Pizzagate gunman dined on diet of fringe online conspiracy theories, report says

The Pizzagate gunman, who this past Sunday walked into Washington, DC pizza parlor Comet Ping Ping and fired off a rifle, is a everyday dad who fed on one too many fringe conspiracy theories, according to an interview with The New York Times. Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-old father of two from Salisbury, North Carolina, said he recently gained access to the internet at his home, and that he used his newfound connection to dive deep into the dark corners of the web.

“I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way,” Welch, who’s staying at a hospital next to the city jail, told the paper. “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent. I regret how I handled the situation.” Welch described himself as an avid reader and a religious man of late. He happens to listen to prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and he also believes 9/11 needs to be looked into to determine whether it was an inside job.

Already predisposed to conspiracy theories, Welch had recently become convinced that Comet Ping Pong was the center of a child trafficking ring led by Hillary Clinton and members of her campaign staff — otherwise known as the Pizzagate conspiracy. Pizzagate allegedly began when emails released by WikiLeaks showed Clinton campaign chief John Podesta mentioning Comet Ping Pong as a potential fundraising location. The erroneous connection between the pizza place and an alleged child trafficking and child abuse ring took root with bad actors on the internet. As BuzzFeed points out, a lot of the original activity can be linked to a single white supremacy Twitter account claiming knowledge from official NYPD sources.

From there it spread in viral fashion across many of the web’s more volatile right-wing hangouts, including the r/The_Donald and r/conspiracy sub-Reddits and the Reddit alternative Voat. In a short period of time, Pizzagate became a pernicious online phenomenon. That’s largely because it attracts both genuine believers swayed by fake news articles and falsified evidence and trolls looking to propagate lies for the purpose of spreading chaos and harming progressives.

Welch, the gunman, appears to have been one of the genuine believers. He decided on Sunday to make the 350-mile drive to DC to gather information on Comet Ping Pong, bringing along with him a military-style rifle in the event he needed to rescue abused children. According to The New York Times, Welch felt his “heart breaking over the thought of innocent people suffering,” leading him to burst into the establishment and fire off rounds.

Welch didn’t injure any customers and eventually surrendered to authorities peacefully. However, his decision to take unfounded beliefs and translate them into dangerous real-world action represents a startling new chapter, one in which the proliferation of fake news and the side effects of militant online forums take scary offline shape. In a not-so-surprising twist, Welch’s actions are already being described by online Pizzagate theorists as a false flag attack, adding another layer of conspiracy to the labyrinthian online mess.