In the world of ethics, you don’t fight fire with fire. You sue.

As reported by Reuters (Apr. 17), “The parents of two children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre have sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for defamation, accusing him and his website InfoWars of engaging in a campaign of ‘false, cruel, and dangerous assertions.’ …

“The parents decided to sue,” Reuters continues, “more than five years after the attacks because they had concluded Jones has no intention of leaving them alone, [Mark Bankston, a Houston-based lawyer for the parents] said.

“ ‘He needs to held accountable,’ Bankston said in a phone interview. ‘The strategy of ignoring him didn’t work, He didn’t go away.’ ”

For six years, Jones and his Infowars website have fostered the conspiracy theory that the shooting was a “hoax.”

“To bolster his false claims,” The New York Times writes (Apr. 17), “[Jones] often cites news reports and video clips from the hours after the shooting that turned out to be incomplete or based on wrong information.

“Soon after they buried their children, many Sandy Hook parents started to come under fierce attack by conspiracy theorists who have said they are actors in an elaborate scheme to enact stricter gun control laws. The fringe theories still thrive in small forums online but have reached a far greater audience through Mr. Jones, the most vocal propagator.

“The two lawsuits filed on Tuesday represent the first civil action taken by parents accusing Mr. Jones of defamation. One was filed by Leonard Pozner and his former wife, Veronique De La Rosa, and the other was filed by Neil Heslin. Their sons, Noah Pozner and Jesse Heslin, both 6, were killed at Sandy Hook.

“The suits focus on comments made by Mr. Jones in the past year. In a segment on his radio show called ‘Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed,’ which aired on April 22, 2017, Mr. Jones highlighted an interview that Ms. De La Rosa did with Anderson Cooper of CNN after the shooting. While they are standing outside a downtown Newtown building, Mr. Cooper turns his head to face her.

“During that quick head movement, Mr. Cooper’s nose seems to disappear — evidence, Mr. Jones said, that the interview with Ms. De La Rosa was conducted in a studio. In reality, the glitch is known as a compression artifact, a distortion that is common in video encoding.

“Mr. Jones suggests it means they are both actors. ‘When he turns, his nose disappears repeatedly because the green screen isn’t set right,’ he said.”

It is beyond reprehensible that anyone… ANYONE would take advantage of the tragic and real death of children to not only propagate a lie to the public, but ostensibly make money off it.

The tragedy of Sandy Hook has not only been reported by numerous news organizations, but investigations into the murders were conducted by both local and state officials as well as the FBI.

Six school personnel, including the principal, Dawn Hochsprung were killed by 20-year old Adam Lanza. All 20 students were six or seven-years old.

On both his radio show and website, Jones has called – what has been accurately labeled, the 4^th deadliest shooting in the U.S. – fake and that those involved were liars.

“ ‘The statements,” The Times writes, “were a continuation and elaboration of a years long campaign to falsely attack the honesty of the Sandy Hook parents, casting them as participants in a ghastly conspiracy and cover-up,’ the parents’ lawsuits said.”

Would any sane person believe Jones?

“Last June,” The Times added, “a Florida woman who believes the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax was sentenced to five months in prison for making death threats against Mr. Pozner [one of the parents bringing the lawsuit] in voicemail messages and emails.”

I hope the judge or jury in the Jones lawsuit sees fit to increase the award for damages to a level that puts Jones and Infowars out of business.