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You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Live By the Paladin Fantasy…

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Live By the Paladin Fantasy…

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The man who tried to shoot up Comet Pizza 8 years ago was killed in a confrontation with police on Monday.

[image or embed]

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) January 9, 2025 at 4:18 PM

He was clearly not a well man, more shame to the monsters & grifters who manipulated decades of Hillary-hate to send him haring off to a DC pizza parlor. From the local Charlotte Observer, “‘Pizzagate’ gunman fatally shot by police outside Charlotte in traffic stop”:

The Salisbury man who died Monday after he was shot by two Kannapolis police officers over the weekend was the ‘Pizzagate’ gunman arrested in Washington, D.C., in 2016 after he terrified people with a loaded AR-15 inside a restaurant.

Edgar Maddison Welch, the man killed, made national headlines in 2016 when he entered Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., armed with an assault rifle and loaded revolver. He drove from Salisbury to the nation’s capital in search of an alleged child sex ring linked to Hillary Clinton — something he learned about from a fake news story, The Washington Post reported.

Around 10 p.m. Saturday, Welch was sitting in the passenger seat of a gray 2001 GMC Yukon when an officer pulled it over near Cannon Boulevard, a Kannapolis Police Department press release said Thursday.

The officer recognized the vehicle, having arrested Welch in the past, and knew he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for a felony probation violation, police said. The press release said the officer spoke with the vehicle’s driver and recognized Welch in the passenger seat as two more officers arrived. The officer that pulled the vehicle over then moved to the front passenger seat where Welch was sitting to arrest him. But when he opened the door, Welch pulled out a handgun from his jacket and pointed it at the officer, police said.

The arresting officer and a second officer at the scene shot Welch after he refused orders to drop his gun…

Sidebar: Can’t say I’m impressed by the general tenet of the BlueSky responses to this. Not to defend Welch’s behavior, but the ‘kinder, gentler, more thoughtful’ vows about decorum on this new platform don’t seem to have survived contact with People We Don’t Like. Peril of rapid expansion, I guess.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    KatKapCC

    Edgar Maddison Welch, the man killed, made national headlines in 2016 when he entered Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., armed with an assault rifle and loaded revolver. He drove from Salisbury to the nation’s capital in search of an alleged child sex ring linked to Hillary Clinton — something he learned about from a fake news story, The Washington Post reported.

    Ah yes. Simpler times.

  2. 2.

    KatKapCC

    Newsom just posted that Palisades fire is at 6% containment. Hopefully as the winds continue to chill out a little, that will improve more quickly, but it’s terrific to see them making progress.

  8. 8.

    Melancholy Jaques

    Can’t say I’m impressed by the general tenet of the BlueSky responses to this. Not to defend Welch’s behavior, but the ‘kinder, gentler, more thoughtful’ vows about decorum on this new platform don’t seem to have survived contact with People We Don’t Like.

    The internet does bring out the best in people, doesn’t it?

  10. 10.

    CliosFanboy

    Some people don’t get the kinder, gentler. The guy terrorized families trying to enjoy dinner out at a neighborhood pizza place. And he pulled a gun on a cop because of a probation violation. We’re just lucky he did not kill anyone in the pizza place.

  15. 15.

    B1naryS3rf

    @Melancholy Jaques: I have zero empathy for these cosplay with firearms idiots, and bluesky’s response only reflects much of the same. If by some miracle of societal outlier probability this man didn’t pass the paper bag test, I’d suspect more nefarious motives by the cops, but as it is this fool inhaled propaganda years back like it was nitrous and thus the description of his eventual demise was completely predictable if not likely. If he truly regretted what he did in 16 and wasn’t just aiming for a lighter sentence, maybe he wouldn’t have been so gunplay happy with a peace officer.

    We’re going to see a lot more of these destructive fools under Trump II collide sharply with reality. I only hope we’re not collateral damage.

  17. 17.

    TBone

    The Q adjacent freaks of the New Apostolic Reformation (article originally from the Atlantic) are getting covered again.

    On the Thursday night after Donald Trump won the presidential election, an obscure but telling celebration unfolded inside a converted barn off a highway stretching through the cornfields of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The place was called Gateway House of Prayer, and it was not exactly a church, and did not exactly fit into the paradigms of what American Christianity has typically been. Inside, there were no hymnals, no images of Jesus Christ, no parables fixed in stained glass. Strings of lights hung from the rafters. A huge map of the world covered one wall. On the others were seven framed bulletin boards, each representing a theater of battle between the forces of God and Satan—government, business, education, family, arts, media, and religion itself. Gateway House of Prayer, it turned out, was a kind of war room.

    …

    At this point, tens of millions of believers—about 40 percent of American Christians, including Catholics, according to a recent Denison University survey—are embracing an alluring, charismatic movement that has little use for religious pluralism, individual rights, or constitutional democracy. It is mystical, emotional, and, in its way, wildly utopian. It is transnational, multiracial, and unapologetically political. Early leaders called it the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, although some of those same leaders are now engaged in a rebranding effort as the antidemocratic character of the movement has come to light. And people who have never heard the name are nonetheless adopting the movement’s central ideas. These include the belief that God speaks through modern-day apostles and prophets. That demonic forces can control not only individuals, but entire territories and institutions. That the Church is not so much a place as an active “army of God,” one with a holy mission to claim the Earth for the Kingdom as humanity barrels ever deeper into the End Times.

    Although the secular establishment has struggled to take all of this seriously, Trump has harnessed this apocalyptic energy to win the presidency twice.

    …

    If you were questioning why Elon Musk would bother speaking at an NAR church called Life Center in Harrisburg, it is because Musk surely knows that a movement that wants less government and more God works well with his libertarian vision. If you wanted to know why there were news stories about House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Southern Baptist, displaying a white flag with a green pine tree and the words An Appeal to Heaven outside his office, or the same flag being flown outside the vacation home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a Catholic, the reason is that the Revolutionary War–era banner has become the battle flag for a movement with ideological allies across the Christian right. The NAR is supplying the ground troops to dismantle the secular state.

    dnyuz.com/2025/01/09/the-army-of-god-comes-out-of-the-shadows/

  19. 19.

    different-church-lady

    @TBone:

    …it is because Musk surely knows that a movement that wants less government and more God works well with his libertarian vision a sucker when he sees one.

  21. 21.

    Fair Economist

    @KatKapCC: The good news is that once a fire has any degree of containment, the growth generally slows to a crawl or stops entirely. I think the fire agencies must be super cautious about calling something “containment”.

  22. 22.

    mrmoshpotato

    He drove from Salisbury to the nation’s capital in search of an alleged child sex ring linked to Hillary Clinton from a bunch of bullshit, ratfucking lies.

    FTSFTLF

    Fixed that shit for the lying fuckers.

  23. 23.

    hitchhiker

    @TBone: I read that article. What stands out to me is how their intense nuttiness is on a straight-up collision course with the ever-more-rapidly-growing segment of the population that has no use for ANY brand of “organized religion.”

    My current get-me-out-of-this-century obsession is the English Civil war, fought in the 1640s. It was partly about power politics and partly about religion and mostly about men who could not figure out how to back up while it was still possible; the intense religiosity of one side led them to believe that they must be doing what God required of them, and they interpreted everything that happened through that lens.

    Won a battle? God did that. God wanted them to win. Everything they did was justified. It’s hard not to see parallels.

  24. 24.

    billcoop4

    I find people like this shooter-upper make it very difficult to remain consistent to my long-held agreement with John Donne:

    No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. 

    Or Richard Hooker:

     

    God hath created nothing simply for itself: but each thing in all things, and of every thing each part in other hath such interest, that in the whole world nothing is found whereunto anything created can say, “I need thee not.”

     

    BC

  32. 32.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @hitchhiker:

    The ECW was fought in parallel, particularly in the terms you reference, to the bloody and bitter 30 Years War on the Continent.

    The Englightenment was a direct result of much of 17th Century Yurp’s religious conflict.

    We’ve come so far.  /s

  33. 33.

    karen marie

    @hitchhiker: Yet somehow, when they lose, it’s not God telling them to stop, it’s “a test” requiring them to double down.  “Heads I win, tails you lose.”

    I hate people but especially people who wear their religion on their sleeve.

    People say you cannot prove a negative but I’d argue that the very existence of these holier-than-thou folks is solid proof that God does not exist.

  34. 34.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    Poland has a complex history with Israel and Judaism.

    There is a lot of both National and Personal guilt involved.

    Poland has since WWII whitewashed it’s history regarding Judaism.

  35. 35.

    CaseyL

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:  The US is going so far backward so fast it just takes my breath away.

    I really do wonder if there’s some kind of “stupidity virus” that hits humanity every two or three generations.

    It makes those previous descents into “Dark Ages” throughout history less of a mystery, though just as incomprehensible.

  36. 36.

    Belafon

    I smiled when the first of the Koch brothers died, and i will smile at the second. I will do a little cheer when Trump dies. This guy bought into lies and acted on them, and then didn’t reform afterwards. Part of me feels that this last act was suicide by cop, but I’m not going to feel any remorse over him being gone or any guilt at not feeling that remorse.

  37. 37.

    hitchhiker

    @karen marie: Yeah, Oliver Cromwell was 100% sure that he and the Almighty were on speaking terms. Sometimes this manifested as personal permission to be a murderous, unrepentant thug. Oh well!

    A couple of years after his (natural) death and magnificent state funeral, his body was exhumed and hung. Then they cut off his moldering head and stuck it on a pike, where it rotted for the next 20 years or so.

    We deserve to see today’s crop of religious lunatics enjoy such a fate.

  41. 41.

    TBone

    @hitchhiker: Coincidentally, I’m watching the movie “Oh God” on TCM right now, with George Burns, John Denver, and Terri Garr.  Oh what sweet, summer children we were back then, it’s SO 70s!

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    Repeating for the late night cohort. FYI.

    How to delete your Facebook account.

    A multi-step procedure. Take special notice:

    Meta notes that it delays termination for a few days after the request has gone through. The deletion will be canceled if you log back in during that period. So don’t sign on, or you’ll be forced to start the process over again.

  44. 44.

    TBone

    @JaySinWA: yep, they are trying to rebrand the “NAR” moniker now that they’ve been identified and tagged, and, if you read the rest of the article I posted, you’ll see how & where they got their ideas about how to fill and expand their churches and spread dominionism.  There are tentacles reaching across the planet.

    Also, they’ve got Project 2025 incoming!

  47. 47.

    TBone

    @Kayla Rudbek: we have a couple of huge, brand new “Harvest” facilities recently built here where I live.  It’s really creepy to see how big they are, and how much money they have.  We’ve got to figure out how to fight this scourge.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    Probably this now expired nutball was no relation but so old can remember the boycott of Welch’s jellies and juices because of Joseph Welch being figuratively in bed with the John Birch Society.

  49. 49.

    RevRick

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: To which English Civil War were you referring? The one between Matilda, Henry 1’s daughter, and Stephen, her cousin, who usurped the throne, called The Anarchy, and from 1138-1153? Or the War of the Roses, which went from 1455-1487? Or the ones between Charles 1 and Parliament from 1642-1651?

  50. 50.

    glory b

    @JaySinWA: He’s meeting with Muslims in Michigan too.

    I wonder how that will turn out.

    By the way, is it “People We Don’t Like” or “People Who Would Prefer That We Don’t Exist?”

    Asking for black people.

  51. 51.

    Ohio Mom

    Shortly after Welch visited Comet Ping Pong, we were in D.C. for a wedding, a trip to which we added a few extra days for sightseeing. I insisted we eat dinner there on one of those extra evenings. It’s a few doors down from the famed Politcs and Prose bookstore and we stopped there as well.

    It was pretty average pizza but clearly a well-loved neighborhood spot. I could see people happily running into friends. One of walls was lined with letters of support from neighborhood children — looked like a elementary school class project — that were adorably illustrated with drawings of people enjoying pizza. And yes, there is a ping pong table in the back, full of tweens no doubt bored of sitting with their parents and thrilled to be with their peers.

    As for Welch’s demise, half of all people killed by police have a mental disability; that includes both mental illness and developmental disabilities like ID (intellectual disability) and autism. I don’t know off the top of my head the stats on how many incarcerated people have a mental disability but it is also a disproportionate and large amount.

  52. 52.

    TBone

    @Jay: my ancestors are Ashkenazi Jews from Lithuania on bio dad’s side.  My stepfather steeped our household in WWII history books with a heavy focus on the Nazis when I was growing up – bro and I were not shielded from any of that history starting at pretty young ages.  We were soaking in it.

  53. 53.

    RevRick

    @NotMax: The problem with deleting your Facebook account is that all your former friends will likely be bombarded with friend requests from copies of you, leaving them vulnerable to phishing.

  54. 54.

    TBone

    @TBone: Also on two trips to Europe (especially in Germany) I saw that guilt  Jay spoke of many times – I didn’t pass for Italian there.

  57. 57.

    Cthulhu

    I have sympathy in regards to his mental illness but, given the fact he was still allowed access to a lot of guns, this actually seems like a optimal outcome.

    As to BlueSky moderation, this is the level they aspire to and I am fine with. The zone is not flooded.

  58. 58.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    Polish kids are, and Poland was a “nasty” place for Jewish people long before 1939, and it didn’t get any better after 1945.

    Even now, it’s just marginal.

  62. 62.

    matt

    I don’t know why we give kid glove mental health consideration to right wing terrorists and no other category of them. A crazy terrorist is usually still a terrorist.

    Oh yeah, power.

  63. 63.

    prostratedragon

    “It is mystical, emotional, and, in its way, wildly utopian. It is transnational, multiracial, and unapologetically political. ”

    Jim Jones and People’s Temple again, eh?

  64. 64.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    because of Joseph Welch being figuratively in bed with the John Birch Society.

    Robert Welch, maybe?

    Joe Welch was the chief counsel for the US Army contra Tail Gunner Joe.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    @SFAW

    Yeah, that sounds more like it. Misremembered the first name. It was the patriarch of the Welch company clan.

    People were even throwing away the treasure empty jelly jars nearly every house in the 1950s kept around.

  67. 67.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @hitchhiker: Brings to mind a quote, a wish, from Babylon 5:

    I’d like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange this for me, Mr. Morden?

  68. 68.

    NotMax

    @TS

    Remember the stories of the hoo-ha of people mourning Cher when the hashtag #thatcherisdead first made the rounds?

  70. 70.

    Jay

    Wildfires in Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, as forecasters warn more high winds may fan the flames further

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna says it hasn’t been safe to reach many hard-hit areas and the death toll is “absolutely going to change”

    Meanwhile, a man has been detained on suspicion of lighting the latest Kenneth Fire, which broke out on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties on Thursday

    Arson investigators are looking into the start of another fire, in the Palisades, which has gone on to destroy more than 5,300 structures

    bbc.com/news/live/cg7z9zjv90jt

  71. 71.

    bjacques

    @matt: *white* rightwing terrorists. And white mass shooters in general. And that concern for mental health care always stops before reaching the House floor.

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @RevRick:  You forget the forgot the First Baron’s War 1215-1216 and King Louis I, in which the English pretend they weren’t successfully invaded by the French.

    But I think he is referring the The War of the Three Kingdoms.

    Going by English history the US is doing really good that we only had one civil war.

  73. 73.

    Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

    @billcoop4: Yeah, me too. I think of it as a form of emotional burn out. There is only so much of the damage MAGA is doing one can take, until the wells of sympathy & empathy are drained & there just isn’t any more. Hell, I’m still struggling not to all out hate the actual people of Russia despite the War In Ukraine. I know they live miserable lives & are constantly lied to & manipulated by what passes for their government. But then  there will be yet another Russian atrocity in Ukraine, & my sympathy will start to fade.

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