It Begins: Police Say ‘Conspiracy Theory’ About Clinton Child Sex Ring Made Man Shoot Up Pizza Shop

On Sunday, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked through the door of the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Washington D.C., and fired his AR-15. Thankfully, no one was hurt and Welch was arrested without incident and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

An employee managed to escape after Welch pointed the rifle at them and then called police.

After taking Welch into custody, police released a statement claiming that Welch was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring in the basement of the restaurant. Shooting an AR-15 into a pizza restaurant, however, is NOT an ‘investigation’ — it is deadly and insane.

Whether or not he believed there was an actual child sex ring in the basement of the restaurant is of no consequence as a sane individual does not take pot shots at innocent unarmed individuals. The mention of the conspiracy theory by police and the subsequent onslaught of reports from the corporate media about it have deeper roots than just a nut job with a gun.

Welch’s irresponsible, idiotic, and sick decision to open fire in a pizza shop will undoubtedly be used by corporate media to paint anyone who questions the establishment as dangerous. Indeed, it has already begun.

The Washington Post took to the web last night and promoted a quote from the pizza shop owner that implies ‘promoting….conspiracy theories’ can have ‘consequences.’

James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, said in a statement: “What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences. I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away.”

The store owners in the area are already calling for police to ‘shut down’ websites that pose these questions.

radley Graham, a store co-owner in the area, told the Post, “we would also hope that law enforcement authorities will be prompted to take additional measures to shut down the sites where this hateful material is being spread, and also measures to try to trace the menacing phone calls.

“ . . . We’re all rather shaken,” he said.

Of course, no one is defending threats against innocent people and anyone who does make these threats should be prosecuted. However, attacking the free flow of information will do nothing to stop them.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In the weeks leading up to the election in November, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails from John Podesta which exposed a slew of Clinton crimes, her control of corporate media, and her ties to megabanks. The sheer severity of information gleaned from these emails was enough to bring the Clinton dynasty down and give Donald Trump, who is arguably proving to be a close Clinton ally, the election.

WikiLeaks, coupled with alternative media, were almost singlehandedly responsible for the Clinton loss which infuriated the establishment who reacted with false claims against alternative media sites, this site included, that they are arms of Russian Propaganda. 

During these leaks, a group of people on message boards across the web began to pick out tidbits of creepy language in the emails. Redditors and 4channers alike found a peculiar pattern and use of alleged pedophilia code words within the emails and thus ‘pizzagate’ was born.

While speculation ran rampant, and lots of questionable and admittedly disturbing emails were uncovered, there has yet to be any smoking gun proving the nature of these accusations. However, that fact certainly does not warrant the wholesale abandonment of the internet investigation, or subsequent banning of sites talking about it, as pedophilia is most certainly a real problem among many of the heavy movers and shakers in the establishment.

Because a few ignorant people make threats based off of unfounded conspiracy theories does not mean that anyone should be silenced.

However, this has already begun.

On Reddit, r/Pizzagate was unceremoniously banned by the social media company — with a disclaimer stating that the subreddit was banned specifically for “the proliferation of personal and confidential information,” noting that,”We don’t want witch hunts on our site.”

There is certainly no shortage of ignorant and belligerent people in this world who would make threats against innocent people. But this does not mean that the dissemination of information should be silenced — regardless of whether or not it is factual.

If the state begins a campaign of censorship, regardless of its intentions of ‘preventing threats,’ it will be used to silence everyone who the establishment disagrees with — history proves this to be the case, every single time.

Because a few easily swayed individuals take tidbits of information and make brash decisions does not mean that this information should be stopped.

If we look back over the past decades, we’ve witnessed the establishment media be the culprits of the most dangerous and deadly conspiracy theories of all time. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the war on drugs are just a few of the conspiracy theories spread by the establishment media that have led to the death and suffering of millions.

If pizzagate ever leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children, or millions of morally innocent people being locked in cages — then we can revisit this conversation.

For now, Americans, along with the rest of the world, would do well to remember these most powerful words by the German journalist and poet, Christian Johann Heinrich Heine, Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.