A Timeline of Wacko Pro-Gun Conspiracy Theories

(this is a living post, which will be updated regularly with additional conspiracy theories)

Hey, did you hear it?  The government's out to get your guns!  The mass shooting last month was "staged" by the government!  The president is intentionally trying to kill Mexicans to justify an attack on the Second Amendment!  The government is gearing up for civil war and martial law!  The United Nations is about to invade us!

These are the ridiculous assertions that the pro-gun extremists want you to think (or, if they are schizophrenic, that's what they think themselves).  This isn't the belief of mainstream, average gun owners, but rather the delusions of the fringe extremists and fearmongers.  Unfortunately, as you'll see below, some of them are in positions of power and influence.

There have been so many crazy conspiracy theories in the last half year that I had to start listing them.

Fear and paranoia are the stock and trade of the gun industry, at least in the self-defense market.  You wouldn't buy a gun for self-defense unless you had an unhealthy dose of fear to drive the purchase.  Unless you make your livelihood in law enforcement, security, bail bondsman, or some other high-risk job, or are actively being stalked, then chances are that fear is better characterized as paranoia, since the average citizen isn't likely to ever need a gun to protect themselves, and having a gun actually increases your chance of being killed.

If you doubt that last statement, consider the facts.  A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used to harm you than to protect you.  And if you carry that gun on the street with you, you are 4.5 times more likely to be killed.

 But the gun industry wants you afraid -- very afraid.  Not just of the bad guys, but even of our government.  Be afraid of the stranger on the street, too, and in coffee houses, restaurants, and schools.  You never know what they may be thinking, so you'd better carry a loaded gun with you at all times!  Guilty until proven innocent.

Consider, for instance, the NRA's "circus of fear" of statements they've made to keep you afraid.  Fear sells guns.  LOTS of guns.  And that's just fine with the gun manufacturers who "donate" tens of millions of dollars a year to the NRA in return for NRA lobbying on their behalf.

And, furthermore, these fringe fearmongers don't want you to believe that gun owners are actually responsible for shootings.  They would rather you believe that ALL gun owners are responsible citizens only interested in self-protection.  Those shootings by previously law-abiding citizens?  Never mind those!  That's just some sort of government set-up staged to give them reason to take away your gunzzz.

I submit, if the pro-gun side wants to find REAL conspiracies, they need only look to themselves.

So I've started keeping track of some of the pro-gun conspiracy theories.  See below....

(this is a living post, which will be updated regularly)

April 11, 2013:  The government wants to expand background checks in order to create a national registry of gun owners and kill them in a massive genocide, similar to the killing of Tutsis in Rwanda!

According to GOP Congressman Jeff Duncan, from South Carolina, expanding background checks beyond what is already in place for federally licensed dealers would create some sort of national registry (which is already unconstitutional and hasn't been proposed), and would lead to a massive genocide of gun owners by the government.

The 2nd Amendment is (or should be) equal to the 1st Amendment and the 4th Amendment and all of the others. Ask yourselves why it is under attack? Ask yourselves about a National gun registry database and how that might be used and why it is so wanted by progressives. 

Read about the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. Read that all Tutsi tribe members were required to register their address with the Hutu government and that this database was used to locate Tutsi for slaughter at the hands of the Hutu. Since the government had the names and addresses of nearly all Tutsis living in Rwanda (remember, each Rwandan had an identity card that labeled them Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa) the killers could go door to door, slaughtering the Tutsis.

Naturally, Duncan could site no evidence whatsoever that this the U.S. government is planning a registry of gun owners or a genocide.

February, 2013:  The Sandy Hook school shooter, Adam Lanza, committed his acts as a means to "bring gun control to the fore, so as to punish his gun-loving mother" after he had killed her!

This conspiracy theory was suggested by the pro-gun blogger, "Rick F.", from the Truth About Guns blog site.  From that page:  

Is it possible that Lanza reckoned that killing little children en masse would be the final act that would bring gun-control to the fore — so as to punish his gun-loving mother?  Obviously, other acts of violence (while similarly awful) had not created the groundswell of anti-gun rhetoric that has come about as a result of this event.  If true, anti-gunners are playing right into the hands of a madman — though I doubt they’d care.

Said one of the commenters to the post:

I had said that if someone really wanted to create enough backlash to ban guns and it meant enough to them that they would martyr themselves, they would need to shoot up an elementary school or a day care. I would really hate to think that I was right, but we see where it’s going.

Another took it even further, suggesting that Lanza was somehow programmed to kill by our government:

I’ve been saying for a while that due to the speed with which the Left and the Antis jumped on the gun control bandwagon after Sandy Hook that Adam Lanza was a tool of those self-same groups, set up to ignite the gun control debate. Who knows, the conspiracy could even extend all the way to the highest levels of our government.

Another commenter took it further still, suggesting that those who advocate for gun regulation wouldn't have stopped the shooter even if they'd had a chance:

Hell, if gun grabbers knew what he was going to do beforehand they wouldn’t stop him. They would condone his actions. We are dealing with some disgusting people, do not put it past them to celebrate the death of anyone even children if it means furthering their agenda. Just look at how they praised Dorner.

December, 2012:  The Sandy Hook school shooting was somehow staged by President Obama in order to disarm Americans and put in place a totalitarian government!

Naturally, the pro-conspiracy theory website, InfoWars.com, is pushing this one.  According to the host, Alex Jones:

His “proof” is the suggestion that Obama has ordered drone attacks that have cost the lives of some children in other countries.  See the rambling video HERE.

This man does not care about children he cares about disarming the American people to bring in a totalitarian government.

December, 2012:  There were actually multiple shooters at the Sandy Hook school shooting, and everyone involved, including the grieving parents, are trying to cover it up!

According to this wacko theory, there were actually multiple shooters at the school.  The really gross part of this conspiracy theory is that those who suggest it are also saying that the police, media, and even the grieving parents are somehow complicit in the plot, covering up evidence of the other shooters and even faking their grief for the cameras, either purposely or as the result of brainwashing.  Says Alex Jones from InfoWars.com about Robbie Parker, the grieving father of a slain 6-year old:

It appears that members of the media or government have given him a card and are telling him what to say as they steer reaction to this event, so this needs to be looked into.

And in another article, Jones says of the father:

You can watch Parker huffing and puffing and pushing himself into what he thinks is a tragic and grief-stricken state of mind. He does it so badly you wonder why no one in the room calls him on it. It’s beyond strange. Yet reporters later talked about Parker “struggling through tears and suffering to make a heartfelt statement…” The reporters are just as deranged as Parker is.

December, 2012:  The Sandy Hook school shooting wasn't carried out by a lone, insane young man, but rather by an Israeli "death squad!"

Racist commentator Mike Harris blames the Newtown shooting
on "death squads" from Israel

According to one anti-Semitic commentator, Mike Harris (editor of Veterans Today, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, and GOP campaign finance chairman), Israel had a death squad kill those children because of America’s pro-Palestinian stance, or something.  He suggested these “death squads” were also responsible for the Gabby Giffords’ shooting in Tucson, the Aurora movie theater shooting, and the Norway mass shooting.  He goes on to blame “Jewish Senators” for wanting to take away guns from Americans, too, just for good measure. Here's a quote:

This is exactly what Israel did in Norway; the political party that voted sanctions against Israel was retaliated against by a “lone gunman” who killed 77 children. This is what Israel always does, they go after the children. It is what they do in Gaza every day. It is what was done in Norway. It is what happened at Sandy Hook. Nobody buys the “lone gunman” story anymore, not with the Gabby Giffords’ shooting, not with the Aurora “Batman” shooting, certainly not with Breveik, and certainly not in Connecticut.

He also suggests that the shooter, Adam Lanza, was really a “patsy” for the shooting.

December, 2012:  The Sandy Hook school shooting, the Aurora movie theater shooting, and even the naming of Hurricane Sandy were because of brief, brainwashing scenes in the movie "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises," placed there by the "Illuminati!"

Momentary scenes in the movie which feature the words "Sandy Hook" and "Aurora", according to this theory, were actually placed there by the "Illuminati" in order to play mind games with viewers and brainwash them into committing mass murder.   

These momentary mentions are supposedly used to “brainwash” the viewers into committing the Sandy Hook massacre.  And who is behind this “brainwashing”?  Why, the “Illuminati”, of course (anytime you see the word Illuminati, it’s safe to say that the user is a wacko conspiracy theorist).  Said one conspiracy theorist: 

I was denying to myself that this shooting was staged by the deep state and the Illuminati just like the last one in the movie theatre in Colorado. But not anymore. It’s impossible to deny now. These are huge red flags. The filmmakers of The Dark Knight Rises must answer why they dropped these hints in their film. Is this a sick game their playing with the public? Are they dropping hints to themselves?

November, 2012:  "Obamacare" is actually a ploy "for the BATF to take away your guns!"

Larry Pratt, Executive Director of the extremist pro-gun group, Gun Owners of America, suggests that the Health Care for America Plan (or "Obamacare") is going to allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to “take away your guns.”  According to Pratt (click for sound recording as well):

There’s a big one that doesn’t get much attention as a gun measure but it is, and that’s Obamacare. Obamacare among its many unconstitutional aspects, I’m sorry Supreme Court, has made privacy something that only applies between consenting adults but not certainly our relationship with the government. It says that all of our medical records are available to be pawed through by bureaucrats somewhere in Washington, looking for a reason to disenfranchise gun owners, to say ‘oh you have a medical diagnosis that means you might be a danger to yourself or others so we’re going to come and knock on the door for the BATF to take away your guns.’

No surprise that Pratt wants dangerously mentally ill people armed, but since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System was signed into law by President Bush in November 30, 1998, well-before Obamacare was enacted, people who have been adjudicated as dangerously mentally ill or forcefully committed to a mental institution are ineligible for purchasing a gun, and there is also a provision against a general gun ownership database.  

Though mental health reporting is often woefully under-reported, between 1998 and the end of 2004 this mental health disqualification nonetheless prohibited at least 221,478 dangerously mentally-ill people from legally purchasing a firearm.

Of course, Pratt offers no evidence for this supposed conspiracy. 

November, 2012:  The Left's "profound dislike for self-defense" is responsible for the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Benghazi!

On September 11, 2012, a group of terrorists staged an attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. 

According to Larry Pratt, Executive Director of the extremist pro-gun group, Gun Owners of America, and who has ties to white supremacists, the blame for the attack doesn't rest on the terrorists, nor even the embassy security, but rather on "The Left" and their "profound dislike for self-defense."  According to Pratt (click for an audio recording):

What we’re looking at is a profound dislike of self-defense.  This is something that’s characteristic of the Left.  They don’t believe in self-defense either personally or as a matter of national self-defense.  They think that self-defense and the knowledge that a potential victim is capable of self-defense is provocative and actually will make things worse; that somehow the potential victim will make things worse by responding to protect themselves by using, indeed, lethal force.  We see the same mentality in Benghazi where they had actually withdrawn many of the assets they had to protect that building there in Benghazi weeks before the attack.  What they can’t get through their heads is that they had sent an engraved invitation to people who think of nothing but murdering people who are not like them.  ‘Hey, come and get us.  We have now made it so that your job is very likely to succeed.’

Of course, Pratt offers no evidence of this paranoid assertion.

November, 2012:  President Obama is going to use FEMA Corps and the Homeland Security Partnership Council to put gun owners and other conservatives into internment camps and install him as a dictator!

FEMA Corps is a new program which combines FEMA and AmeriCorps for assisting with natural and man-made disaster-response.  But, according to Janet Porter of the fundamentalist Christian extremist group Faith2Action, FEMA Corps is actually "a standing army to stifle dissent."  As she said (click to hear audio): 

Is it a standing army to stifle dissent? That’s what some think the real purpose is for the new group that the government calls FEMA Corps. In September, the Department of Homeland Security graduated its first class of 231 students, consisting of 18 to 24 year olds who were recruited from the President’s AmeriCorps volunteers.   

Some question whether they are really part of a new civilian security force that President Obama has called for in speeches. Reasons for the concern include FEMA’s 2,500 new armored vehicles that come complete with slots for machine guns. 

I know it sound’s unbelievable, but so does the fact that Homeland Security has purchased more than one billion bullets this year. It’s time to take a closer look into FEMA Corps!

The reference to FEMA's "one billion bullets" is another conspiracy theory advanced in August (see below). 

Joseph Farah, editor of the extreme fundamentalist, far-right conspiracy website, WorldNetDaily, then picked up Porter's theory and pushed it further over the cliff of sanity, suggesting that gun owners and other conservatives were going to be rounded up by FEMA Corps, at Obama's direction, and put into internment camps, as well as shutting down independent media, due process, and even the election process!  According to Farah:

I know it’s Halloween, but this is more terrifying than ghosts and goblins and vampires. 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If Barack Obama is re-elected Nov. 6 for a second term, he will declare a full-scale war on his domestic opposition. 

There may not be another free and fair election in America. 

I would expect due process to go the way of the horse and buggy. 

I think he will move to shut down and destroy all independent media. 

In fact, I think his biggest critics will be rounded up in the name of national security. 

Last week, for instance, with little fanfare, Obama issued an executive order establishing something that sounds so innocent on the surface – but it could prove to be a vehicle for the kind of political putsch I am describing. 

It establishes the “White House Homeland Security Partnership Council.”…Essentially, Obama wants to deputize “community organizers” like him to determine who represents a real threat to the republic.…If any Republican, conservative, independent journalist, pro-life activist, returning veteran, gun-rights activist, constitutionalist, Bible believer or critic of Obama thinks they will be safe in a second term under this would-be despot, they had better think again – real fast.

Wow! All of this because of the need for young people to volunteer to help with disaster response?  Talk about wacko!

August, 2012:  President Obama is going to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the United Nations, which is then going to invade small-town America and take away your guns, which will lead to civil war! 

County Judge Tom Head, from Lubbock County, Texas, stated publically that he believed that, if President Obama is re-elected, he would hand over the sovereignty of the United States of America to the United Nations, and all hell would break loose, including invasion by the United Nations, removal of gun rights, and all-out civil war!  He said, in a media interview:

"He is going to do what he wants to do. Now what do you think he is going to try to do in this next term? One of the things, my opinion. One of the things is he's going to try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations. What do you think the public is going to do when that happens? We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war, OK? Now what happens? What happens? Now I'm not talking just talking riots here and there. I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the UN troops, personnel carriers, tanks and weapons." 

Not unrelated, Judge Head is the local emergency response coordinator.  This, apparently, is the emergency response he is preparing for.

Local Democrats called for Judge Head to resign in embarrassment.  Head's response:

“I cannot divorce my theology and my philosophy from my office,” Head told the newspaper. “I am pro-life, I’m pro-gun rights and if you’re gonna vote for me and if you’re not for gun rights, then you probably don’t want me in office.”

August, 2012:  The Government is buying up enough ammunition to declare martial law and take away your gun rights! 

A couple of government agencies (the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security) made large but routine purchases of hollow-point ammunition.  Onepro-conspiracy theory website and radio show decided that this was evidence of a massive government preparation for coming civil unrest due to economic meltdown.  "It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest," they wrote.  I disagree; it is very outlandish.

In response, another extremist website took it one step further, writing that preparations were underway by the government to declare martial law and take away everyone's gun rights!  From the article:

A few observers, however, see a much more ominous motivation behind the mass purchase of ammo. Some believe that the federal government is preparing for Martial law during which citizens would be deprived of the freedom to their firearms and during which curfews would be imposed nationwide.

But what would precipitate the implementation of such a broad based effort at preparation on the part of multiple agencies of the federal government at the present time?

Several factors are possibly at play. Citizens as never before have been purchasing firearms and ammunition at an unprecedented level since 2008. Many believe that unelected forces that are not under the control of citizens are wielding undue influence over the federal government, even to the point of breaking the law and violating the time honored principles of the U.S. Constitution. And some believe that at some point, inevitably citizens who are dedicated to preserving liberty as encapsulated in the Constitution will rise up to depose the shadowy figures lurking in the background, and their puppets within the government, who have determined to impose on the United States a way of thinking and form of government that are foreign to every known principle espoused by the Founding Fathers.

Thankfully, the fact-checking site, Snopes.com, put this nonsense to rest.  While confirming that a government order had been placed, the hype about preparing for civil unrest was false.   The order, along with an order for paper targets, is for law enforcement training and qualifications.

Additionally, a fellow contributor at The Daily Journalist, Sylvia Longmire, who was a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, said that the same hollow point ammunition was regularly used by her department for target practice and qualifications. 

July, 2012:  The Aurora, Colorado mass shooting was actually staged by the government as an excuse for more gun control! 

When a mentally ill young man, James Holmes, opened fire on a crowded movie theater in Aurora, killing 12 and wounding 58, he did so with an arsenal of weapons and body armor which he purchased legally on the internet, and then booby trapped his apartment. Such mass shootings happen all too frequently in the United States.  But, as I said above, pro-gun extremists don't like to believe that "law-abiding" citizens are capable of such atrocities, or that lax gun regulation that allows such weapons into dangerous hands could be partially to blame.  Instead, they would rather blame the government.  Such is the case when an extremist "news" site declared that the Aurora shooter was "enlisted" by the government to carry out the act.  From the site:

I wouldn't be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there's no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to "do something!" Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it's never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.

He then tried to tie this conspiracy theory to the U.N. Small Arms Treaty conspiracy theory, because of its timing (see below).  He also, incredibly, tried to confuse the issue by denying that the weapons and body armor would be easily available or that a college student would be able to purchase them, despite the fact that they are.

This  ridiculous conspiracy about the Aurora shooting, with no evidence whatsoever, was then repeated and propagated by the president of the Gun Owners of America, Larry Pratt, who also tried to tie the shooting to the U.N. Small Arms Treaty conspiracy theory.

The closest thing the conspiracy theorists have to "evidence" is what they perceive as slight differences in facial features in before and after pictures of the shooter, implying that the person who was arrested couldn't possibly be the actual James Holmes but rather an "impostor."

July, 2012:  The U.N. Small Arms Treaty will remove your gun rights and create a U.N. global gun control bureaucracy! 

The United Nations Small Arms Treaty is intended to control the illicit international trade of guns to keep them out of the hands of human rights abusers.  It would have no affect on domestic arms laws in the United States.  The only people who would be affected by this oversight would be the abusers and the gun industry who sells to them and their middlemen.  Naturally, representing the gun manufacturers, the NRA came out against it and engaged in a campaign of fearmongering.  Said Chris Cox, a top lobbyist for the NRA:

But according to Cox's theory "the world's socialist, tyrannical and dictatorial regimes" will use the treaty to "implement international gun registration requirements, bans on commonly owned firearms, tracking and registration of ammunition purchases, and create a new U.N. gun control bureaucracy" thus fulfilling "President Barack Obama's vision for America." 

Of course, this conspiracy has no grounding in reality.  From the article (italics added):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also said that treaty is "opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes."

A senior policy advisor to the humanitarian organization Oxfam America has also pushed back against claims that the treaty has the nefarious purpose of interfering with domestic law:

"No government is discussing a treaty that would ever impact the right to bear arms, nor require regulation of domestic sales of arms," said Scott Stedjan, a senior policy adviser at the relief group Oxfam America. "This is totally about international transfer of arms so that they don't go to human rights abusers." 

But pro-gun extremists don't pay attention to facts.  Instead, they ran with the distortions from the NRA.  From one extremist blog, which took Cox's assertions and stretched them even further:

It is expected that the Washington Gun-Grabbers will package the treaty as legislation to assist in the fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates.” But the truth is this: The U.N.’s Small Arms Treaty is nothing more than a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.

American organizations supporting the Second Amendment have warned that the U.N.’s Small Arms Treaty would almost certainly FORCE national governments to:make gun licensing requirements far tougher than they are now, which would force law-abiding citizens to have to trudge through even more bureaucratic red tape just to legally own a gun;

It would also give the UN the power to CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms.  Of course, all firearms owned by the government will be excluded.

The treaty would BAN the trade, sale, and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons.

There will be an INTERNATIONAL gun registry created.  Once they know who has the guns -- and where the guns are -- we can expect full-scale gun CONFISCATION.

Conservative politicians, such as Rand Paul, have propagated this conspiracy theory for political gain.

June, 2012:  "Operation Fast and Furious" wasn't just a failed attempt to track guns to Mexican drug lords, but rather an attempt to create gun violence in Mexico as a means of justifying tougher gun laws in the U.S. and attack the Second Amendment!

Between 2006 and 2011, the ATF’s Project Gunrunner attempted to track straw purchases and illegal gun trafficking to Mexican drug cartels.  Since a database of gun sales isn’t allowed in America, and loose gun regulation, particularly in the state of Arizona, makes it almost impossible to prevent large gun sales and trafficking, the ATF had to work with a patchwork of local regulations to monitor and track gun sales to illegal parties.  Around 2000 guns were sold and attempted to be monitored as part of the program, but only a few small-time illegal gun sellers were actually arrested.  As a result of internal disputes, many guns went untracked, though the ATF never intended for those guns to “walk” out of their control, as discovered by a six-month investigation by Fortune magazine.  One federal agent, Brian Terry, was killed with one of those guns, as well as an unknown number of Mexican citizens.  Only around 700 of those guns have since been recovered.

The project was clearly a failure, with tragic consequences, but the NRA came up with a more extreme conspiracy theory.  According to them, Operation Fast and Furious, led by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, intentionally allowed thousands of guns to go into Mexico, hoping that the deaths of innocents would give more reason to pass stricter gun laws here in the United States and attack the Second Amendment.  This, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that President Obama had any knowledge of the workings of the program, or any evidence that Holder was in control of the program, and despite the findings of Katherine Eban for a Fortune Magazine investigation that no guns were intentionally allowed to “walk” by the ATF.

Nonetheless, FOX News was quick to pick up the conspiracy and advertise it as news as well as GOP pundits like Rush Limbaugh, and certain conservative GOP politicians, such as Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Said Rep. Issa:

“The whole point, don't forget, the whole point of Fast and Furious was to create mayhem in Mexico among drug cartels with American-made weapons easily procured so that you and I would stand up in outrage and demand tighter gun laws.  It was deceitful. It was sneaky.  It was going against the will of the American people. It was liberalism on parade. It's who these people are.  They want tighter gun laws.  Folks, I want to make this as simple as I can.  They created crimes.  There's no other way to characterize this.  They created, they manufactured crime.  They enabled crimes.  They saw to it that American guns ended up in Mexican drug cartel hands.  And, of course, those people get the guns, they use them. When, in fact, it probably was difficult for the drug cartels to get the guns.  It probably was not easy for the drug cartels to get the guns.  Certainly not walking into gun stores in Phoenix and elsewhere, then crossing the border. 

“So they set that up.  They created crimes.  It would be no different than if they wanted to ban airplanes, to engineer a bunch of crashes.  I'm trying to think of a smart analogy to give you.  If this bunch wanted all airplanes grounded, sabotage a bunch so they crash, and the people of the country demand that all airplanes be grounded.  They wanted these guns that were used in these crimes to come from America.” 

After the Fortune magazine investigation by Katherine Eban, one blog post by the People for the American Way summarized it thusly:

Eban’s reporting unearthed absolutely no evidence that the tactic of “gun walking”, which Rep. Issa and his allies continue to put front and center, was ever actually in play. “The ATF's accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn't actually exist”.

Predicated upon erroneous and misleading information, the Fast and Furious ‘scandal’ is heavy on political intrigue, yet light on substance. 

Just to pound a nail in the coffin of this conspiracy theory, a report by Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice inspector general, influenced by Eban's investigation, also found no evidence that knowledge of the ATF program ever reached the level of Holder, much less the President, prior to the end of the program, and that there was no conspiracy to reduce gun rights.

For over a year, it's been an article of faith on the right that Fast and Furious was a carefully constructed scheme directed by the White House to trash the Second Amendment and build support for more gun control laws. It wasn't. Neither the White House nor Eric Holder had any idea what was going on. It was just a local operation that was badly botched. This makes Fast and Furious offically yet another lunatic conservative conspiracy theory that has bitten the dust in the cold light of reality.

May, 2012:  The murder/suicide of four people at the hands of militiaman J.T. Ready was actually staged! 

J.T. Ready was a "citizen's militia" leader, self-appointed patroller of the border with Mexico, dabbler in politics (as a Tea Party speaker and candidate for Sheriff), and an ardent neo-Nazi.  He made waves with his staunch, hardline aggressive stance against illegal aliens and his extreme pro-gun, vigilante opinions.  Then, one evening, he strapped on body armor, armed himself with two handguns and a shotgun, then walked into a home in Gilbert, Arizona and shot four people to death, including a baby.  He then killed himself.

Unhappy with the thought that one of their fiercest supporters could have carried out such a heinous act, the pro-gun extremists quickly jumped to the conclusion, with no evidence whatsoever, that  Ready hadn't actually committed the act.  Rather, they speculated, it must have been carried out by some other organization that opposed his views.  One conspiracy-theory website accused the Mexican mafia, opponents of "immigration reform and the 2nd Amendment", or even the U.S. government.  From the website:

This political position – particularly from someone running for Sheriff in America’s most embattled county, made him a target of the federal government.

If there was motive to kill J.T. Ready, perhaps it was his role in intercepting drugs from the powerful Sinaloa Drug Cartel.  Perhaps it was his open distaste for the Federal Government and Arizona’s open borders.  Or maybe it was his ambition to become Sheriff – in a border county which is currently the number one theater for drug smuggling and border crime in the United States of America.

These baseless speculations were then echoed on neo-Nazi and pro-gun forums, such as THIS ONE.

September, 2011:  President Obama hasn't passed any laws to restrict gun owners, which is evidence that he wants to destroy the Second Amendment! 

President Obama has done nothing to restrict gun ownership, and has only strengthened gun rights by allowing them in national parks and on Amtrak trains.  But if you believe the NRA's executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, President Obama's support of gun rights is only evidence that he actually wants to remove your gun rights.  From LaPierre's speech at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida:

"They’ll say gun owners — they’ll say they left them alone…In public, the president will remind us that he’s put off calls from his party to renew the old Clinton ban, that he hasn’t pushed for new gun control laws…The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment. But it’s a big fat stinking lie!…It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country…Before the president was even sworn into office, they met and they hatched a conspiracy of public deception to try to guarantee his re-election in 2012.

That's rich!  Next time someone does you a favor and tries to see your side of an issue, be sure to accuse them of plotting against you on that issue.  See what happens.

Here is what ThinkProgress.org had to say about LaPierre’s statement:

LaPierre’s iron-clad logic is that Obama’s failure to take any action against gun owners in his first term means he is conspiring to launch an all-out assault on their rights in his second term. Equally ridiculous is LaPierre’s suggestion that he somehow has secret knowledge that the president “makes fun of gun-owners” when he’s in private or had a conspiratorial meeting with advisers before he took office where he plotted the Second Amendment’s downfall.

“Our freedom is at risk at this election like never before,” LaPierre claimed at the beginning of his speech, using the same fear-mongering the NRA has depended on since Obama took office to enhance their own membership and financial contributions.

It’s unclear, however, why anyone should believe the NRA’s paranoia. By LaPierre’s logic, Obama also has a secret plan to launch a manned mission to Uranus, convert the nation to Pastafarianism, and wipe out the pink flamingo. After all, Obama has done exactly as much to accomplish these three goals as he has done to undermine gun owners’ rights.

PolitiFact.com rated LaPierre’s statements as “mostly false.”