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Experts Now Say JFK Bullet Analysis Was Wrong

Spy Handler writes "Researchers analyzing bullet fragments from the 1963 Kennedy assassination using new techniques say that the government's 1976 conclusion that the bullets came from only one gun (Oswald's) is wrong. 'Using new guidelines set forth by the National Academy of Sciences for proper bullet analysis, Tobin and his colleagues at Texas A&M re-analyzed the bullet evidence used by the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded that only one shooter, Oswald, fired the shots that killed Kennedy in Dallas. The committee's finding was based in part on the research of now-deceased University of California at Irvine chemist Vincent P. Guinn. He used bullet lead analysis to conclude that the five bullet fragments recovered from the Kennedy assassination scene came from just two bullets, which were traced to the same batch of bullets Oswald owned.'"

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  1. Not "wrong"... Just "not proven" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Misleading summary on Slashdot? Who would have thought? They didn't say it was wrong (meaning that there was more than one gunmen), they said the analysis was not correct. This means it could have been one gun, it could have been several - the analysis that supposedly proved one gunman actually did not. But, it didn't disprove one gunman either. Of course, "analysis not statistically significant" is a far cry from "multiple gunman proven", but which gets more clicks?

  2. Every been to Dealey Plaza? In person? by Syncerus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to believe a bunch of the conspiracy bs until I actually visited the site of the shooting in person. Once you've been to the Book Repository and seen the location in person, it becomes painfully obvious that it was almost trivially easy for Oswald to have done the shooting. Quite frankly, the conditions make it very easy (almost convenient) for Oswald to kill Kennedy.

    In a nutshell, the location is **small**. Everything is very close together, distances are modest and the shooting was very, very easy from the window to the traveling automobile. The angle was just about ideal for Oswald. The "grassy knoll" is a joke, and the angle from the "knoll" was much less favorable for an assassination attempt.

    Seriously folks, go visit the Book Repository yourself. All the conspiracy FUD is just anger and disappointment that something exciting and pretty was destroyed by something ugly and small.

    --
    "Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
  3. Re:Finally by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It wasn't done by the US, as much as people like you seem to believe/wish it were.

    And yes, we've all seen the alleged "proof" (which is laughable at best).

    A decent compendium debunking most of the more common little tidbits is here:

    http://www.loosechangeguide.com/

    (Yes, it's related to Loose Change, but since Loose Change is a collection of some of the more popular conspiracy theories/doubts/etc. about 9/11, it's a good place to start.)

    There might be a lot of corrupt politicians, ulterior motives, and evil deeds in the world, but the US executing 9/11 on itself, and all that is implicit in that from technical, personnel, logistics, military, and numerous other perspectives, simply doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

    You can say the US invited the attacks because of mideast policy. You can even say that some people might have not shed a tear in terms of the ability to then use 9/11 as a "Pearl Harbor"-type incident. But unfortunately, it was 19 mostly Saudi radical Islamic extremists - even if one believes they are monsters of the United States' own creation - that attacked the US on 9/11.

    Not the US government or military itself. Not the shadow government. Not the Illuminati.

    It's actually quite incredible what some conspiracy loons believe about 9/11. It simply does not stand up to any logic at all, or even common sense. Buildings weren't wired with explosives. It wasn't a drone or missile that hit the Pentagon. It wasn't remote control military aircraft that hit the towers. Voice changing technology wasn't used to make fake cell phone calls from Flight 93. Cell phones *do* work on planes (in various circumstances). The FCC/FAA cell phone "ban" isn't a trick so that people will "find out" that cell phones "don't work" under Flight 93-like conditions. Saying that something falls at "free fall speeds" (e.g., in reference to WTC 7) is meaningless and has no bearing on the discussion. Bringing up things like some NORAD exercise or Operation Northwoods or all kinds of tenuous, ridiculous, and (co)incidental information about some pilot who worked some particular place 25 years ago is irrelevant and meaningless. All/some of the planes weren't secretly landed safely at a military installation and then the occupants murdered. Hundreds/thousands of people haven't been "bought off" or "disappeared" to "cover up" the "truth" about 9/11.

    I could go on and on and on and on. But ultimately, the people who want to believe 9/11 was an inside job will keep believing it, and any amount of proof otherwise won't sway them, and can indeed just be explained away as part of the conspiracy. Kind of like rabid Creationists, almost, frankly...

    If you want to hate policy and a political view, go for it. But just realize that lunacy takes away any legitimacy from your debate, and getting other people to believe this tripe will eventually be the entire movement's undoing, or the end of *actual* truth (as opposed to your "truth") in any debate on this topic. And frankly, I think that may be what some people want.

  4. Re:Oh good grief by Gospodin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What I want to know is, if they're so good at maintaining the cover story for all these years, how come they're so frickin' incompetent at everything else?

    --
    ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
  5. Re:Finally by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah. Because we do already know the "truth" about 9/11, and nearly all of the mechanics and particulars of the attack, holes and omissions and mistakes aside, is quite nicely, thoroughly, and comprehensively covered in the 9/11 Commission Report, which conspiracy theorists think is the biggest whitewash in US history to throw people off the "truth" of what "really happened" on 9/11.

    And for people who point out holes and mistakes in the Commission's report, they apparently don't understand how commissions like this - and their reports - work. They're not living documents or someone's blog. They're painstakingly compiled with all of the information available at the time, and then written, edited, and frozen. And when they are frozen, they stay that way. Errors and all. Except that doesn't make the other 95% of the factual information in the report any less true.

    Not to mention that all of the convoluted theories people have, a mere fraction of a fraction of some of the most common I rattled off in my reply, just utterly defy any kind of logic or common sense and usually both.