mainstream” news.
It’s ironic that Jones has essentially been punished for “fake news,” the very thing The Onion exploits for its own profits. And if truthfulness is the key, what does that say about the entire citizen disarmament industry, with its foundations steeped in deception and gun-grabber lies designed to swindle low-information citizens out of their birthright?
Time will tell if Collins will still be laughing when he finds the new InfoWars is only frequented by the same dwindling audience that gave MSNBC a 50% ratings drop since Democrats got their hindquarters handed to them in the Trump electoral landslide. Why would 80 million Trump voters patronize anything associated with the snotty Alinsky Rule 5 halfwits at The Onion, especially since a satire site more aligned with their values, The Babylon Bee, skewers leftist absurdities, beats them at their own game, and is just plain funnier?
We’ll see how diverging from its core purpose, comedy, and embracing angry woke scolding, affects the bottom line going forward.
Time will also tell if Everytown’s involvement in this travesty is any more successful than it’s failed “gun control” campaigns that have never demonstrably saved one life or ever proven the fraudulent claim of providing “commonsense gun safety.” They and fellow prohibitionists, including Giffords and Brady, are desperately trying to regroup and come up with winning strategies now that Second Amendment advocate groups are beating back infringements in courts. The incoming Trump/Vance administration, along with a new Senate majority, is poised to reshape the federal courts with justices who will leave them anything but laughing.
[Disclosure: I was once Alex Jones’ guest on InfoWars, the subject being more gun prohibitionist lies, but that video has been removed by YouTube and is no longer available.]
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
