About a month after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin in Oregon posted a video on his Facebook page from conspiracy theorists who said the event might have been a hoax. A few days later, he wrote to Vice President Joe Biden, telling him to stay away from gun control.

Hanlin was thrust into the spotlight on Thursday after a gunman opened fire at a college classroom in Douglas County, killing nine people and wounding several others before police shot him to death.

The sheriff of the woodlands section of Oregon quickly became a focal point of the national debate about mass killings at schools. Some criticize him for opposing measures to make it more difficult to obtain firearms. Others see him as a man of integrity standing up for the constitutional right to bear arms.