The (laughable) SBT

[Bob Ness]

49 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

What I meant was that JFK had heard the same shot as Connolly heard several seconds prior to going behind the sign. But that while JFK brushed it off as a firecracker and continued waving to the crowd, just before he goes behind the sign he realizes it was foolish to brush it off and realizes that indeed it was a shot. I was suggesting that this sudden realization is what caused JFK to then make the odd movement we see just before he goes behind the sign.

Ah. I think just about everyone agrees the shot happened before Stemmons - that is, his reaction to the shot began before it - and I doubt it was Kennedy reacting to anything else. Again, the problem with the SBT is that the reasoning behind it is so convoluted and the witnesses are at odds with the explanation given. Just applying common sense to it obviates the need for the SBT as a consideration.

Now, before anyone has seen the Zapruder film? Ah ha! That makes sense! Throw any ridiculous theory into the air and it's much more difficult to shoot down the SBT as a likely event because with any good luck at all the Zapruder film will remain absconditum. In fact, any reasonable person could accept that possibility. Until such time as what actually happened is revealed publicly via the film. The SBT then doesn't add up.

"The bullet hit him here in the neck (it didn't) and then transversed UP through his larynx, took a right-hand turn and down through Connelly's rib, across and partly though his wrist lodging in his thigh and wiggled out on the stretcher, leapt to someone else's, was picked up by somebody and handed to someone else and made it to DC (in near perfect condition) an hour after it was accounted for blah blah blah etc etc etc". Something like that.

How about Lee shot a few and also somebody else did from a different location? Or somebody shot him from a different location and planted the casings? There's a jillion possible explanations which are easier to believe and would have been easier to prove had they been investigated.

The Abominable Snowman done it is easier to believe than the SBT.

[Bill Fite]

Unless someone has shown what was done incorrectly in this simulation, doesn't it alone disprove the SBT?

The fact that the participants claimed just the opposite made me laugh when I saw the initial broadcast in the 80s-early 90s.

 

[Chris Bristow]

I have heard many times that the low velocity of CE399 at the rib and wrist allowed  it to remain mostly undamaged. Has there ever been a real world test that proves this?
 I saw the Myers video test firing into several feet of pine and retrieving a near pristine bullet. Pine is much less dense than bone so I had my doubts. It occurred to me that putting the wood just a foot or two from the barrel meant the bullet impacted the first boards at nearly full velocity. But even with the bullet moving at near full speed the pine was not dense enough to deform the bullet. I think this shows that pine makes for a useless comparison.
 Here Joseph Dolce states that the bullets they fired for the WC deformed ""even at low velocity". Thank you Vince.
If the low velocity explanation is valid why has no one taken a rack of beef ribs and rounds with smaller loads and duplicated CE399?

 

[David Von Pein]

13 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

But there is the issue regarding JFKs movements just before he goes behind the sign. JFK seems to raise his hands and make an odd facial expression. Maybe he was coughing, sneezing, or maybe he realized that that firecracker sound he just heard was not a firecracker but a rifle shot and his sudden odd expression before he goes behind the sign is a display of the realization that someone is shooting at them. I don't know.

In your years studying this case David, have you been able to come up with a theory to explain JFKs odd movement just before he goes behind the sign?

Frankly, Gerry, I don't think there's anything particularly "odd" about JFK's movements just prior to the time he disappears behind the sign. And I can't see any odd facial expression being exhibited by JFK at that time either. But it is very difficult to discern any facial details at that point in the film, since the limousine is further away from Mr. Zapruder's camera than it is just a few seconds later.

https://drive.google.com / DVP Video File / The Zapruder Film

When comparing the Z-Film's "pre-sign" frames with the "post-sign" frames, it looks to me as if Kennedy's right arm is in pretty much the very same position AFTER he emerges from behind the Stemmons sign as it was before going behind the sign. And Dale Myers pretty much confirmed this fact years ago when he did his "interpolation" work to study the movements of both Kennedy and Connally in the Zapruder Film.

Myers said this (on his FAQ page at his "Secrets Of A Homicide" website):

"When the sequence is viewed without the sign's interference, it is clear that the interpolated motion forms a contiguous bridge between the known actions of the two men as seen both before and after the Stemmons freeway sign. In short, Kennedy and Connally made no large, dramatic movements while hidden from Zapruder's camera." -- Dale K. Myers

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Chris Bristow said:

I have heard many times that the low velocity of CE399 at the rib and wrist allowed  it to remain mostly undamaged. Has there ever been a real world test that proves this?
 I saw the Myers video test firing into several feet of pine and retrieving a near pristine bullet. Pine is much less dense than bone so I had my doubts. It occurred to me that putting the wood just a foot or two from the barrel meant the bullet impacted the first boards at nearly full velocity. But even with the bullet moving at near full speed the pine was not dense enough to deform the bullet. I think this shows that pine makes for a useless comparison.
 Here Joseph Dolce states that the bullets they fired for the WC deformed ""even at low velocity". Thank you Vince.
If the low velocity explanation is valid why has no one taken a rack of beef ribs and rounds with smaller loads and duplicated CE399?

 

It has been demonstrated that a high-velocity bullet striking flesh (and no bone) can be slowed to a point where it can pass through two men and emerge largely unscathed. When CTs claim that it could not, they are both misrepresenting the facts, and playing into the hands of those claiming CE 399 was such a bullet. 

No, the problem isn't that a high-velocity bullet could not hit two men and emerge looking like CE 399, the problem is that the tests performed for the WC demonstrated that a bullet traveling at full velocity could not create the wounds attributed to CE 399 without receiving more damage.

Connally's wounds were especially problematic. If CE 399 struck JFK at full velocity, and did not hit bone, as presumed by the WC, it would have struck Connally's rib at a velocity far beyond the velocity at which the bullet would deform...IOW, the bullet would have been badly deformed. But even if one should hand-wave that problem away, there is a similar problem with the wrist wound and thigh wound. The tests performed for the WC showed that the bullet striking Connally's wrist and thigh would also have to have been traveling at a greatly reduced velocity.

So perhaps the bullet was traveling at a greatly reduced velocity, then. Well, this creates a different problem. When one reverse engineers the approximate velocity lost in each wound back to a source behind Kennedy, one finds that the bullet would have to have been traveling at a subsonic velocity to do the damage attributed to it without suffering more deformation. And this suggests a plot involving a trained assassin, and not Little Bo Oswald. 

[Pat Speer]

50 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Frankly, Gerry, I don't think there's anything particularly "odd" about JFK's movements just prior to the time he disappears behind the sign.

https://drive.google.com / DVP Video File / The Zapruder Film

When comparing the "pre-sign" frames with the "post-sign" frames, it looks to me as if Kennedy's right arm is in pretty much the very same position AFTER he emerges from behind the Stemmons sign as it was before going behind the sign. And Dale Myers pretty much confirmed this fact years ago when he did his "interpolation" work to study the movements of both Kennedy and Connally in the Zapruder Film.

Myers said this (on his FAQ page at his "Secrets Of A Homicide" website):

"When the sequence is viewed without the sign's interference, it is clear that the interpolated motion forms a contiguous bridge between the known actions of the two men as seen both before and after the Stemmons freeway sign. In short, Kennedy and Connally made no large, dramatic movements while hidden from Zapruder's camera." -- Dale K. Myers

 

 

 

Myers was bluffing. As revealed by myself more than a decade ago, he skipped frames when matching his cartoon up with the Zapruder film. This then allowed him to leave the sudden jerk to the left by JFK before he goes behind the sign in the film out of the cartoon, and this, in turn, allowed him to pretend JFK was still draped over the side of the limo at Z-224. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Michael Griffith]

Among some people, the desire to avoid the disturbing fact that JFK was killed by a powerful conspiracy is so strong that they talk themselves into accepting the ludicrous single-bullet theory (SBT). They know that without the SBT, there can be lone-gunman scenario.

[David Von Pein]

Edited September 26, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Sean Coleman]

44 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Arlen Specter - originally a Democrat, he changed affiliation to become a Republican in the 60’s….to change back to a Democrat in 2009…a reliable guy then….
 He also dreamt up the SBT as one of the bullets was found to have missed completely and injured J.Tague. Phew! I bet he sweated when JT came forward. Still, plan B’s always come in handy. 

Any more fun facts related to this stalwart of a lawyer (I think that’s how you pronounce it…)?

 

 

[Ron Ege]

41 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

David, thanks.

Perhaps I am understanding.  Are you meaning by ". . . even WITH the Single-Bullet theory intact", as you proffer it and believe to be?

Apparently, I'm not "firing on all cylinders" because if the CTers believed the SBT was intact, they could not be such and therefore could not pretend there was a Badge Man - or am I missing something?

Could a CTer be that much "out of it" - really?

 

[Joe Bauer]

Wait a minute.

Is the "pristine" bullet the one found on a stretcher at Parkland?

Or is it the one that lodged in Governor John Connally's left thigh?

Excuse my ignorance on this subject.

November 22, 1963 - Dr. Robert Shaw, Governor John Connally's surgeon, Press Conference Parkland

 

 

HelmerReenberg

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Ron Ege said:

David, thanks.

Perhaps I am [not?] understanding.  Are you meaning by ". . . even WITH the Single-Bullet theory intact", as you proffer it and believe to be?

Yes. But even an alternate version of the SBT would make much more sense than what most CTers seem to believe---which is that JFK & Connally were struck by at least THREE different bullets instead of just the one CE399 missile.

 

1 hour ago, Ron Ege said:

Apparently, I'm not "firing on all cylinders" because if the CTers believed the SBT was intact, they could not be such and therefore could not pretend there was a Badge Man - or am I missing something?

My point was: You can still very much be a conspiracy believer ("CTer") and yet still believe the SBT is true as well.

There's nothing in the JFK Assassination Manual (that I'm aware of) that prohibits a conspiracy advocate from endorsing the Single-Bullet Theory (whether it be the Warren Commission's version of the SBT or another version of a "single-bullet" conclusion).

And, frankly, it's always puzzled me as to why there aren't far more conspiracy believers endorsing the SBT. Because, in my opinion, Vincent Bugliosi was 100% correct when he said that "a child could author it" [the SBT]. [The full Bugliosi quote is below.]

"From the first moment that I heard that [Arlen] Specter had come up with the single-bullet theory, it made very little sense to me since the theory was so obvious that a child could author it. .... Since [the members of the Warren Commission staff] all knew that the bullet, fired from Kennedy's right rear, had passed through soft tissue in Kennedy's body on a straight line, and that Connally was seated to the president's left front, the bullet, after emerging from Kennedy's body, would have had to go on and hit Connally for the simple reason it had nowhere else to go. How could it be that among many bright lawyers earnestly focusing their minds on this issue, only Specter saw it? .... When I asked [Norman Redlich on September 6, 2005] if, indeed, Arlen Specter was the sole author of the single-bullet theory, his exact words were, "No, we all came to this conclusion simultaneously." When I asked him whom he meant by "we," he said, "Arlen, myself, Howard Willens, David Belin, and Mel Eisenberg"." -- Vincent T. Bugliosi; Pages 302-303 of Endnotes in "Reclaiming History"

 

1 hour ago, Ron Ege said:

Could a CTer be that much "out of it" - really?

I guess so.

Edited September 26, 2022 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Is the "pristine" bullet the one found on a stretcher at Parkland?

Or is it the one that lodged in Governor John Connally's left thigh?

The answer is "Yes" to both of your questions. Same bullet. It lodged only temporarily in Connally's thigh, then fell out onto the stretcher where it was recovered by Darrell C. Tomlinson in a corridor at Parkland. But that bullet (CE399) wasn't really "pristine" at all. It's been flattened on one side and the base of the bullet is damaged (i.e., oozing lead). So the "pristine" description of CE399 is a complete myth.

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/04/index.html#CE399

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

2 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

Arlen Specter...dreamt up the SBT as one of the bullets was found to have missed completely and injured J. Tague. Phew! I bet he sweated when JT came forward.

Sean,

The Warren Commission definitely was NOT forcing itself into accepting the Single-Bullet Theory at all costs due to the existence of James Tague. How do we know what I just said is true? Because of Page #117 of the Warren Report itself, which states quite clearly and directly that the Commission was readily acknowledging the possibility that the damage to the Main Street curb (and, hence, the wounding of bystander James T. Tague) could have very well been caused by a fragment from the HEAD SHOT.

Therefore, via a possible scenario of Tague being wounded by a head-shot fragment, the SBT is not a MANDATORY conclusion to reach to still arrive at a final conclusion of Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone.

I, myself, DO think that the SBT is mandatory in order for Oswald to be the lone assassin of President Kennedy. But the Warren Commission's collective opinion was not as strict and restrictive as my own on the SBT matter....and Page 117 of the Warren Report (seen below) proves that fact.

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Related Link:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com / The "5.6 Seconds" Myth

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Gil Jesus]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Wait a minute.

Is the "pristine" bullet the one found on a stretcher at Parkland?

Or is it the one that lodged in Governor John Connally's left thigh?

Excuse my ignorance on this subject.

November 22, 1963 - Dr. Robert Shaw, Governor John Connally's surgeon, Press Conference Parkland

 

 

HelmerReenberg

 

I've never heard of a bullet reversing itself and falling UPWARDS out of a wound.

Maybe because it's impossible.

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Connally-doc_bullet-still-in-thigh.mp4