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A new proposal re the JFK shots and wounds


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The main argument against the single-bullet theory has always been the trajectory as inconsistent with the 6th floor TSBD. One suggestion (credit to Mark Tyler from another thread) is to start with the traditional single-bullet interpretation (back-->throat--Connally) and determine the trajectory/elevation of the shooter from that (do not assume 6th floor TSBD). If that is done the argument from trajectory against the single-bullet is basically gone. A second common argument against the single-bullet, the questions raised concerning the pristine condition of C399--really becomes irrelevant once the original stretcher bullet (whether or not it was C399) is disconnected from Connally. As is well-argued on other grounds, the original stretcher bullet would be either from the JFK back shot as originally thought, or else unrelated to the assassination, but in either case unrelated to Connally. 

The question then becomes: is the traditional single-bullet interpretation a valid argument, if objections of vertical trajectory and C399 were non-existent? The reason for the appeal of the single-bullet is not hard to understand: it neatly would explain where the shot of the upper back entrance exited, would explain the throat shot wound, and then where that bullet went (through JFK into Connally causing his wounds). All that would remain, it might seem, would be to assume and identify a different, lower-elevation shooter than 6th floor TSBD. BUT--it does not seem that simple. 

Two arguments still remain against the single-bullet (back entrance-->throat-->Connally) even if trajectory and C399 were removed as issues: (a) at the autopsy the testimonies that no through-path was found for a bullet from the upper back entrance to the throat despite intense efforts to find such. If there was such a through-path what is the explanation for those testimonies? And (b) Connally's testimony combined with support from Zapruder that Connally was hit after JFK was hit and before JFK was hit again (1-2-3 distinct hits). It just looks extremely questionable to interpret Zapruder as Connally hit with the same bullet that causes JFK's elbows-rising reaction, instead of the JFK hit being caused by an earlier shot, Connally turning and then starting to turn back again and hit with a second bullet (followed by the JFK head shot), in keeping with Connally's and Nellie's testimony and what seems to be visually in Zapruder. 

Still, those who favor a single-bullet interpretation may have another reason: "no other good explanation for the wounds". In other words, some interpretations even if they do have a few problems are considered correct if there seems no other good way to account for the evidence.

But the original interpretation, before there was the single-bullet idea, seems to have been: (a) the back shot did not go in to JFK's back very far, and fell out and was the original stretcher bullet found at Parkland; and (b) a rear EOP entrance wound bullet, deflected downward by the angle of the skull bone, went downward through the neck and exited at the throat (and ended up in the limousine but not in Connally). Pat Speer's website has developed the early Parkland/autopsy argument for EOP-->throat. 

But if "a" and "b" just named are considered viable--and therefore the single-bullet is not a necessary interpretation on the grounds that there is no other reasonable alternative--this raises its own new problem, which has caused me more grief than about any other single question: how can the wound to JFK's upper back have not gone in more than ca. an inch, so little penetration that it came back out again, if that is what happened, as was the earliest conclusion outcome from the autopsy (and the arguably best explanation for the origin of the original stretcher bullet found at Parkland)? A jacketed bullet from the Carcano or any other rifle at ca. 2000 fps would blast right through JFK, not barely break the skin. A bullet with such low velocity to cause only a ca. 2" penetration in JFK's back ... what would be the point of an assassin firing such a low-powered shot in the first place? Was it a frangible bullet that failed to expand as intended? But still, that does not explain the extremely weak penetration. What is going on there? I read some of the past discussions on this site of this question, studied firearms websites, and wracked my brain trying to come up with a viable explanation. 

Yet it did not seem correct to reject a ca. 2" penetration of an upper back shot in favor of the back-->throat(-->Connally) default standard interpretation, for reasons cited. As I thought about this, a possible solution emerged, which takes into account two other phenomena which require explanation.

The first is the overwhelming testimony of the numbers of witnesses who heard not three evenly-spaced shots, but rather a single shot, then a few seconds, then a final flurry of two or three final shots in quick succession: "bang...bang-bang(-bang)". That the first one shot, the one which preceded by a few seconds the final flurry, was separated by that space of time--the few seconds--unlike the other shots, seemed to call for explanation; why?

And second, the overwhelming number of witness reports that that first shot sounded different--like a "firecracker" is the repeated witness report of the sound of that first shot. Why were witnesses calling it "like a firecracker"? How does a firecracker sound different from a regular rifle shot? Well, a firecracker sound seems like a muzzle blast without the sound of a bullet echoing through air, without the "echo". Maybe a shot fired that is subsonic. But subsonic--from a high-powered rifle? And if so, why were the later shots not remembered as distinctively "firecracker-like" by the witnesses? It is only the first shot which gets this aggregate witnesses description. The first shot--the different "firecracker" sound; separated in time from the others; and causing a very weak wound of little penetration in JFK's back. What can possibly account for all three of these phenomena, and make any rational sense in a professional assassination or sniper context? For it seemed to me that each of these phenomena, individually seeming so odd, might be related such that a single solution would explain all three. 

The objections to the back-->throat interpretation, combined with a struggle on my part to understand the mechanics of how an assassin or assassins could escape undetected from a building such as the TSBD, have led me to consider the possibility that that first "firecracker" shot was fired from a pistol from the sixth floor TSBD, subsonic, but with a loud sound, with the primary purpose being to attract focus of attention and eyeballs to the sixth floor TSBD, where another person was then seen shooting the Carcano pointed out that window. In this hypothesis, the purpose of the pistol shot would be precisely to get public attention to the sixth floor TSBD, just as the limousine moves into the killing zone where actual deadly shots happened from perhaps two snipers in other locations, each firing a single lethal shot, in addition to the shooter of the Carcano.  

The pistol shot was not designed to kill but to divert attention toward the Carcano linked to Oswald, and away from the two other shooters. Oswald per this hypothesis is being totally framed and is not party to the shooting, does not realize the Carcano is in the building. That there were two, not one, involved in the shooting of the Carcano at the 6th floor TSBD, is from several witness testimonies, and also from the witness testimonies concerning what I believe was the method of successful escape. The two involved in the shooting at the 6th floor have come down from the 7th or roof having entered earlier that morning. They made their escape following the shooting by simply walking down the stairs where they are encountered and thought to be unidentified plain-clothes "Secret Service" in the stairway and at the rear entrance before the first real Secret Service agent, Sorrels, arrived. The three shell casings, the paper bag the size of the rifle at the 6th floor, and the Carcano itself traced to Oswald via the backyard photographs and paper trail will pin it on Oswald, as the real assassins escape. This relies on a separate argument that the Carcano may never have been in the Paines' garage, never went to Irving from New Orleans, Marina's surprise that the rifle was not in the blanket notwithstanding. When all is said and done, an original misunderstanding of Marina concerning the disposition of the rifle and then desire to please interrogators by "confirming" that she had personally seen it once in the blanket after arrival to Irving, is the totality of the actual evidence that that rifle ever was in the Paines' garage--not very substantial, given Marina's mercurial and self-interest-motivated testimony under duress for herself and her children. 

Oswald's movements before and after the assassination then can become interpreted differently than the usual narrative. On Thursday night he attempted to reconcile with Marina, was rebuffed, and left practically all of his money, $170 (equivalent to $2000-3000 cash in today's money!), and his wedding ring for her. The visit to the garage of Lee that Ruth Paine remembered based on the light having been left on, becomes Oswald retrieving something but not a rifle. The wedding ring and the huge sum of cash--he was saying goodby for a while. Something was up, but it need not have been an intent to shoot anyone that day. The smaller paper bag that Wesley Buell Frazier saw with Oswald that morning may have been something unrelated to a firearm, or it may have been nothing more than Oswald's lunch, with the "curtain rods" explanation of Oswald of the evening before being Oswald's nonsense explanation to Frazier as to why he was going out to see Marina a day early. By this interpretation, Oswald was simply framed, did not realize he was being framed, was on the first floor of the TSBD at the time of the assassination, and his actions following the assassination are no less consistent with an innocent person framed as the more common interpretation that he was guilty. 

But back to the pistol at the 6th floor TSBD: the pistol makes the noise, and the pistol then leaves TSBD concealed on the person of one of the two involved in the shooting from the 6th floor TSBD. The purpose of the pistol shot is to draw attention. The reason it is heard like a "firecracker" different from the rifle shots which follow is because it is muzzle blast only, subsonic, and not a rifle. The shooter of the pistol aimed at JFK and happened to hit JFK in the back, at about 60 yards or so, within the range of some pistols to hit a body. The shot was so weak that it did not penetrate very far--but the purpose of that shot was to make a loud noise and draw attention. That bullet then became the original stretcher bullet, which then as a separate and later event had a bullet from the Carcano (C399) substituted for it, as part of a fixing of evidence to support the lone-nut shooter narrative once that was quickly decided, replacing an apparent original intent to have a Castro conspiracy blamed. The Carcano framing Oswald is left to be found in the 6th floor TSBD, the two walked down the stairs and out the door perceived as law enforcement, and two other snipers in locations other than the TSBD successfully escaped as well, their weapons not found. Oswald is hunted down, arrested, and killed in police custody. Oswald who had no Carcano ammunition in his belongings and no verified practice target shooting. (I think the alleged Sports Drome sightings, of a person who witnesses recalled looked like Oswald from what they saw on TV but who never claimed to be Oswald, did nothing distinctive that identified himself as Oswald, and could not have been Oswald at the times seen per the accurate calendar-documented timeline testimony of Ruth Paine, are best understood as neither Oswald nor an impersonator but as simple mistaken identification on par with other mistaken witness identifications.) 

This is a roundabout background to the only explanation I can think of that explains these three things of that first shot--its separation in time from the others; its "firecracker" sound different from the others; and its weak penetration of JFK's back-- . . . a pistol shot from the 6th floor TSBD, for the purpose of drawing public attention to the 6th floor TSBD, setting up the actual kill shots.

Edited by Greg Doudna
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54 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

The main argument against the single-bullet theory has always been the trajectory as inconsistent with the 6th floor TSBD.

Factually incorrect. Early critics like Vincent Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi correctly pointed out that the back wound was too low to have been associated with the throat wound.

If one doesn’t start with this root fact all analyses are garbage-in garbage-out.

<snip garbage>

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1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Factually incorrect. Early critics like Vincent Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi correctly pointed out that the back wound was too low to have been associated with the throat wound.

If one doesn’t start with this root fact all analyses are garbage-in garbage-out.

<snip garbage>

Don't see how this is different from what I said ("The main argument against the single-bullet theory has always been the trajectory as inconsistent with the 6th floor TSBD").

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10 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Don't see how this is different from what I said ("The main argument against the single-bullet theory has always been the trajectory as inconsistent with the 6th floor TSBD").

With the back wound inches below the throat wound the trajectory is inconsistent with a SBT shot from any position.

Why unnecessarily muddy the issue?

Edited by Cliff Varnell
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40 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

With the back wound inches below the throat wound the trajectory is inconsistent with a SBT shot from any position.

Why unnecessarily muddy the issue?

I see your point, you are right. "The HSCA's ballistics experts concluded that, between the back and the throat, the bullet carved an 11-degree upward track" (Aguilar and Cunningham 2003). Even with a shooter at street level does not remove the trajectory problem.

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3 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

I see your point, you are right. "The HSCA's ballistics experts concluded that, between the back and the throat, the bullet carved an 11-degree upward track" (Aguilar and Cunningham 2003). Even with a shooter at street level does not remove the trajectory problem.

And that’s with a fictional T1 back wound!

The first thing to know about the JFKA is the fact he was hit in the back at T3.  It doesn’t take a ballistics expert to observe the back wound was not associated with the throat wound.

The JFKA Critical Master Class is allergic to this root fact because it renders so much of their “expertise” moot.

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