The charge at the center of Pizzagate is this: Comet Ping Pong is where high-ranking Democrats go when they want pizza. (General Flynn himself hasn’t tweeted Pizzagate allegations, but he has tweeted stories about different pedophilia-related conspiracy theories, also supposedly entangling Clinton.)

Foremost among those nonetheless doing so are Donald Trump-supporting social-media figures, including the son of retired General Michael Flynn, the President-elect’s choice for national-security adviser. The mystery within the mystery is how anybody with a shred of good will would even try to connect point A to point B. These theories, which, most broadly put, place Hillary Clinton at the center of an international child-sex-trafficking ring, are the lies, and they are almost incomprehensible. He told the police that he had come to “ self-investigate” a conspiracy theory, or set of theories, known as Pizzagate. He had another gun in his car, and he had a motive. Customers ran out nearby businesses, including a bookstore, went into lockdown. According to press accounts, Welch waved the gun, pointed it at an employee, and then fired, thankfully not hitting anyone.

The gun is an AR-15-style assault rifle that a man, reportedly a twenty-eight-year-old named Edgar Maddison Welch, carried into the restaurant on Sunday. When trying to understand what has befallen Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., over the past few weeks, should one start with the gun or with the lies? Both are durable both are dangerous.

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