Posted on 06/30/2007 4:36:50 PM PDT by 1066AD
Oswald 'had no time to fire all Kennedy bullets' By Tim Shipman in Washington, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:30am BST 01/07/2007
Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone in assassinating President John F Kennedy, according to a new study by Italian weapons experts of the type of rifle Oswald used in the shootings.
The new findings will encourage conspiracy theorists In fresh tests of the Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action weapon, supervised by the Italian army, it was found to be impossible for even an accomplished marksman to fire the shots quickly enough.
The findings will fuel continuing theories that Oswald was part of a larger conspiracy to murder the 35th American president on 22 November 1963.
The official Warren Commission inquiry into the shooting concluded the following year that Oswald was a lone gunman who fired three shots with a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle in 8.3 seconds.
But when the Italian team test-fired the identical model of gun, they were unable to load and fire three shots in less than 19 seconds - suggesting that a second gunman must have been present in Dealey Plaza, central Dallas, that day.
Two of the bullets hit Kennedy, with the first - the so called "magic bullet", ridiculed by conspiracy theorists - also wounding the governor of Texas, John B Connally, after it had struck the president.
In a further challenge to the official conclusions, the Italian team conducted two other tests at the former Carcano factory in Terni, north of Rome, where the murder weapon was made in 1940.
They fired bullets through two large pieces of meat, in an attempt to simulate the assumed path of the magic bullet. In their test, the bullet was deformed, unlike the first bullet in the Kennedy assassination, which remained largely intact.
The second bullet is thought to have missed its target. According to the commission, the third disintegrated when it hit Kennedy's head. The new research suggests, however, that this is incompatible with the fact that Oswald was only 80 yards away, in a book depository, when he fired. The Italian tests suggest that a bullet fired from that distance would have emerged intact from Kennedy's head, implying that the third shot must instead have come from a more distant location.
The findings will encourage conspiracy theorists who hold that Oswald could not have fired three shots in time. For each shot, he would have had to push up the gun's bolt handle, pull the bolt backwards to eject the spent cartridge case and then forward to slide the next round into the chamber, before turning down the bolt handle to lock it in place.
Nearly seven out of 10 Americans believe that Kennedy was murdered as a result of a plot. Depending on which theory they back, the participants supposedly included any or all of the CIA, the Mafia, the Cubans, the FBI chief J Edgar Hoover, the military-industrial complex and Vice-President Lyndon B Johnson.
It is the second challenge in two months to the view of the Warren Commission that Oswald acted alone. In May, researchers at Texas A&M University argued that the ballistics evidence used to rule out a second gunman had been misinterpreted.
The findings will be a frustration to Vincent Bugliosi, the author of a 1,600-page book, also published in May, which claimed to put to rest all the conspiracy theories of the past 44 years.
The Italian findings will be hotly contested by those who believe that Oswald was a lone gunman - not least because they contradict firing tests previously conducted, using Oswald's actual rifle, by the FBI and the US Marines, and another study by Washington police marksmen using an identical gun.
Oswald would only have needed to reload the weapon twice in the eight seconds to get off all three shots, since the time was measured only from the moment he fired the first shot. The FBI concluded that a marksman could have fired a shot at least every 2.3 seconds.
In his book, Mr Bugliosi details how after just two or three minutes' practice with the gun in 1979, three police marksmen aiming at three targets representing Kennedy at the same distance from Oswald, got away three shots in less than eight seconds.
One marksman hit the targets twice and missed the third shot by an inch. A second shooter scored a "kill" with his second shot.
Mr Bugliosi recounts three separate ballistics tests that found that the magic bullet could have wounded Kennedy and Connally and emerged in similar condition to the real bullet. But that is unlikely to stop the Italian research fuelling another generation of conspiracy writers.
Yup he was sitting in the employees lounge just moments after the shooting not breathing hard from having sprinted down all those flights of stairs and then decided he just HAD to have a refreshing pause so he stopped to buy a coke, right?
As to the killing of the cop, Oswald was found in a movie theater well over two miles from the place the cop was shot. Did he run? There also was no definitive evidence that he shot the cop. A witness described someone other than Oswald. If there was incontrovertible evidence as to the guilt or innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald, then a lot of smarter men and women than I wouldn't be having this discussion.
The folks arguing for Oswald's innocence -- or for a wider conspiracy -- must prove that he could not have done it, and this they have failed to do.
Not at all. Reasonable doubt is the standard in every criminal case. I think there is reasonable doubt that Oswald was the shooter at all and reasonable doubt as to the existence of a wider conspiracy.
Notice that the 'computer graphics' never match up the sight angle Oswald had when he supposedly hit both men with a single bullet.
- It can't be shown, because Oswald's position simply doesn't fit. - Oswald was too high, and to far to the limos right to shoot both men at once.
Six seconds to pull a trigger??????
It sounds like you need to take that 03-A3 to a real gunsmith and get rid of that fifty pound pull. I would have to say you aren’t much of an expert if everyone on the planet seems to be able to do it. Notice how slow the guy is shooting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACT0aKWEAow
Seems a lot of old is dredged up now and then as if new. Perhaps it is new to some born in the past 1/4 century. Perhaps it is new to some old people too who have forgotten all this 1/4 century ago.
“The official Warren Commission inquiry into the shooting concluded the following year that Oswald was a lone gunman who fired three shots with a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle in 8.3 seconds.
But when the Italian team test-fired the identical model of gun, they were unable to load and fire three shots in less than 19 seconds”
Did any of these cretins consider the possibility that Oswald HAD ALREADY LOADED THE FIRST ROUND LONG BEFORE HE BEGAN SHOOTING and he only had to load and fire TWO rounds in 8.3 seconds, which can easily be performed by a trained rifleman?
Oh wait, they were Italian experts!
My mistake.
” many times my first shot does not hit where I aimed and then I compensate the drift or rise with my next shot.”
In less than 8 seconds? BWAHAHAHAHA
Let me tell you something. Me an my friend sighted in custom rifles at 100 yds in prep for deer season with 3 shot groups at 100 yds covered by a quarter.
The next day, we jumped a deer at 10 yds and we each fired 4 shots as it ran straight away in an open field.
NOT ONE BULLET HIT!
Hitting a moving object at 80 yards is VERY difficult. Doing it twice is virtually impossible.
I see what they show to be an "overlaying" but then when they show the "animation" by itself it does not match what my eyes tell me directly from Zapruder. He (Kennedy) simply is not that much higher nor is he leaning or hunching forward as required to match up the trajectory. Unless Zapruder is inaccurate or my eyes are lying.
"What the animation doesn’t show is any of the hits below the line of sight which the Zapruder film couldn’t show."
... has nothing to do with my point.
"Your theory is a 161 grain bullet traveling 2000 feet a second hitting five inches of flesh and disapearing. That’s a magic bullet."
??? I have no such theory... all I am saying is that if you look at the Zapruder film and consider where the entry and exit wounds were, then the trajectory does not line up. It's not even close.
It's the same thing I see every time someone tries to match the trajectory... Kennedy's body has to be raised and leaned forward well beyond what Zapruder shows.
JW
I had much the same reaction when I was there at the window.
The real clincher though, was when I realized that Oswald's line of sight for the 'single bullet' shot simply did not line up with the limo's occupants, JFK and Connelly. - Oswald was too far up and too far right of the limo's path at the point where JFK's hands went up to his throat.
JFK and Connnely did not 'line up' from Oswalds point of view.
And no credible photographic evidence of that line up exists.
Leaving one shot unaccounted for. A bullet hit the curb down at the underpass.
The limo was directly below Oswald crossing in front of the building when the first shot was fired. It then disappeared in the foliage to reappear still crossing to Oswald's right while curving left down the street. - Finally, by the 3rd shot, it was going "in a straight line slowly away from" him.
Not an easy series of shots, nor would it have been easy to reacquire a good sight picture through the scope. Maybe he used the open sights.
I think they are trying to say, that the (curb) bullet may have been a “hit” bullet; but I think, it was written in this thread also that there was a “no-hit” bullet too.
I brought this up; post 247 I believe,
and in fact, a defender (apparently, don’t want to wrongly place labels on people) of the one gunman theory writes in post 250:
“The first bullet missed and hit a curb. The bullet fragments or concrete hit a man named James Tague who was standing near the underpass. That bullet or fragments were never found.”
So even with the one gunman theorists; with different authors, different theories.
I mean Post 251; first one on this page.
“ALL of the re-creations of the event have been flawed in crucial details.
- Garbage ‘re-creation’ in, garbage info out.”
Thats the spirit.
By the way, did we land on the moon?
Good video.
This argument really is ridiculous, but some people will stop at nothing to “prove” their pet conspiracies.
Absolutely correct, he was a Marine after all and from his records i believe he shot expert at least once.
I have yet to read any factual accounts from the conspiracy theorists. The most offered is “I believe what I believe”.
The fun is when they say that no one could make shots like that and then you can offer as many YouTube videos as you have time for. There’s one video that shows some young guy trying to shoot and his results aren’t shown. What is shown is the guy working the action and it’s as slick as can be.
The other fun thing is when they say they can’t shoot all the way out to a mere 88 yards. I have a friend who uses a Freedom Arms .454 Casull out to 70 yards away at claybirds laying on a dirt bank, standing up, two hand hold. After he’s done hitting the birds, he starts on the pieces. I’m good but not quite that good. Apparently, according to some of these posters, He and I must be some super human, deadeye shooting machines.
I’m waiting for the Flat Earth Society to show up.
You’ve got to understand, the Left is the one so heck-bent on defending the Warren Commission, Believe what the government spoon feeds you. Kind of like saying Froggy was not one of the Little Rascals.
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