Why bother hiding the rifle?

[Ian Lloyd]

According to the official story, an assassin fired from the 6th floor of the TSBD; the assassin fled the "sniper's nest", leaving behind boxes with prints on them and spent cartridges on the floor. During the escape, the assassin took the time to hide the rifle behind some boxes.

Why would he bother hiding it? It's not as if the rifle had the assassin's name written on it or anything...

Why not just leave it in the sniper's nest with the spent cartridges?

Or take it with him in case he was approached by a police officer or whoever? Apparently, he still had a bullet to shoot someone with...

[Joe Bauer]

Questions thousands have pondered since 11,22,1963.

All one can do is speculate.

I guess whoever threw the rifle into a somewhat hidden place thought that doing so might give him a little more get away time before the police would find it and maybe identify it's ownership?

Remember, the shooter was frantically running for his life as soon as he fired his third shot. Not much time to do any clean up work afterwards.

If the shooter was Oswald...what boggles my mind is how he could not think that having pictures of himself holding the found rifle ( with multiple copies made ) in his backyard just months earlier would so easily be found and totally incriminate him in the JFK case.

Again, if the shooter was Oswald...he also must have been suicidal in deciding to do this deed, right from his own workplace. He had to have known he was going to be ID'd and caught soon after.

And it's been reported that Oswald doted on his infant daughter June. Really loved her. He wanted to make sure Junie got some shoes even after he was incarcerated for Tippit's murder.

Lee Harvey Oswald was intelligent enough to know that if he was caught and tried for killing JFK...that this would very likely ruin his beloved daughter's life growing up.

He was willing to sacrifice her life to do this deed? 

What could explain the extreme hurtful cruelty of that decision juxtaposed with his oft reported real love for his baby girl Junie?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Ege]

Ian and Joe, of course.

Thank you.

Whoever he was, astute assassin he must have been, since he was able to meticulously plan and execute his dastardly deed, bordering on which, if not an absolutely miraculous accomplishment, is pretty darn close - and which has never since been duplicated - he suddenly suffered a senior moment.

Instead of exiting the sixth floor as fast as humanly possible so as to maximize the chance of a successful getaway, he decides to waste precious seconds "hiding" the rifle?

"Hiding" the MC makes no sense.  As you pointed out Joe, LHO was not unintelligent, and he would have known an hour or two delay in the authorities "finding" it would matter not, considering the alleged "records trail" that he left.  The family aspect you mentioned is "icing on the cake". 

Someone planting the rifle beforehand, does make sense.

Otherwise, we're left with the option that the MC was fired that day and then instead of "beating feet" immediately after the last shot, the assassin incredibly wasted precious time, taking time to "hide" it.

If so, then me thinks that he must've also been an absolutely astounding gambler. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

[Ian Lloyd]

52 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Questions thousands have pondered since 11,22,1963.

All one can do is speculate.

I guess whoever threw the rifle into a somewhat hidden place thought that doing so might give him a little more get away time before the police would find it and maybe identify it's ownership?

 

 

 

 

But how much time would be gained? As it turned out, less than an hour?...

[Guest]

The whole plan lacks any sense... :

- shoot "a number of times" (untill you are sure of a deadly hit)

- take time to hide the rifle (but leave the shells*)

- take the bus to go home (to get your revolver... you know how boys are...)

- go for a walk on the wild side and catch a movie...

 

If he had taken the greyhound to Mexico, I'd go along.. but now... nope... not as it was presented...

One can think of hundreds of better plans i.m.o.

 

*I don't really want to know what they would have come up with if "he" had lost those

For all we know "he" never had any live shells, unless the one left in the rifle.... think about it....

If he had taken the empty shells there was still the live one in the rifle... would they have come up with

a 4 shot-scenario (AND no need for a magicial bullit....) ?

Sound like they wanted options, but this time he did not take his empty shells ??

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Ken Davies]

Interesting thought Jean Paul, but what if he left 3 shells, pocketed a 4th shell for whatever reason and tossed it away later. 

Four shots.  

[Karl Hilliard]

5 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

 

I guess whoever threw the rifle into a somewhat hidden place thought that doing so might give him a little more get away time before the police would find it and maybe identify it's ownership?

Remember, the shooter was frantically running for his life as soon as he fired his third shot. Not much time to do any clean up work afterwards.

 

 

Quote

I guess whoever threw the rifle into a somewhat hidden place thought that doing so might give him a little more get away time before the police would find it and maybe identify it's ownership?

I believe that certain people already knew who the ownership would be blamed on. I further believe that the suspect rifle was already "hidden".

Quote

Remember, the shooter was frantically running for his life as soon as he fired his third shot.

I don't believe anyone ran away at all. My theory [only that] ...a couple of guys were up there disguised as detectives [maybe FEDS] w/badges. When the searchers piled into the 6th floor, they just mingled around like they belonged with the searchers and left. They had a couple of buddies down by the back door ...

Quote

SENATOR COOPER - Did you see anyone else while you were in the building, other than this man you have identified later as Oswald, and Mr. Truly?
Mr. BAKER - On the first floor there were two men. As we came through the main doorway to the elevators, I remember as we tried to get on the elevators I remember two men, one was sitting on this side and another one between 20 or 30 feet away from us looking at us.

 

[Chris Bristow]

Oswald might consider that someone from the 4th or 5th floors may immediately run bravely up to the sixth floor. Maybe they pass Oswald on the stairs, find the rifle seconds later, then run to the window and yell "stop that man".

He would also have to be concerned that someone could just show up on the 6th floor right before the shooting, during the shooting, or a few seconds after. If he was really thinking about it he would have to weigh the extra time to hide it versus it's being found too quickly.

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

Oswald might consider that someone from the 4th or 5th floors may immediately run bravely up to the sixth floor. Maybe they pass Oswald on the stairs, find the rifle seconds later, then run to the window and yell "stop that man".

He would also have to be concerned that someone could just show up on the 6th floor right before the shooting, during the shooting, or a few seconds after. If he was really thinking about it he would have to weigh the extra time to hide it versus it's being found too quickly.

It certainly makes sense that the sniper would leave one bullet in the chamber and walk across the floor. That way he could shoot someone running up, or shoot himself if it appeared he was surrounded. When he got to the far side of the floor and realized he might actually escape, however, he might very well have stashed the gun behind some boxes real fast. It is my belief he then either turned around and went down in the elevator, or walked down to the fifth to take the elevator from there. 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Guest]

So his first plan was : I'm probably not going to make it (given all what happened I can understand that), close to a suicide mission (those are usually somehow planned long before, or take a certain history at least, also reasonable in his case). 

But when he realized he could escape,  he takes that option* (human reflex, but a little in contradiction with the first)

So next he switches the full defense mode in getting his revolver ?   

That I still find hard to understand if he really wanted to escape, that was just a loss of time in an escape scenario.   I'd rather see him taking the cab far out of town in that case (after leaving the TSBD that is)...  

I'm gonna have to think about him changing his options.  I know desperate times take desperate measures, something like that, but he seemed to have a different approach in the following 2 encounters with the police.  Not to mention he seemingly was calm on those encounters (except the very last). His brains must have been a pinball machine, but he wouldn't show it (for all we know ofcourse, different opinions/statements on that).  

*hiding the rifle is consistent with the alledged Walker shooting, if that happened it's also very well possible he did it again

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Denis Morissette]

Are we talking about the Carcano or the Mauser?

[Ian Lloyd]

I think the assassination may well have been considered a 'suicide mission ' given the level of protection afforded JFK from the cops & SS; The shooter would surely have realised that they weren't going to take long to figure out where the shots came from and swarm all over the building. This is what makes me wonder why the assassin would waste precious seconds trying to conceal the weapon?...unless, of course, he didn't...

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Denis Morissette said:

Are we talking about the Carcano or the Mauser?

Some say they are still looking for the Mauser 😃

No kidding, my point was if "his" plan included an escape he should have taken the shell's (or at least 2... aaggrrh... nope please don't go there will only result in 2 magical bullets, we don't want that...)

Anyway

Walker : hides the rifle,  takes the shell

JFK : hides the rifle, leaves the shells

So for all I know -  if it was LHO - his plan changed a few times, that's kinda my problem (not to mention the whole bag of other problems)

 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Joe Bauer]

3 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

*hiding the rifle is consistent with the alledged Walker shooting, if that happened it's also very well possible he did it again

Hiding his rifle after his Walker miss allowed Oswald to run to and board a bus home without the possibility of a witness ( bus driver or passenger) reporting to the police they saw a rider board their bus right after the Walker shooting with a rifle or long case that may have looked like a gun carrying one or even his traditional semi-long window blinds paper bag.

Oswald planned that rifle burying thoughtfully enough and far enough from the scene he was actually able to retrieve it later.

Another question, did Oswald carry the rifle back to his home via another bus ride?

Did he have a carrying case for this? Or did he use his infamous paper bag type wrap around a broken down rifle?

Or, did someone give Oswald a ride home with his dug up rifle?

The thing about Oswald that is so discombobulating is his almost child-like stupid missteps and blunders in so many of his extreme activity adventures.

He puts a Guy Bannister building address on his New Orleans FPPC flyers?

He gets into a slapping and pushing fight while doing his flyers in the heart of downtown New Orleans in busy broad daylight that was so crowd visible he and his bitch slapping opponent are arrested and thrown in jail for brawling in public?

He promotes his FFPC chapter publicly knowing anyone could see it was a chapter of one operating out of a lone P.O. Box.

He pressures Marina into helping him conjure up his crazy and amateurly done Alex Hidell ID papers.

He takes backyard pictures of himself with a rifle and revolver and Commie newspapers and makes copies, which he had to have known would be such an incriminating bit of evidence against him in future nefarious activities if found, it was crazy.

He takes totally traceable public transportation to Mexico City with Visa app on record, goes to Embassy's he knows are filming him and taping his conversations which he knows will all be recorded and sent immediately to his dreaded FBI back home.

The Walker shooting was actually planned!

Photo's, maps, bus times and routes, distance and time coordinating...and still the whole caper failed miserably.

His escape plan after shooting the President of the USA ( twice) in broad daylight in front of hundreds of bystanders is to simply toss his rifle, run down some stairs, stop in a lunch room to quench his nervous dry mouth thirst, then walk out the front door and a few blocks to catch a bus, then a cab back to his $8 a week room, change into a jacket, pack a gun and start walking off to nowhere that made sense.

Oswald wanted to hijack a plane with Marina's help to fly to Cuba?

This is a mentally deranged person.

Yet, to his police interrogators on 11,22,1963 he comes across to them as the most cool and collected suspect?

The world travelled, sophisticate George DeMohrenchildts was able to have a few conversations with Oswald which reportedly didn't leave him thinking Oswald was a complete idiot.

Marina Oswald must have known deep inside that her husband Lee was extremely mentally disturbed, no?

Yet, this mistake after mistake making guy was able to defeat an army of JFK security... and walk away right through the crush of frantic police and off to catch a taxi home?

Oswald was a multi-sided enigma for sure.

Crazy stupid blundering idiot at times. Ever reading, self-Russian language taught and Russian opera loving guy at times. Doting loving father at times. Brooding morose company at times. World traveling adventurer at times.

One of the most confusing and self-contradicting characters in an epic historical stage play event one could imagine or conjure up.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Pat Speer]

6 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

So his first plan was : I'm probably not going to make it (given all what happened I can understand that), close to a suicide mission (those are usually somehow planned long before, or take a certain history at least, also reasonable in his case). 

But when he realized he could escape,  he takes that option* (human reflex, but a little in contradiction with the first)

So next he switches the full defense mode in getting his revolver ?   

That I still find hard to understand if he really wanted to escape, that was just a loss of time in an excape scenario.   I'd rather see him taking the cab far out of town in that case (afther leaving the TSBD that is)...  

I'm gonna have to think about him changing his options.  I know desperate times take desperate measures, something like that, but he seemed to have a different approach in the following 2 encounters with the police.  Not to mention he seemingly was calm on those encounters (except the very last). His brains must have been a pinball machine, but he wouldn't show it (for all we know ofcourse, different opinions/statements on that).  

*hiding the rifle is consistent with the alledged Walker shooting, if that happened it's also very well possible he did it again

 

 

 

To be clear, I don't think it was Oswald. If it was someone else, he may very well have had a revolver on his person. But on the other hand maybe not. If his goal was to get outside and mingle with the crowd, he might have anticipated a pat-down after he left the building. In such case, he would not want to have anything on his person that would set himself apart from the rest of the crowd.