AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A lawyer for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has told a Texas judge that the "Infowars" host may have views considered fringe or dangerous but that his comments don't rise to the level of defamation.

Jones wasn't in a Travis County courtroom Wednesday as his attorneys asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the parents of one of the children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Jones has claimed that the Connecticut shooting that killed 20 children and six adults was a hoax.

An attorney for Jones, Mark Enoch, told the court the host uses "rhetorical hyperbole" after playing more than a half-hour of footage from one Infowars episode.

State District Judge Scott Jenkins has a month to decide whether to let the lawsuit proceed.