Survivors demand Marjorie Taylor Green resign over more school shooting conspiracy comments

Georgia congresswoman appeared to support several comments on Facebook in 2018 claiming that several deadly mass shootings were ‘staged’ or ‘false flags’

Gun control organisations and school shooting survivors have called for newly elected Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to step down after more uncovered social media posts appear to show her supporting conspiracies that the 9-11 attacks were “done by our own" government and that "none of the school shootings were real or done by the ones who were supposedly arrested for them."

Earlier this week, Media Matters discovered that the Georgia congresswoman appeared to endorse a conspiracy theory on Facebook in 2018 that the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a “false flag” event. 

The right-wing media research group also found that she had replied to a Facebook comment in 2018 amplifying numerous conspiracies, including that the killing of 20 children and six school staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was a “staged” event, and that there are messages in the Georgia Guidestones, a granite monument in the state that has been central to several conspiracy theories.

She said: “That is all true. By the way, I’ve seen the Georgia guide stones.”

School shooting survivors as well as Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action  – gun control advocacy groups that formed in the wake of several mass killings – have called for her resignation this week.

The congresswoman "continues to lower the already-subterranean bar she’s set for herself, and further embarrass our entire government,” said Sari Kaufman, a volunteer leader with Students Demand Action. 

Ms Kaufman is also a survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed and and more than a dozen others were injured in 2018.

“She should step down and take her radical extremism, conspiracy theories, and hate fueled lies far, far away," Ms Kaufman said in a statement.

In a message on Twitter, the congresswoman said: “Communists bloggers like [Media Matters] run the same playbook of lies and smears on people they feel threatened by. Produce fake news, spread it all around, then tag all fake news stories about their victim in all future stories. Guess what? Nobody cares about your BS.”

David Hogg, a gun control advocate who survived the Parkland killings, has also called for her resignation.

He also wrote to the congresswoman: “Why did you call the shooting at my high school a false flag? 17 classmates and staff died – spreading conspiracies about this tragedy is disgusting.”

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the attack, wrote to the congresswoman on Twitter, saying: “We have never met. It appears you think or at one time thought the school shooting in Florida was a false flag. I know you have met Parkland parents. This is my daughter Jaime, she was killed that day.  Do you still believe this?  Why would you say this?”

In another statement, the congresswoman said that gun-free school zones are a “failure” but did not address the previous Facebook comments or her replies to them.