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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.'"
What else do I have to say?
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?
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
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.
One interesting theory I heard: there were two shooters, but the second shooter might not have intended to shoot.
n otated.asp
There were various Secret Service people around, armed with various weapons. If you are well trained, you carry a weapon with the safety applied, and with your finger off the trigger, and the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. But sometimes people do screw up.
So, according to this theory, Oswald starts shooting at JFK, and someone screws up and fires off an accidental shot from an AR-15 or something. Then the person who screwed up never admitted it, because if you fatally shot the man you were trying to protect, would you be in a hurry to admit it?
The accidental shot could have been while taking the safety off in a hurry with a finger on the trigger, for example. (One of Cooper's famous three laws of firearm safety: keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you have the sights lined up on a target you are willing to shoot.)
http://www.sportshooter.com/safety/safetyrules_an
I heard this theory from Massad Ayoob years ago during a lecture on safety. He felt that JFK's head wound was consistent with the small, fast bullet fired by an AR-15, while JFK's other wounds were consistent with a big, heavy, slow bullet fired by the Carcano rifle used by Oswald.
http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id89.htm
I have not researched this enough to have an opinion on how likely it is, but I do find it interesting.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
But when I came across this wiki article, I said "HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, I wonder"
From Wiki Article on JFK Assassination
"The FBI has received added scrutiny by Kennedy assassination researchers due to the actions of FBI agent James Hosty. Hosty appeared in Oswald's address book. The FBI provided to the Warren Commission a typewritten transcription of Oswald's address book, in which Hosty's name and phone number were omitted. Two days before the assassination, Oswald went to the FBI office in Dallas to meet with Hosty, and when he found that Hosty was not in the office at the time, Oswald left an envelope for Hosty with a letter inside. After Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, Hosty's supervisor ordered Hosty to destroy the letter, and he did so by tearing the letter up and flushing it down the toilet. Months later, when Hosty testified before the Warren Commission, he did not disclose this connection with Oswald. This information became public later and was investigated by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations.[57]"
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...
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.
Yes, Oswald was up in his sniper's nest in the Book Repository building and popped off some shots, and his was the "magic bullet" that wounded the President and Governer Connely. As to the bullet being pristine, there is this thing about full-metal jacket military bullets that are supposed to go through you instead of fragment or mushroom, and it was not pristine but rather deformed, and high-energy 22 cal bullets can take strange paths through body tissue.
The big mystery is how Oswald could have popped off the "single bullet" and then the kill shot -- was he that good a marksman at a moving target or was he lucky and the rest of the world so unlucky? The theory is no, the kill shot came from somewhere else -- the commotion of the shooting, a Secret Service agent dropped what was at that time an experimental AR-15, the thing discharged (in front and below the President), and the peculiar ammo inflicted the horrific, fatal wound on the President.
Government coverup? You bet! How could the government admit to the President being killed by his own bodyguards, althought that is what happened to Huey Long -- also an accident. Oswald the lone killer? Also true -- that the fatal shot was an accident in response to someone trying to kill the President doesn't let Oswald off the hood.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."
No, that's not right...Chuck Norris' beard actually deflected the bullets in a *failed* assasination attempt. Kennedy's head exploded out of shear amazement.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I was surprised that no one commented here on E. Howard Hunt's audio tape confession of involvement in the Kennedy assassination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Howard_Hunt#Audio- taped_confession
Within the audio tape Hunt names Cord Meyer, Frank Sturgis, David Sánchez Morales, and David Atlee Phillips as co-conspirators. He also claims Lyndon Johnson approved of the assassination for political gain.
"I think that LBJ settled on Meyer as an opportunist, parent--like himself a parent--and a man who had very little left to him in life ever since JFK had taken Cord's wife as one of his mistresses. I would suggest that Cord Meyer welcomed the approach from LBJ, who was after all only the Vice President at that time and of course could not number Cord Meyer among JFK's admirers--quite the contrary."
E. Howard Hunt was also famous for organizing the bugging of the DNC in the Watergate scandal.
- Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.