Oswald's Alleged Shooting Accuracy Versus The Experts?

[Denny Zartman]

33 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

From reading a jillion pages on this stuff, and watching the various re-enactments, it's clear that a well-practiced shooter could hit any individual shot, even with that rifle. But hitting two of three rapid fire while the target was moving is highly unlikely, particularly when you consider what the commission presented--that Oswald had put the rifle together with a dime and hadn't practiced in months, if at all. It's a fairy tale.

I suppose a good analogy would be a 180 average bowler (who was, 6 years earlier, a 200 average bowler) who hadn't bowled in months, walking onto a lane and firing twelve random balls without any warm-up, and bowling 300. It's possible. But one in a million, if that. 

And in my opinion there would have been several additional stress factors that I rarely see mentioned: running up five flights of stairs just prior to shooting, committing a first murder, attempting to kill a president, and all of the probable consequences of that murder (which surely would have been a trip to the electric chair.)

[Denny Zartman]

I remember here years ago someone had gotten hold of a Carcano and was going to attempt to assemble it using a dime and then report back on how it went. Does anyone know if there was a follow up on that, or know of anyone else who had done that and could say how easy or difficult it was?

[John Butler]

11 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

All this, without even mentioning the added problem of reacquiring the target (JFK) through the misaligned scope, after working the somewhat stubborn bolt.  Ever look at something through binoculars, move off the "target" just a wee bit and then attempt to very quickly reacquire it?  Expert sniper, perhaps.  LHO, hardly likely.

Ron,

Your dead on.  If you have ever watched the old hunting shows, or youtube videos on shooting coyotes or other game, those guys seem to take forever to sight in using scopes.  And, never at a moving target.

[John Butler]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

When you have Hathcock, Brian Edwards and Craig Roberts all saying that no it could not be done.  And then you have all the technical problems with that particular piece of junk, I mean,  rifle?

I mean please.

Absolutely.  Besides, nobody on the 3rd or 4th floors heard shooting from directly above them, or off by less than 40 ft.  Most heard shooting from the west, or in the case of Elsie Dorman who heard shooting from the Court Records Building.  All the 5th floor threesome heard shooting form above.  One later recanted and who could believe Bonnie Ray Williams?

Edited July 25, 2022 by John Butler

[James DiEugenio]

Bob Tanenbaum, who ran the Homicide Division in NYC for seven years--never losing a case--once said, if you cannot prove the truth of your charge from the outset, then why are you getting involved with all these other matters after the fact?

And that is the way I have always felt about this issue.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

I remember here years ago someone had gotten hold of a Carcano and was going to attempt to assemble it using a dime and then report back on how it went. Does anyone know if there was a follow up on that, or know of anyone else who had done that and could say how easy or difficult it was?

A former British policeman named Ian Griggs bought a Carcano and practiced assembling it with a dime. He said it always raised a blister. He discussed this topic in great detail in his book No Case to Answer and at a number of JFK Lancer Conferences.  One of the things he discovered was that a photo in the WR was a hoax. This showed the scope and barrel in one piece next to the wooden stock. As I recall Griggs reported that you could not just remove the scope and barrel in one piece, and that to remove the barrel you had to disassemble the scope and its attachments. As I recall you would have to break the rifle and scope down into 11 pieces in order to fit it into the bag. In any event it was a lot more complicated and time-consuming than the FBI's testimony would lead you to believe. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Denny Zartman]

7 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

A former British policeman named Ian Griggs bought a Carcano and practiced assembling it with a dime. He said it always raised a blister. He discussed this topic in great detail in his book No Case to Answer and at a number of JFK Lancer Conferences.  One of the things he discovered was that a photo in the WR was a hoax. This showed the scope and barrel in one piece next to the wooden stock. As I recall Griggs reported that you could not just remove the scope and barrel in one piece, and that to remove the barrel you had to disassemble the scope and its attachments. As I recall you would have to break the rifle and scope down into 11 pieces in order to fit it into the bag. In any event it was a lot more complicated and time-consuming than the FBI's testimony would lead you to believe. 

Thanks for the information, Pat. I will have to try and track down Griggs' book. I was always curious to hear directly from someone who had done it and what their experience was like. I don't imagine that assembling anything entirely with a dime would be easy at all.

Plus, it's sort of puzzling how a guy can get to Mexico City and back as well as smuggle a rifle into the TSBD, but the same guy couldn't get to a hardware store or smuggle in an actual tool.

[Paul Cummings]

3 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

Thanks for the information, Pat. I will have to try and track down Griggs' book. I was always curious to hear directly from someone who had done it and what their experience was like. I don't imagine that assembling anything entirely with a dime would be easy at all.

Plus, it's sort of puzzling how a guy can get to Mexico City and back as well as smuggle a rifle into the TSBD, but the same guy couldn't get to a hardware store or smuggle in an actual tool.

Maybe Oswald put it in with the curtain rods or better yet bought a swiss army knife while attending Albert Schweitzer in Switzerland??????? 

[Joe Bauer]

Although it's speculation isn't it standard procedure for homicide investigators who are trying to make a case against a primary suspect to try to get into the suspect's head and understand the mental state of this person before, up to and during an act of murder?

To try to better understand and establish propensities, motive and perhaps premeditation versus spontaneous impulsivity or even an act of self defense?

Psychological evaluation on it's own is such an abstract affair that conclusions drawn by prosecutors to help prove guilt are a tough cookie to present to jurors who mostly are uneducated in this area of science.

Still, if a suspect's past psychological and behavior background history and actions can be shown to be strongly incriminating through any number of documented records such as criminal, medical, familial, employment, school, military, travel, financial and combined with and bolstered by 1st and 2nd hand knowledge testimonies of people who have had interactions with the suspect, especially personal and long term, a prosecutor's case can be hard to counter with a defense claim of mere speculation.

Why the preamble?

In Oswald's case it seems that everything about his accused guilt hinges upon the background behavior and mental state aspects I just outlined.

Killing another human being ( or killing oneself ) is a desperate act to the highest human experience degree.

It really is an act that requires blinded reasoning. Blinded by rage, jealousy, retribution, self-defense fear, greed, loss, shame blame, alcohol, brainwashing, psychopathic and sociopathic mental illness whatever.

In Oswald's alleged case I believe we can eliminate greed, jealousy, alcohol, retribution, fear, psychotic mental illness, shame blame.

What does that leave?

Maybe Oswald was simply a nihilist. Giving up on everything - good and bad?

Thinking maybe bringing down the entire town and rebuilding from the ground up couldn't be worse than what was?

Killing an unarmed person and maybe even while their back is turned toward you is a special case however, even for a nihilist imo.

If Oswald did it ( shot JFK from behind and in such a brutally savage way and even risking killing JFK's inches away wife) there had to be reason blinding, even suicidal rage.

The second Oswald pulled that trigger, something blinded him to his deepest love, his love for his children ( something he surely felt and sadly felt he never had as a child ) that even his wife stated over and over was real and sincere.

Oswald ( again "if" he did it ) had to have known that what he was doing at 12:30 pm on 11,22,1963 was not only the ultimate act of destruction of JFK and his children's loss of a father, but also the destruction of himself and of "his" children's future life without a father and perhaps being persecuted growing up as the children of JFK's killer.

Was Oswald that hopelessly broken?   

Just trying to get into Oswald's head if he indeed shot JFK and Tippet.

Or was he actually a part of a conspiracy involving others?

Oswald's aggressive never wavering fight to proclaim his innocence under relentless pressure to confess until his dying breath seems to counter many of the reason blinding murder motivations I mentioned above including suicidal.

Now, Jack Ruby's stated blind rage motivations for whacking Oswald are a lot less complicated.

He just couldn't let Oswald live to further torment Jackie Kennedy and get away with showing Jews don't have guts.

Even to the point of leaving the love of his life ( his she dog Sheba ) orphaned.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Joe Bauer