How many rifles were found on the 6th floor?

[Edwin Ortiz]

I just saw a richard belZer interview where he claims 3 rfiles were know to have been "discovered"...the mauser, and enfield and the manlicher carcano... if any one has any information on this please confirm ...thanks ...I had only heard of the manlicher and mauser...Hmm

[Len Colby]

Belzer is a better actor than he is a researcher and he isn't a very good actor. I'm hardly an expert but I've not seen solid evidence more than one rifle as found. It seems some cops got confused about the make of the gun. This doesn't even make sense. Why would the plotters plant more than one weapon?

[Len Colby]

Note post just made on this thread.

[Paul Brancato]

I find it hard to believe that the first rifle found at the TSBD was Oswald's. its hard to imagine a misidentification by two guys who should have been able to tell the difference, and they did swear to it in writing, did they not?

[Paul Brancato]

The Enfield story is pretty new to me. But the Mauser incident is of course impossible to erase from history as we all saw it.

[Don Jeffries]

Legally speaking, the rifle found on the sixth floor was a German Mauser. Although it was claimed that both Seymor Weitzman and Eugene Boone misidentified it in a curiously identical manner, their affidavits represent the legal chain of possession for the weapon. A competent defense attorney would have objected to the admission of the Carcano into the record, and an honest judge would have not permitted it to be introduced into the record.

[Len Colby]

As noted the story doesn't make sense why plant two gums, or plant the wrong one? There is news footage of the rifle being found and it was the MC not a Mauser. Weitzman said on TV and to the WC that he'd only glanced at the weapon when it was recovered. As for Boone here's his relevant testimony:

Mr. BALL - There is one question. Did you hear anybody refer to this rifle as a Mauser that day?

Mr. BOONE - Yes, I did. And at first, not knowing what it was, I thought it was 7.65 Mauser.

Mr. BALL - Who referred to it as a Mauser that day?

Mr. BOONE - I believe Captain Fritz. He had knelt down there to look at it, and before he removed it, not knowing what it was, he said that is what it looks like. This is when Lieutenant Day, I believe his name is, the ID man was getting ready to photograph it.

We were just discussing it beck and forth. And he said it looks like a 7.65 Mauser.

And the guns are similar, they are shown side by side in the clip below

I

[Edwin Ortiz]

Thanks for your replies i thnk i need to get the belzer book to see where his info is coming from ....

[Edwin Ortiz]

Excellent point sounds reasonable thanks

From memory the very first reports concerning the rifle claimed it was a British Enfield. Two networks were broadcasting this around 2pm that afternoon.

It isn't a coincidence that Buell Wesley Frazier owned one and it's one reason why I don't believe any aspect of the "official" BWF story. As far as I can make out the Irving and Dallas Police were looking for Frazier quite soon after the assassination and it's likely that it was them who approached Linnie Mae Randle that afternoon rather than the official narrative's claim that Randle approached them. I believe this is why Randle sent the Irving Police to the wrong hospital when they said they wanted him for questioning.

For me, the Enfield reports provided incredible leverage against Frazier once the police caught hold of him.

[Paul Brancato]

Len - I don't buy Boone's filmed admission. Both he and Weitzman imo just played ball. They were policemen, and we know how they do. Its a rare cop that will go against the tide.

[Len Colby]

Len - I don't buy Boone's filmed admission. Both he and Weitzman imo just played ball. They were policemen, and we know how they do. Its a rare cop that will go against the tide.

Except the Alaya film shows an MC not a Mauser or Enfeild. Why would the plotters plant 2 or 3 rifles or the wrong one to be swapped later?

[David Williams]

Warren Caster brought a Mauser into the TSBD on the 20th November Lee. He said he took it home that same day, maybe he never and that was the Mauser the police found.

Dave

[Bernice Moore]

You may be interested in Craig's article....

The Guns of Dealey Plaza

by John S. Craig

Action on the Roof

Oswald's 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano was not the only weapon seen in Dealey Plaza that day. At1 p.m. Dallas police officers were filmed by Ernest Charles Mentesana removing a rifle from the roof of the Depository. Unlike the Oswald rifle, the rifle Mentesana filmed had no sling, no scope, and protruded at least 7-8 inches past the stock, where Oswald's extended only 4-5 inches. <17> In the film two police officers are standing on a fire escape at the seventh floor of the Depository gesturing to the roof. In the next sequence the rifle is being examined.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Thayer Waldo watched a group of high-ranking Dallas police officers huddle together for a conference just a few minutes after 1 p.m. on the day of the shooting. When he spoke to a secretary who was privy to the officers' conversations, she told Waldo that police officers had found a rifle on the "roof of the School Book Depository." <18>

W. Anthony Marsh believes the rifle shown in the film is very likely a Dallas Police Department Remington 870 shotgun. Marsh notes that the Dallas Police Department used Remington 870 shotguns. One of the officers escorting three men in the railyards after the shooting was carrying a Remington 870 shotgun.

footnotes .....

17. Sibley, Robert. "The Mysterious, Vanishing Rifle of the JFK Assassination," The Third Decade, v. 1, n. 6, September 1985, p. 16.

18. Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibit, vol. 15, p. 5.

19. Marsh, W. Anthony. "No Mentesana Rifle," The Assassination Chronicles, v. 2, n. 1, March 1996, p. 24.

http://spot.acorn.ne...ue/guns_dp.html

Testimony Of Seymour Weitzman

http://karws.gso.uri...t/Weitzman.html

A bit more on Weitzman...

THEORY: BARKER IN DALLAS ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963?

When Michael Canfield visited Dallas in April 1975 he interviewed Seymour Weitzman, who was in a home for aged veterans. Seymour Weitzman had a nervous breakdown in June 1972 - shortly after Watergate. He requested that his doctor, Charles Laburda, be present during the interview. Seymour Weitzman told Michael Canfield he had encountered a Secret Service Agent in the parking lot who produced credentials and told him everything was under control. He described the man as being of medium height, dark hair and wearing a light windbreaker. Michael Canfield showed him photographs of Watergate burglars STURGIS and BARKER, and asked him if either of these men resembled the "Secret Service Agent" he had encountered on November 22, 1963. He pointed to BERNARD BARKER. He told Michael Canfield: "I can't remember for sure, but it looked like him. Couldn't swear it was him though...anyway so many witnesses are dead...two Cubans once forced their way into my house and waited for me when I got home. I had to chase them out with my service revolver...I feared for my life." A recent JFK Records Collection Computer search revealed that one page of a Warren Commission document that dealt with Seymour Weitzman and the tramps was referred to another agency for review. [NARA 180-10095-10367; see 180-10095-10355] When the HSCA attempted to question Seymour Weitzman, Dr. Charles Laburda objected: "Since Mr. Weitzman was treated for emotional illness for many years...information sought from him should be extracted from his testimony and depositions made at that time [1963 to 1964]." [ltr. VA Laburda 6.1.78] Seymour Weitzman, born January 28, 1922, died in July 1985.

http://www.ajweberma...2/nodulec19.htm

""Officer Seymour Weitzman, part of the Dallas police search team, later described the discovery of the rifle on the afternoon of November 22. He stated that it had been so well hidden under boxes of books that the officers stumbled over it many times before they found it. Officer Weitzmann, who had an engineering degree and also operated a sporting goods store, was recognized as an authority on weapons. Consequently, Dallas Homicide Chief Will Fritz, who was on the scene, asked him the make of the rifle. Weitzman identified it as a 7.65 Mauser, a highly accurate German-made weapon. Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig was also there and later recalled the word "Mauser" inscribed in the metal of the gun. And Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone executed a sworn affidavit in which he described the rifle as a Mauser. As late as midnight November 22, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade told the media that the weapon found was a Mauser.

… when the smoke cleared and all the law enforcement authorities in Dallas had their stories duly in order, the official position was that the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository was the Mannlicher-Carcano, which allegedly was linked to Oswald under an alias, and not the Mauser, which disappeared forever shortly after it reached the hands of Captain Fritz.

But even this revision of the official story did not explain the third rifle. A film taken by Dallas Cinema Associates, an independent film company, showed a scene of the Book Depository shortly after the assassination. Police officers on the fire escape were bringing down a rifle from the roof above the sixth floor with the tender care you might give an infant. When the policemen reached the ground, a high-ranking officer held the rifle high for everyone to see. The camera zoomed in for a close-up. Beneath the picture was the legend, "The Assassin’s Rifle." When I saw the film, I noted that this rifle had no sight mounted on it. Thus it could not have been either the Carcano or the vanished Mauser, both of which had sights.

I was not surprised to find that this third rifle, like the Mauser, had disappeared. But its existence confirmed my hypothesis that Lee Oswald could not have killed John Kennedy as the American public had been told. Setting aside the evidence of two other weapons on the scene, the incredibly accurate shooting of an incredibly inaccurate rifle within an impossible time frame was merely the beginning of the feat we were asked to believe Oswald had accomplished.""

Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, pp. 113 - 115)

B

From a post made on Rich's forum...

A British Enfield .303 was reported found by NBC.There was a video on the web that is long gone now, showing the report being given...about the Enfield...

Both the Mauser and the Enfield were far superior sniper weapons.

Just FYI Myron DelaBeckwith killed Medgar Evers with a British Enfield.

No connection to the JFK case, but the discovery of weapons like the

Mauser and the British Enfield indicates the possible presence of

professional snipers

Edited December 23, 2012 by Bernice Moore

[Bernice Moore]

see;http://karws.gso.uri...ans/WBAP-TV.txt

Subject: Re: NBC Announces Enfield .303 Rifle Found on TSBD.6th

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 15:02:24 -0500

From: "Gary Mack" <gmack@jfk.org>

Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com - The Internet's Discussion Network

Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk,alt.conspiracy.jfk

According to the NBC book "There Was A President," reporter Tom Whalen

said, at 2:13pm CST, "The weapon which was used to kill the president, and

which wounded Gov. Connally, has been found in the Texas School Book

Depository on the sixth floor - a British 303 rifle with a telescopic

sight. Three empty cartridge cases were found beside the weapon. It

appeared that whoever had occupied this sniper's nest had been here for

some time."

Tom was a reporter for WBAP-TV, the NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth.

The video tape shows Tom giving the announcement from the WBAP studio in

Fort Worth (in color, as the station acquired color cameras in 1954!)

His words read very much like AP or UPI wire copy, which means the

information could have been sent out several minutes earlier.

The source of the report is not named, but it had to have come from

someone actively participating in the TSBD search.

Gary Mack

Archivist

The Sixth Floor Museum

b

Edited December 23, 2012 by Bernice Moore

[Len Colby]

Not only was there a Mauser discovered first in the TSBD, there was a Mauser shell found in Dealey Plaza.

The FBI hid this fact for 30 years until the ARRB found the evidence.

I'd like to see a citation for those claims but won't hold my breath.

The reason for the Mauser of course is that it was a much better sniper weapon. The MC was just not viable in that regard. Particularly the one used to frame Oswald. That rifle could never be used in the operation since the scope was misaligned and inaccurate, and the bolt had a very hard pull to it. In fact the WC could not even use it for simulations.

Plus, it would be a little ridiculous to have a sniper run out the back of the TSBD with a rifle in his hand--the guy Worrell saw running out the back.

So you think JFK was indeed shot from the sniper's net with the recovered rifle? But was shot with a 7.65mm as opposed to a 6.5mm ammunition?

Later on, when this was decided upon, the Dallas authorities closed ranks. People like Weitzmann had to recant. I mean, c'mon, the MC rifle actually says Made in Italy with the caliber number on it. How could any one knowledgeable with weapons, like Weitzmann was, think a Mauser was made in Italy.

Strawman, he said he only glanced at the gun, do you have evidence he examined it more closely?

Further, even though this charade was enacted, they still got the details wrong. Because the MC found in the TSBD is not the one that Oswald allegedly ordered. Which shows this story was being manufactured willy nilly.

Another fallacy as Martin Shackleford discovered the rifle matched the one shown in the ad LHO clipped the order form from. But you make these guys sound like the gang that couldn't shot straight why fake an order for a 6.5mm MC if they were planning on using a 7.65 Mauser? Couldn't they at least have gotten the calibers to match? In any case the gun in the Alyea film which went on air at about 3:30, about 2 hours after the gun was recovered show an MC not a Mauser. Ditto photos of the rifle taken in and around the TSBD immediately following recovery.