Saw the "New" JFK Shooting theory on TV

[cracked butt]

{There were actually 751 snipers in Dallas that day.

So many bullets hit JFK that he actually vaporized. The "body" that we see is actually a wax dummy.

Lyndon Johnson was the sniper in the Book Repository, J. Edgar Hoover commanded the sniper teams along the overpass.

Zapruder's camera had a 105mm howitzer attached to it, that's why it continues to jostle so much, from the recoil...}

Sounds at least as reasonable as some of the crap spewed in the Oliver Stone movie.



Has anyone ever tried firing a right handed bolt action-any bolt action left handed with the foreend supported? I don't have a carcano- the closest thing I have is a mosin nagant which is at least not the slickest action ever made and tried it. In such a setup, a lefthanded shooter can shoot the rifle amazingly fast vesus a righthanded shooter which the rifle was made for. Try it sometime. AN important fact that most conspiracy nuts leave out is that LHO was left handed.

Head snapping back- I let my frined shoot my garand at a 6" diameter pumpkin using M2 ball ammo. After 3 shots he said that the sights were off because there was no visual indication that the pumpkin was hit- the gourd was 100 yards away. I checked the sights by shooting a milk jug at the same range which exploded in a spectacular manner and handed the rifle back to him. he fired off the rest of the clip at the pumpkin. We walked dow to tcheck it,and found that he had hit it 6 times, the fmj bullets passing completely through without upending or rolling it.
My point is that you cannot judge how a human head is going to react to being struck with a bullet without seeing it happen many times- milk jugs tend to jump, and pumpkins tend to stand still, but I have no experience with shooting human heads, and I doubt most people do either. My best guess as to why his head snapped back was a nervous response- what was left of his brain firing away in absolute shock and suprise.

 

[Tomac]

Lots of interesting conspiracy theories/facts floating around. A particularly significant item is the extremely lax Secret Service security. SS agents told to stay away from JFK's limo, local military told they weren't needed, motorcade plans destroyed afterwards when called for evidence, building windows left open, etc. Who was pulling the SS strings that day?
Tomac

 

[FPrice]

cordex...

"Anyone see the "Red Dwarf" episode that covered this? "Tikka to Ride", I think."

I haven't read the whole thread, but I think I may be one of the few, if not the only other person on this thread who knows what you are talking about with Red Dwarf. Gosh that was a funny series!

 

[280PLUS]

the oliver stone movie,,,

now THERES a travesty if i ever seen one



and for all the actors in it,,,one more,,,

 

[Cosmoline]

My faith in the single shooter theory was renewed last night, as I discuss in a post. I've always wondered why people assume it's easier to nail a moving target with a rifle if it's moving across your field of vision than it would be to hit the same target from above and behind.

I think people just don't understand rifles. To hit JFK at close range from the knoll as the motorcade went by, the shooter would have to time his shot PERFECTLY and he'd likely only get one. By the time he cycled his bolt, the car would be flying down the road, requiring him to shift well to his right.

It's much easier to hit the motorcade from the Book Depository, even though it's further away. The extra distance means little to a rifle.

 

[Dain Bramage]

The AR-15 theory is obviously bogus. Everyone knows the .223 can't kill a man, even with a head shot.

On a more serious note, the 'magic bullet' has been covered before. It's not really pristine, it only looks so from the one popular photo that is always shown. Other angles show deformation. And Conally (sp?) and JFK were not sitting directly in line. The limo was modified so the VIP seat in the rear was outboard and higher than the seat in front. There are photos taken that day that show the arrangement.

 

[stephen_g22]

I watched the History Channel's 'Men who killed Kennedy' and all of them kept talking about a shot from the front and a massive wound in the rear of Kennedy's head. In the Zapruder film it looks like there is a massive gaping wound in the front with blood and brains spilling out. None of the frontal shot folks explain that, they just talk about how the rear wound was doctored up during the autopsy.



Unless there is a huge wound in the back of Kennedy's head to match, this sure looks like a frontal wound to me. Whether it is an entry wound or exit wound, I don't know.

Anyone know how the grassy knoll or storm drain theorists explain this picture?

 

[Matt G]

When you have several eye witnesses and a PHOTOGRAPH of the sniper on the grassy knoll, its hard to just quote the Warren Commission and say that there was just one shooter, and that we need to get over it.
The simple facts of last nights show were that expert photographic analysis of a picture taken 1/6th of a second after the fatal shot shows a man dressed in a police officers uniform pointing a rifle at the president, with a man in back of him wearing a hardhat and someone dressed in a soldiers uniform in front of them. The smoke "donut" from the weapons muzzle can be clearly seen.

Ahhh! Newton has been presented with the Mary Moorman photo!

About 15-20 years ago at a Fort Worth gun show, I met the guy who was first pushing this theory. He had a large, several table display, which included the alleged photo. This thing was worse than trying to see shapes in clouds. Here's the problem with the photo: It was taken with a Polaroid Land camara. There's no negative. The bits of silver in the film were enormous, so the resolution is lousy. Good enough for a snapshot, perhaps, but grainy as heck, when blown up. And blown up? Oh, MY. The "image" of the guy supposedly seen is a blow-up of a copy of a 2.5" B&W Polaroid, blown up to, if I recall, a 3 foot square poster. That, in turn, was blown up still further. The supposed details of the supposed sniper are smaller even than the bits of silver that comprise the image. This would be like receiving a grainy fax of a driver's license photo, and claiming one could blow up the image to see the reflection of the photographer in the eye of the head shot on the DL!

Discovery Channel, which I normally hate, did a nifty bit of experimentation with it. They took a Land Camara and tried it themselves, and got similar bad resolution. They also, interestingly, used a quality 35mm camara with full-sized objective lens, and film that would have been available at the time, and even then, managed only to get only a bare rough outline of the man they planted up by the stockade fence for the experiment.

The supposed halo around the muzzle is bogus for several reason. Though the photo is credited as being taken "at the moment of the shot", the President's head was already reacting. The shot was taken in daylight. Muzzle blast just isn't that visible in daylight, nor lasts that long.

I think anybody who believes that stooge Oswald fired that manlicher rifle three time that rapidly (and that accurately) needs to come look at some prime real eastate I have for sale on the planet mars.

And yet, it's been demonstrated again and again that it can be done. Heck, on the same Discovery Channel show I saw last night, they set a fellow up in a tower at the same distance and angle, shooting an Oswald rifle with the same type of scope, with military ball ammo over a rest made of cardboard boxes, and the guy did it 5 times running, on targets set in a convertable running down a dirt road at the same speeds. His only problem was the occasional failure to fire. That wouldn't be too surprising, given that the ammo and firing pin spring were 40 years older.

The shot was 285 feet. That's just 95 yards, on a target moving 10 to 15 miles per hour. Do we have any hunters here? There's lots of deer that fall to shots like that. I myself have made a second shot at a running deer at a longer distance, standing unsupported. (I thought it was wounded, or would not have made such a shot.)

 

[moa]

Tonight ABC TV starting at 9 PM Eastern has a two hour program on the assassination. Preview shows they are using new computer animation technology to recreate the shooting from every angle including inside the car. The recreation uses the Zapgruder film as its base. Looks like it might be interesting.

 

[TrapperReady]

Matt G - Last time I was in Dallas, I stopped by the Book Depository and visited the 6th Floor Museum. When I stood by the window and looked out where the limo had travelled, it became very clear to me that the actual shooting would not have been enormously difficult.

The only possibility I could see from a conspiracy standpoint is how Oswald was able to pick such an absolutely PERFECT ambush position.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Does anyone have definitive information on the recreation of Oswald's shooting capabilities?

I'm locked into with another person on another board who keeps saying that no one, every, has been able to duplicate Oswald's shooting that day in Dallas.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"How'd you plan on rigging up that pintle mount to the melon? Could you simulate the spine's offset from the centerline of the head?"

Maybe. That would be difficult, but it could possibly be done with some sort of support harness.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"Would ball ammo have this type of explosive effect on a head shot?"

It could, yes.


"Sealed records..."

I believe the party line has always been it's been done for the privacy of the family.



"Has anyone ever shot a Mannlicher-Carcano? I have."

Yes. More than one. Quite a few more than one.

They're not all as you describe them. They're not the best bolt action rifle ever invented, but they're not the worst.

 

[cracked butt]

The shot was 285 feet. That's just 95 yards, on a target moving 10 to 15 miles per hour. Do we have any hunters here? There's lots of deer that fall to shots like that. I myself have made a second shot at a running deer at a longer distance, standing unsupported. (I thought it was wounded, or would not have made such a shot.)

Interestingly enough, when I was driving home from work last night, out of an industrial park, a deer was running alongside the road with me, it cut across the road and followed the curb to the end of the road a block further down. The deer was running at a trot and I clocked it at 20 mph. I normally wouldn't shoot at a running deer, but have at wounded deer. Shooting at one running straight away is much more difficult than shooting one moving right to left, or better yet left to right.

Would ball ammo have this type of explosive effect on a head shot?"

It could, yes.

Especially if the bullet picked up bone fragments on the way out.

 

[TheOtherOne]

You all got me reading up on this and here's what gets me:



The ad Oswald bought the rifle from (3rd down in the left column). I can't tell if it was the $12 one or the $19 one. Now, the prices of all those guns make me sick, but I can understand that with inflation and all.... but what really gets me is that thanks to this whole thing, I'll never be able to order through the mail.

 

[TallPine]

but what really gets me is that thanks to this whole thing, I'll never be able to order through the mail.

It's just too bad that there wasn't a law against shooting the President before 1963 ....

 

[Frohickey]

In John Ross' book, he describes a competition where the prize is a coke for successfully completing the shooting that LHO was claimed to have done. Is that a real competition?

 

[Cosmoline]

You can still get an M-C for $100, which my bet is isn't even at pace with inflation.

The Garands and Springfields are another story.

 

[bountyhunter]

as well as the simple physics of the plume of material ejected from his head pushing it back in a Newtonian response.

Not trying to turn the thread into a physics lesson, but I taught physics in school. The above line of reasoning violates basic physics. The bullet hits the head with a certain amount of momentum and it imparts a percentage of it to the head as it passes through. The material exiting the front of the skull has been given it's forward velocity from the bullet (not the stationary head). The basic head structure also receives some momemtum causing it to rock forward. There is no "Newtonian Principle" requiring the head to snap to the rear in response to the material flying forward from it. That is an erroneous conclusion from Newtons Second law about all actions having a reaction. The head proper does not have a reaction to the loss of mass because it did not provide the velocity to the material exiting, the bullet did.

It could be argued that the bullet passed through from the rear causing the head to rock forward "loading tension" in the neck muscles and then after wards the head rocked back from them untensing. It does not look to me like that is the motion on the film.

An interesting aside learned on a different murder cases: a woman claimed somebody had fired from outside into the house through a window but they found both glass and blood/tissue outside. They concluded she was lying and that the shot had been fired from inside the house.... and she got convicted of murder.

A defense team later re-enacted it and found out: if you fire from the front, some of the material comes flying back out towards you as strange as that seems. They got a new trial and she was acquitted.

In the case of the JFK tape, it could explain the material seen flying forward as the second shot hits the head. The reason is a very high speed bullet entering brain material is "making waves" as it pases through and some waves are rippling backwards away from it. In effect, it creates such a level of "matter compression" some material is blown straight back along the path of the bullet's entry.

 

[bountyhunter]

Yes

Some years back I saw the documentary about the "challenge" to duplicate it. The best shots came and tried and allegedly one person was able to do it. That was one person out of maybe 20, shooting without the pressure of actually killing the president, and he was an expert shot. Look at Oswald's military records and the idea of him doing it under that level of stress is ludicrous.

 

[bountyhunter]

I watched the History Channel's 'Men who killed Kennedy' and all of them kept talking about a shot from the front and a massive wound in the rear of Kennedy's head. In the Zapruder film it looks like there is a massive gaping wound in the front with blood and brains spilling out. None of the frontal shot folks explain that, they just talk about how the rear wound was doctored up during the autopsy.

I saw the actual autopsy photos. There was a gaping rear wound on the RHS of the skull, but it is not visible in those photos. Every doctor there at the time testified to it and described exactly where it was. The reason it doesn't show: the scalp section "blew free" as the bullet exited and made a large wound. When they took the photos, that scalp was laid back over to mask the size of the rear exit wound.

No question he was shot from the rear. But according to the autopsy doctors, they also concluded he was shot from the front and they said that some one had intentionally repositioned (and maybe sewed on) a section of scalp to hide the fact he was also shot from the front before the photos were taken.

 

[Cosmoline]

How many seconds did they give in this challenge, though? According to the show, the latest evidence is that eight seconds elapsed, not the three you sometimes hear.

 

[Dr.Rob]

I'm looking forward to seeing the computer recreation... still don't thinkOswald did it all by himself.

Aside from the magic bullet, Oswald's past is a screwy as any Bond villan's. You couldn't make up a story that wierd and expect people to beleive it.

You guys considering the "direction of the plume of material consider that the car, and Kennedy are still moving forward in relation to the "event".. sort of like spraying a can of paint into a breeze... most of the spray ends up on you.

Just a thought.

Front or rear, the shot blew the side and back of his head open, you can see it in the film and I can't imagine that many doctors being disgreement over so many facts.

 

[bad_dad_brad]

Rather than debate speculation, which is always difficult to do, everyone bantering about theory, should probably first read two books:

"Case Closed" by Gerald Posner
"Oswald's Tale" by Norman Mailer

After you read these books, I think you will conclude, that Oswald was indeed the lone assassin.

"Case Closed" is fact filled and un-biased. It does chide the Government, expecially the CIA, for being secretive about the case, and that this has fueled a lot of conspiracy theories. Even today, Posner says that the CIA should tell what they know about Oswald and their connection to him. Posner also tackles the Jack Ruby question.

"Oswald's Tale" is a fascinating psycological tale about the man Oswald. After you read it, you will understand perhaps, the why.

The Zapruder film is pretty definitive. All three shots were made in about 8 seconds. The first one missed. The second one hit Kennedy in the back of the neck, exited, and then hit Connally. The third and last was the head shot from behind that killed Kennedy.

And let's not forget, that the bolt on the rifle only had to be operated two times. The first bullet was already chambered. Oswald was a marine. Do you think he would have not had that first bullet already chambered?

Now I have not been to Dealy Plaza, but I have a shooter friend who has, and he has looked right out that infamous window, and he said quite clearly, "I could have made those shots with my eyes closed."

 

[RobW]

No matter if you think Oswald was the only one or not, there are a lot of questions unanswered or given a total bogus answer, for instance:

Jack Ruby, a dubious "Night-Club" owner, well known in the underworld and the police, got easy access to the police headquaters (he didn't have a press ID!) killed Oswald and gave as the reason for that, he "just want to prevent Mrs. Kennedy from grief". Yeah, right. Conveniently, he dies in prison of cancer.

If you want to know how to make such nice deals, read Mario Puzo's "Godfather". It's fiction, but sometimes fiction can't catch real life!

There are 2 possibilities:

1) all the persons and agencies involved were totally incompetent

2) there was a conspiracy

I know, John W. Booth was the single assasinator of Lincoln