How Would JFK Have Reacted

[Ron Bulman]

Differently, I think.  He wouldn't have let this get this far.  

The 17 month old girl brought tears to my eyes.  "Shrapnel in her chest, her front teeth had been knocked out, and she has a hole in the bottom of her lip and tongue."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/shooting-spree-across-15-miles-in-west-texas-terrorized-two-towns-and-killed-7/ar-AAGEueU?li=BBnb7Kz

"It's tragic but they did an incredible job (only 7 Dead, 22 injured)… This really doesn't change anything...".

If this SOB didn't have an AR-15 in his truck when he got fired this couldn't have happened.  If George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and their cohorts hadn't been so indebted to the NRA and Gun Company Lobbyists Military Assault Rifles would still be Illegal.  And A Lot of people would still be alive, many more unwounded.

I'm sorry, but I'm not.  I don't mean to turn the Assassination Debate into a current topics one.  But not just JFK is being assassinated these days, but US citizens en masse.  I think he would have fought this well before it got this far, as well as would have RFK.  If they had lived.

[Joe Bauer]

Mitch McConnell received 1 MILLION dollars from the gun lobby... just last year alone!

Money is a big part of this tragedy.

[Ron Bulman]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/breakingnews/among-the-texas-shooting-victims-a-high-school-student-a-beloved-uncle-and-a-father-of-two/ar-AAGEJyN?li=BBnb7Kz

 

[David Andrews]

Historically, American multiple murder began and ended at home, the victims being family members.  It wasn't until Charles Whitman in Austin, TX, 1966, that we began to have mass shootings of strangers, and Whitman in his madness may have been influenced by the Kennedy assassination three years earlier, in his home state.  "From a tall building, with a rifle," as it were.  Whitman was a former Marine, and the analogy between Whitman and the presumed character of Oswald appears in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.

If I'm missing any earlier shooters, fill in the gaps, if you care to.  Other multiple murderers before Whitman tended to be sex criminals.

Edited September 2, 2019 by David Andrews

[Joe Bauer]

So many of these mass shooters over the years turn out to be young to middle age men who have never married or are divorced. Almost all experiencing extreme social frustration, disfunction, isolation and failure to the point of deep depression culminating in a final act of suicidal rage.

What always struck me about Lee Oswald was here he was alleged to have committed multiple seemingly senseless violence murders and one attempted murder explained by the Warren Commission as motivated by the same emotional and social frustration that these mass shooters are described as possessing, yet Oswald was much less this way in reality.

He had two children that he apparently was so enamored with even his wife claimed he truly loved and cared for them.

Yes, Oswald's marriage was on the rocks and he probably sensed it ending. But he still had his children and their welfare and future to give him more grounded feelings of sane living purpose than most of these raging mass shooters.

Also, those close to Oswald the months before and right up to 11,22,1963 didn't describe him as exhibiting the typical traits of senseless violence acting out killers such as extreme depression, anger, social isolation etc.

He showed healthy paternal love to his children, he interacted with several people in intelligent conversation on and off such as George De Mohrenschildts, Michael Paine and who knows who else in his time in Dallas and New Orleans, etc.

And he had at least some half-way pleasant social conversation with others like Buell Frazier, Ruth Paine and maybe his brother from time to time.

And Oswald wasn't so unsuccessful in the ladies department that losing Marina was the end all. He flirted with the ladies in Russia. He flirted quite engagingly with a cute Japanese girl at one of the Dallas White Russian parties. He may have had a hot affair in New Orleans with Judyth Vary Baker. He jumped at the invite to a social party from a cute female secretary in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City ... according to her.

Maybe he would have even chased the beautiful Sylvia Odio if she had given him just a little more interest than nothing?

It seems that a fair amount of women even found Oswald attractive in his clean cut grooming, Marine bearing and overall polite manner.

Oswald also had some personal pride in his Marine duty service in that he wore his Marine ring all the time.

Oswald also had healthy personal recreational outlets such as reading, taking walks, listening to classical music, some photography and playing with his daughter. He loved the movies and would even go to some by himself according to Marina. Oswald had a sense of adventure and traveled the world. He had enough drive, self discipline and confidence he taught himself an extremely hard to learn foreign language. He health mindedly watched his eating, never smoked or drank.  He paid his rent and bills on time and even his loan from the U.S. government. He watched his money to the point of penny pinching cheapness. Never offered Buell Frazier a dime for shared gas costs. He finally tipped someone when he told his cab driver on 11,22,1963 to keep the left over nickle from his 95 cent fare when all he had to pay with was a one dollar bill. 

In my opinion, if Oswald did shoot JFK, Tippit and Connolly and shot at General Walker, or even had some part in these acts, his motivations were no where near the one the Warren Commission ascribed to him to frame his actions in a way that they felt bolstered their conclusion. The same one we know and associate with others who commit seemingly senseless acts of violence like mass shootings.

Oswald's motivations only make sense if you look at them in a conspiratorial way versus a raging social loser way.

Oswald had things much more together emotionally and socially than the great majority of these typical mass shooters.

Just speculating.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[David Andrews]

Joe, I amended my post to better cover Oswald.  All the anecdotal record tends to exonerate Oswald and/or "Oswald" as JFK's and Tippit's killer, and comes near to eliminating him as the person who shot at Walker.

But, create a social myth of the average man becoming an omniscient rifleman in a tall building, bringing down the most powerful American, and see what blowback that brings upon a society.

We seem to have become a nation that insists on attacking itself.  Not to be flip here, but M. Night Shyamalan made a movie (The Happening) about that being caused by some virus out of space.  Maybe there was a media metaphor there.

Edited September 3, 2019 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

Bobby Kennedy was one of the first senators to speak out against the power of the NRA.

[Ron Bulman]

We can never know.  But I think if JFK came into office after tragedies like Sandy Hook then such as Las Vegas, El Paso, and Dayton happened he would have been publicly beseeching Congress and the Senate to stop the sale of military type high capacity semi automatic weapons to the public.  Instead of saying "this doesn't really change anything".  I don't think he would have let the NRA and gun lobbyists stand in his way.  Joe, your right.  I've said it before myself, it's really all about money.  They don't really care about mass murders, they just want to sell more higher dollar guns.  If they could get the laws changed they'd probably like to sell us fully automatics, machine guns and hand grenades.  JFK had been to war and lost people under his command.  He understood the carnage weapons of war can cause.  He didn't use his wealth to pay a doctor to say he had bone spurs.  Then refuse to release the records about such.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Ron Bulman