Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members. Before driving to the school, he shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived at the school, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

A November 2013 report issued by the Connecticut State Attorney's office concluded that Lanza acted alone and planned his actions, but provided no indication why he did so, or why he targeted the school. A report issued by the Office of the Child Advocate in November 2014 said that Lanza had Asperger's syndrome and as a teenager suffered from depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but concluded that they had "neither caused nor led to his murderous acts." The report went on to say, "his severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems ... combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence ... (and) access to deadly weapons ... proved a recipe for mass murder".

The shooting was used to advocate for increased gun control in the United States. Relatedly, some conspiracy theories, such as by Alex Jones, have questioned aspects of the shooting. In 2018, the parents of several children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting launched a lawsuit against Alex Jones and other authors of conspiracy videos for defamation.

In August 2022 Jones was ordered to pay $45.2m in punitive damages, in addition to $4.1m in compensatory damages the plaintiffs awarded a day earlier.