I was reading through this and I remembered a real incident that highlights how people remember facts in times of tragedy or high-stress.

People can get confused and make mistakes of all kinds when they're upset.

My first job was working at a 7-11, night-shift. It was a neat place to work, and rarely were there serious problems.

One night a man got into an argument with a group of young, Hispanic man in the parking lot. When the conversation seemed finished he walked away to head into the stare, not thinking much about it. Unfortunately one of the young men was quite offended, and as the car containing the group of people backed up and started to drive away, he stuck his arm out of the car window and pointed a gun at the man walking into the store.

Fortunately for the intended victim one of the other young men in the car knocked up the arm of the shooter and the bullet missed the man and went instead through the store-front window and into the ceiling. The broken glass made me look up thinking someone had broken a pickle jar.

When the police arrived and questioned the man he was so shaken up by his near-death that he couldn't describe the men (not even their skin color) nor the car type or color they were driving. Other witnesses had to fill in the details.

It really doesn't take much to upset the human mind in a crisis and cause reason and memory to become faulty. In a situation like Sandy Hook where reporters are scrambling to be the first with key details it's common for reporting mistakes to be made, and some never get properly corrected. I saw the same thing happen here in Austin when a man flew his plane into an IRS building (on purpose), just minutes after his home burst into flames. It turned out he was emotionally unstable but there were quite a few rumors flying around that day, and many reporting mistakes were made.

I'm not saying conspiracy doesn't exist and that governments don't do shady things, but 9/11, Boston, and Sandy Hook are all examples of people grasping for a hidden agenda that wasn't there and turning the reactions following the events into secret plots that are nothing more than the reactions of large groups of upset people and the occasional opportunist who turns tragedy to their benefit.