If you’re not familiar with the utterly deranged delusion called #PizzaGate that’s burning up the right wing’s Twitter and Facebook bandwidth these days, here’s a story with the full background.

All you really need to know is that the far right is caught up in a conspiracy theory that a pizzeria in Washington DC is a hub of child sex trafficking, and it involves Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and a bunch of their other favorite targets. It’s being hyped by Infowars, Gateway Pundit and a host of other right wing sources.

They’ve been going completely bonkers about this fake story for the past month, and today a man incited by this bad craziness entered the Comet Pizza restaurant with an assault rifle and terrorized the customers and employees before being arrested.

This story broke earlier today but I was holding off for confirmation that the gunman was actually inspired by the PizzaGate fake news; tonight we have that confirmation in a statement from the DC Police Department:

.@DCPoliceDept press release on arrest of Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, NC for assault w/dangerous weapon at Comet restaurant. pic.twitter.com/IkSJUeHM2y

— Deputy Mayor Donahue (@SafeDC) December 5, 2016

Fake news now has some very real consequences.

CBS News is labeling this white right wing terrorist a “victim.” I wish I were kidding.

And now details are emerging about the alleged gunman; he’s a fan of Alex Jones and Infowars, a registered Republican, and has posted anti-Muslim videos on his Facebook page.

Edgar Maddison Welch, named by the DC police as the #PizzaGate psycho who fired a gun in a restaurant. https://t.co/rxdv1b3XqK pic.twitter.com/dPwaGFX0Xl

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) December 5, 2016