Why Are People Here Debating About Debunked Material?

[James DiEugenio]

Finally, it was not just Bugliosi who certified Guinn as being probative.  Let us not forget the previous blowhard.

 

Advocates like Gerald Posner in his book Case Closed summarized the NAA as such: "Guinn's finding ended the speculation that CE 399 had been planted on the stretcher, since there was now indisputable evidence that it had traveled through Connally's body, leaving behind fragments." 

😀

[Stu Wexler]

I do not know why Randich and Grant always get mentioned and never Spiegelman, Tobin, et al. In fairness I was a part of that paper (also provided materials to Randich and Grant.) But we won an award from the American statistical association for our work too. I say this because the issue is attacked from separate angles in each paper. Between the two sets, literally every single angle is demolished. The "what are the odds" per David issue is DIRECTLY addressed in our paper. As I have tried to explain to people before: the odds of getting 4 aces two hands in a row is remote unless ofcourse the deck is literally stacked with aces before you play. That is the issue and one I was confronting Rahn with for years and should have been apparent to Bugliosi:  you can at best say *at least* two bullets are accounted for in the fragments recovered; 3 is well within statistical reason and 4 is even possible. You cannot say which fragments came from which bullets with any certainty. And you can't-- per Randich's extensive background with all kinds of bullets-- really say these are even Carcano based solely on bullet lead chemistry. Which makes the tiny fragments a big problem.  

[Gerry Down]

21 minutes ago, Stu Wexler said:

I do not know why Randich and Grant always get mentioned and never Spiegelman, Tobin, et al. In fairness I was a part of that paper (also provided materials to Randich and Grant.) But we won an award from the American statistical association for our work too. I say this because the issue is attacked from separate angles in each paper. Between the two sets, literally every single angle is demolished. The "what are the odds" per David issue is DIRECTLY addressed in our paper. As I have tried to explain to people before: the odds of getting 4 aces two hands in a row is remote unless ofcourse the deck is literally stacked with aces before you play. That is the issue and one I was confronting Rahn with for years and should have been apparent to Bugliosi:  you can at best say *at least* two bullets are accounted for in the fragments recovered; 3 is well within statistical reason and 4 is even possible. You cannot say which fragments came from which bullets with any certainty. And you can't-- per Randich's extensive background with all kinds of bullets-- really say these are even Carcano based solely on bullet lead chemistry. Which makes the tiny fragments a big problem.  

Do you have a link to that paper?

[Charles Blackmon]

Dr. Guinn's own earlier studies on bullet lead had shown that "the quantitative comparison of only three elements was insufficient to characterize individual bullets from different sources."  Guinn only looked at antimony, apparently discarding copper because he assumed the jacket would skew the results, even though the samples were taken from the un-jacketed base of the lead bullet.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Charles Blackmon

[James DiEugenio]

The importance of the Randich/Grant study was not just that it blew up the basic findings of Guinn, as to how metal specific NAA testing was.

They also said that the basic tenet Guinn worked under was false.  Namely that WCC ammo was somehow uniquely characteristic.  It was not. It was like about 75 per cent of all lead alloys in handgun ammunition.

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Stu Wexler said:

I do not know why Randich and Grant always get mentioned and never Spiegelman, Tobin, et al. In fairness I was a part of that paper (also provided materials to Randich and Grant.) But we won an award from the American statistical association for our work too. I say this because the issue is attacked from separate angles in each paper. Between the two sets, literally every single angle is demolished. The "what are the odds" per David issue is DIRECTLY addressed in our paper. As I have tried to explain to people before: the odds of getting 4 aces two hands in a row is remote unless of course the deck is literally stacked with aces before you play. That is the issue and one I was confronting Rahn with for years and should have been apparent to Bugliosi:  you can at best say *at least* two bullets are accounted for in the fragments recovered; 3 is well within statistical reason and 4 is even possible. You cannot say which fragments came from which bullets with any certainty. And you can't-- per Randich's extensive background with all kinds of bullets-- really say these are even Carcano based solely on bullet lead chemistry. Which makes the tiny fragments a big problem.  

Excuse my inability to easily grasp your summary above but could you state your take on the status of the Magic Bullet and whether it is the bullet that alone hit, went through and caused all of Governor Connally's injuries?

Are you saying more bullets than one ( especially the Magic Bullet ) were fired into Connally?

[Charles Blackmon]

It is telling that nobody from the FBI ever would testify that bullet fragments removed from Gov. Connally matched the "magic bullet". If anybody knew a thing or two about NAA, it was the FBI.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Charles Blackmon

[Allen Lowe]

On 6/2/2023 at 9:11 PM, David Von Pein said:

The most "absurd" assertion made by conspiracy theorists at this forum (or any other) is the assertion that Vincent T. Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" has (in any major way at all) been "debunked".

Such a notion concerning Bugliosi's mammoth 20-year effort is not only utterly laughable, but also provably wrong (based on the sum total of evidence in the JFK case).

 

of course it hasn't been debunked - it's been bunked, proven to be nothing but bunk. Thank you for clarifying.

[Paul Cummings]

2 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:

of course it hasn't been debunked - it's been bunked, proven to be nothing but bunk. Thank you for clarifying.

Welcome back Allen. 

[James DiEugenio]

Every single aspect of Bugliosi's worthless door stop was taken apart by me, and by others e.g. Gary Aguilar and David Mantik.

That book was nothing but a waste of paper.  

Vince's initial mistake, like Spence's, was to participate in that sham of a mock trial in London.  (I later found out that the consultants were Summers and Hoch.). I spent an entire chapter, well over 20 pages showing that thing was a joke.  (The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp 49-72). I mean Spence had a perfect opportunity to demolish certain witnesses and he did not. Can you imagine Petty  saying, "It would have been nice to have the brain."?  With Say Mark Lane as the defense lawyer? 

And Bugliosi called Guinn!  Even at that time, Wallace Milam and Art Snyder had started to poke holes in the BS NAA evidence.

How bad was that shambles of a trial? Bugliosi actually wrote that Hoch leaned toward conspiracy! (p. 70) 

LOL, ROTF, LMAO.  🤩😘🤧

That is how desperate Bugliosi was to try and spin that demolition derby.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Stu Wexler]

7 hours ago, Charles Blackmon said:

Dr. Guinn's own earlier studies on bullet lead had shown that "the quantitative comparison of only three elements was insufficient to characterize individual bullets from different sources."  Guinn only looked at antimony, apparently discarding copper because he assumed the jacket would skew the results, even though the samples were taken from the un-jacketed base of the lead bullet.

And Silver did not even support his groupings so they (Guinn and Rahn esp) ultimately went with just 1 element. Even before the 2000s the trend was to look for more and more elemental discriminants, not one.  One NAA/CABL expert called the Rahn decision to use one "absolutely ridiculous." 

[Stu Wexler]

30 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Every single aspect of Bugliosi's worthless door stop was taken apart by me, and by others e.g. Gary Aguilar and David Mantik.

That book was nothing but a waste of paper.  

Vince's initial mistake, like Spence's, was to participate in that sham of a mock trial in London.  (I later found out that the consultants were Summers and Hoch.). I spent an entire chapter, well over 20 pages showing that thing was a joke.  (The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp 49-72). I mean Spence had a perfect opportunity to demolish certain witnesses and he did not. Can you imagine Petty  saying, "It would have been nice to have the brain."?  With Say Mark Lane as the defense lawyer? 

And Bugliosi called Guinn!  Even at that time, Wallace Milam and Art Snyder had started to poke holes in the BS NAA evidence.

How bad was that shambles of a trial? Bugliosi actually wrote that Hoch leaned toward conspiracy! (p. 70) 

LOL, ROTF, LMAO.  🤩😘🤧

That is how desperate Bugliosi was to try and spin that demolition derby.

 

 

I was routinely debating Rahn at the conferences as were others. The writing was clearly on the wall even before Randich, Grant, Spiegelman, Tobin, et al. made it official.  But defenders chose to double down even as the entire science was crumbling. Their ultimate claim: Oswald apparently chose the only ammunition in the universe fabricated, packaged and distributed to allow for definitive counting and matching.

To the earlier poster:  the key point is that Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (NAA) cannot be used to "count" the precise number of MC bullets from fragments or connect, precisely, one fragment to a specific bullet or even a bullet box. It is no longer even used as forensic technique in any lab. The SBT, and the shooting scenario as a whole, cannot be verified with CABL/NAA. Any debate to the SBTs validity must rely on other factors and evidence. In that regard, I do not believe it holds up very well.

To Jim's point, Randich and Grant debunked the supposed uniqueness of MC bullet lead composition much touted by Rahn and Sturdivan. The odd numbers could easily be the result of microsegregation and Guinn's sampling method. Relatedly, they further verified Wallace Milam's point about the heterogeneity issues/math Guinn used and Rahn tried to rectify. What Spiegelman et al. showed was that MC rounds are packaged and distributed like all other bullet boxes, with many of the same exact bullet leads found in multiple bullets within and between boxes.  Together, this destroys the Guinn/Rahn/Sturdivan. But in fact, together, they national attention these studies received almost definitely helped kill the entire forensic application of CABL.

Stu

 

[James DiEugenio]

SW: To the earlier poster:  the key point is that Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (NAA) cannot be used to "count" the precise number of MC bullets from fragments or connect, precisely, one fragment to a specific bullet or even a bullet box.

This is what was so nutty about Guinn's thesis.  Not only did Guinn say he could match them to certian boxes but he could count the bullets fired!

Pat Speer did some background work on Guinn.  It turned out that he made NAA a cottage industry of his.  In other words, due to  his consulting and court appearances there was some money in it.

[Ron Bulman]

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Finally, it was not just Bugliosi who certified Guinn as being probative.  Let us not forget the previous blowhard.

 

Advocates like Gerald Posner in his book Case Closed summarized the NAA as such: "Guinn's finding ended the speculation that CE 399 had been planted on the stretcher, since there was now indisputable evidence that it had traveled through Connally's body, leaving behind fragments." 

😀

Fragments from a pristine bullet?  I'm confused.

[Michael Griffith]

6 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Fragments from a pristine bullet?  I'm confused.

Nurse Bell was adamant that more fragments were removed just from Connally's wrist than could have come from CE 399.

In the WC's ballistics tests, bullets that were merely fired into cotton wadding emerged with more damage than CE 399.