Made me think of what I call, "the tinfoil hat phenomenon". There are groups or even institutions that don't want the populace generally to believe that they would do what they're doing. So they start spreading rumors that are absurd, so that people will classify what's really going on as another one of those crazy "conspiracy theories". I call it the "tinfoil hat phenomenon" because, when the United States began testing experimental aircraft in the 1950's, they intentionally fostered rumors about aliens from other planets flying around, alien abductions, aliens shooting gamma rays to reprogram people's brains, stuff like that. So "area fifty-one" became known as the secret installation where the U.S. was doing research on aliens, and people started talking about strange experiences they'd had. Sort of like the popularity of succubi and incubi in the late middle ages. So the more people talked about the aliens, the more all talk about the possibility of extraterrestrial life became identified with the lunatic fringe. So when people actually saw experimental aircraft, they either didn't talk about it or became known as one of those nutcase tinfoil hat people.
I've had a number of walk-in clients with nearly identical, but absurd stories about how the CIA had planted "listening devices" in their brains, and that nearby neighbors had special radio equipment to spy on the subjects' thoughts, even to observing what the subjects were seeing. Each of these prospective clients had a drawing which they'd made, purportedly depicting a map of their brains showing the locations of all the devices the CIA had planted in them. They all had the same idea: "I want justice; I want it now; I want it on my terms; I want it for free; and I want you to get it for me because of your dedication to the cause of justice and because this case will result in important precedents for which you'll become famous." I didn't take any of those cases, and in fact, I closed that office and started working out of my house.
On the other hand, I had one prospective client who'd had a grandfather who was from that part of India that later became Pakistan. He went to work for an agency of the United States, and became enrolled in their medical/dental insurance plan. The plan identified specific doctors and dentists enrollees were to see, and the PC cooperated with that. Later, he discovered that the dentist had implanted a device near the temporomandibular joint on one side of his face, and the doctor had implanted several devices in different parts of his body. CAT scans revealed five such devices in all, and the existence and function of these devices have been confirmed by reliable experts. The devices were passive RFID chips, like they use on dogs. The idea being apparently, that because he'd had an ancestor of Middle-Eastern extraction, he might be sympathetic to terrorists, so when he goes through airport security, they want to be able to know about it and track his movements. He's not a nut case, and I referred him to a guy who does civil rights litigation. But the fake rumors originated by government agencies and others designed to cover their tracks by getting people to dismiss such allegations had an effect on his ability to get medical treatment for the injuries sustained in the insertion of these devices.
So what I'm thinking is this: I'll start telling people that it is a well-known and established fact, that the VCDL is a heavily armed group organized by and run by the Jesuits as part of their plot to take over the government of the United States by force. They have many such groups, all over the country which the recent arrests in Oregon go to prove. Most of the members of the VCDL would identify themselves as Christians, and many as Catholic, and they are all sympathetic to the claims that the Pope is the legitimate head of all civil governments, and are secretly working to establish him as Emperor in the United States, in league with Catholic spies in the State Department and the CIA. This is the reason that the VCDL is working so hard to get guns into the hands of illegal immigrants from Central and South America, because the incoming Latins are all Catholic. That's the real reason why they oppose the sensible gun control legislation aimed at closing the gun-show loophole, to prohibit anonymous online sales of firearms without a background check, and to require local law enforcement agencies to sell guns seized as evidence to anyone who comes in with the cash instead of destroying them or converting them to law enforcement use.
See, after hearing that often enough, people will just relegate all these conspiracy theories to rubbish, and assume that all anti-gun nuts are just that. Right?