What the hell? Is that Jack Ruby?

The comments attached to this article are a swirling vortex of stupidity, but I'm confident that this thread has the capacity to exceed them.

This evidence is not as earth-shaking as the headline makes it appear. It simply means that one piece of evidence is not as strong as once thought.

Read Gerald Posner's "Case Closed".

Now let the flame war begin.

Just because something is possible does not make it likely. It's possible I'll meet a slut in a bar and get laid tonight; but not likely.

The professor of statistics at Texas A&M University organized a six-member team that compared the composition of bullet fragments from the JFK shooting with other bullets from the same manufacturer.

Aw crap, here we go again. This dufus and the people before him are using comparative bullet lead/copper analysis. A fundamentally flawed theory that was shown to be inaccurate and useless years ago.

Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis: A Case Study in Flawed Forensics (new window)

People are getting new trials because the FBI has been using CBLA for over 40 years, yet never actually verified that it was a reliable method. Link (new window)

The best you can prove is that the fragments COULD have come from two bullets. You can't say that it DID come from two bullets.

Once again, someone is looking at ONE piece of the puzzle and claiming they know the entire story while ignoring all other information available.

Back and to the left.

Follow-up. Ha.

Whamdangler: It's possible I'll meet a slut in a bar and get laid tonight


First part of sentence: Quite likely

Second part: notsomuch.

Even the loose have standards.

After reading "Dead men do tell tales", about Forensic Anthropologist: William R. Maples, I've always wondered why they didn't exhume the president and reanalyze the information. I'm not in any way of the know of how the determination is done, but apparently they can tell by the type of wound which way the bullet entered in exited.

Malinki: Back and to the left.

That's what she said.

Magic Bullet.
Magic Fact!

Okay, time to come clean. JFK was shot, by Lee Harvey Oswald, with, A Magic Bullet. Yes, you heard me. Magic is real. We've known about this for some time.

from the article comments:
The assassination of John F. Kennedy is one of the great tragedies in American history. Like Pearl Harbor, like the Civil War, like the assassination of Martin Luther King, like the terroristic attacks on the World Trade Center, it is an event that should never be forgotten.

Pocket Ninja got it right.

Whamdangler: Just because something is possible does not make it likely. It's possible I'll meet a slut in a bar and get laid tonight; but not likely.

You'll increase the odds if you shower & brush your teeth.
If you claim you're Bi, you'll double your chances.

j/k

I think Mythbusters needs to tackle this one.

Get Kramer, Newman, Keith Hernandez, and Jerry to reinact. Hillarity will ensue

And don't forget that shortly after the assassination, Umbrella Man's 92 year-old mother passed away "in her sleep".

Coincidence? I don't think so.

A new report is about to come out where Arlen Spector accuses Bill Belichick of assassinating JFK. Matt Walsh has the proof that this is true.

Several people in this thread have already noticed that there is so much less to this story than meets the eye. Good on yez.

That bullet performed moves that even a professional or military bullet could not have pulled off.
Or it was stuck in the men all the time?
Wait, what?

/ got nothin', getting the foil out.

The even quote this headline at the bottom of the article...

Didnt mythbusters do this?

The thing that pisses me off about all the conspiracies is they make it seem like it was such a tough shot. Hitting a target at 75 yards with a rifle is not that hard. Given that 2 out of 3 shots hit the target you can assume that he was just a decent shot. Even an AK is pretty accurate at that distance, a bolt action rifle would work fine even if it was a cheap one like a carcano.

/Almost bought a carcano at a gun show for $150, went with the Nagant instead.

I saw a show recently where they recreated the "magic bullet" shot complete with elevated shooting platform and ballistics-gel-and-bone human analogs. They figured out ahead of time how the bullet would have to tumble and deflect, based on the evidence. They took the shot, and the resulting wound pattern they created was almost identical to the real event. It was really cool. I wish I knew what show it was.

My grandfather left me some old bullets from the Western Cartrige Co, are they really magic?

Oh, jeez, this will set the paranoid retards off. You don't need exact matches on the bullets, because there is NO evidence of ANY kind to support the idea that there was a second shooter with a Mannlicher-Carcano, and absolute bails of evidence to support the fact that Oswald fired one from the book depository.

Go shoot a watermelon with an infantry rifle and record the direction it moves in. Toward the shooter, because the bullet imparts very little force to the target when it hits (it just punches through) and the pulp blasted out the other side acts as a rocket motor (action-reaction).

I saw them do this on 60 Minutes. Oswald shot him, in the back of the head, and nobody else did.

Unknown_Poltroon: Didnt mythbusters do this?

Peter Jennings did. But then he died of "cancer." Coincidence?? I think not.

Anything your government tells you is not to be believed!
There were 2 shooters!
The government caused 9/11!
The import tariff on sorghum from Thailand is only 90% of expectations!
Question everything!!

I like how N to the infinite power people can do research that concludes Oswald alone in the book repository is scientifically sound, but it just takes one study that "casts doubt" to deserve news attention and throw the tin-foil hats into a frenzy.

This is almost as relevant as saying there may have been a second gun-man in Ford's Theater.

What is it going to change? Is Kennedy going to be any less dead? Do we get a "do over" for the past 45 years?

pearls before swine
I saw a show recently where they recreated the "magic bullet" shot complete with elevated shooting platform and ballistics-gel-and-bone human analogs. They figured out ahead of time how the bullet would have to tumble and deflect, based on the evidence. They took the shot, and the resulting wound pattern they created was almost identical to the real event. It was really cool. I wish I knew what show it was.


Discovery.

Very well done.

Also, a read of Gerald Posner's Case Closed is well worth the time. Besides, let the man rest. Dead is dead. This issued has been thrashed endlessly and wasted forests of trees. As his own late son said, "Does it matter? What matters is that he is gone."

Of course the "magic bullet" is so undamaged because of it's construction and how it impacted. Military type FMJ with a heavy copper jacket, when they hit soft tissue, they will tumble, but they generally don't deform unless they hit something hard, like a bone.

I'm looking at a 45 Auto FMJ slug that I dug out of a railroad tie at the range. (I pick them up when I find them and have them next to my computer monitor.) Aside from the striations from the rifling on the bullet, you can't tell that it had been fired. Granted a 45 Auto travels much slower than a rifle bullet, but the general theory is the same.

E-399 went through Kennedy's throat, still traveling relatively straight since it didn't have time to start tumbling, slowing down in the process. It then went into Connally, where it tumbled sideways, quickly slowing down and deforming slightly when it hit one of his ribs while exiting. By that time it was traveling so slow that it simply ricocheted off wrist bones, which are quite strong, and into his leg.

Had Oswald gotten some SP hunting ammo, the neck wound alone would have likely been fatal.

Hey, has anyone subsequently invented a bulletproof wig?

/Patend pending

JimmyCarter'sSecondTerm: The thing that pisses me off about all the conspiracies is they make it seem like it was such a tough shot. Hitting a target at 75 yards with a rifle is not that hard. Given that 2 out of 3 shots hit the target you can assume that he was just a decent shot. Even an AK is pretty accurate at that distance, a bolt action rifle would work fine even if it was a cheap one like a carcano.

If you had studied any at all about the assassination you wouldn't say such things.

Nah, see, yer all just stupid! and and.. yew all believe in rainbow fartin' ukneecorns and yer all tinfoil hat wearin' hippies!

The gummint dun SAYED it was one bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald's gun and, sure turned ever which a way, but that there is a muh REEN rifle! See? See how yer all stupid! They dun had that Warren commission make that big book about it! Yew think a bunch of college boys are gonna make a book like that fer nothin'?

Mah Gawd, yew people are stupid.

*snrk*

I didn't think that there was still any rational being who believed in the lone gunman theory.

The question on everyone's mind is: What does Sarah Palin think about this?

Oswald made a hero out of a guy that was behind in all the poles, Would have lost the election to Goldwater. And would have went down in history as just 1 more one trerm Pres.
That is why he went to Texas.

/Still it was a sad day in this countrys history.

I knew it!

JimmyCarter'sSecondTerm
/Almost bought a carcano at a gun show for $150, went with the Nagant instead.

I still have a 6.5 Carcano. It's a pretty decent rifle. I don't understand the animosity towards it.

JimmyCarter'sSecondTerm: Hitting a target at 75 yards with a rifle is not that hard.

And it's even easier from the distance of the storm sewer grate.

Begoggle:
The import tariff on sorghum from Thailand is only 90% of expectations!


Why do you hate Thailand?

Begoggle: Anything your government tells you is not to be believed!
There were 2 shooters!
The government magic bullet caused 9/11!
The import tariff on sorghum from Thailand is only 90% of expectations!
Question everything!!

It's still going, and will enter President Obama on September 20th 2009.

The CIA did it. I'll never believe anything else. The military industrial complex took control. They could not have Jack put the stop to the Vietnam war. It was all about war profiteering. Same as Iraq. Too much money involved for it to be left to chance.

Lovely news. This means there will be at least twice as many of those "JFK was killed by (insert group here)" nuts out by Dealy Plaza and the ones they have now are already a traffic hazard.

One of these days, I'm going to rent a car, take the CDW and additional coverage and when those suckers jump off the sidewalk into traffic when the light goes green at Elm and Houston...

Hobodeluxe: JimmyCarter'sSecondTerm: The thing that pisses me off about all the conspiracies is they make it seem like it was such a tough shot. Hitting a target at 75 yards with a rifle is not that hard. Given that 2 out of 3 shots hit the target you can assume that he was just a decent shot. Even an AK is pretty accurate at that distance, a bolt action rifle would work fine even if it was a cheap one like a carcano.

If you had studied any at all about the assassination you wouldn't say such things.

Why? The shot could be done by any reasonably competent shooter.

Harry Freakstorm: I still have a 6.5 Carcano. It's a pretty decent rifle. I don't understand the animosity towards it.

1. Ammo is a b*tch to find.
2. Even if you reload, it uses oddball .268" bullets that are not common, though the can be bought from companies like Hornady.
3. Cases are a b*tch to find and when you do, they are expensive.
4. Without the clips for the magazine it becomes an extremely slow single shot.
5. Mounting a scope is a b*tch because it has to be offset for loading the clips into the magazine.

JFK was shot by lesbian Nazi hookers who were abducted by space aliens. I thought everyone knew that?

mbillips: infantry rifle

WTF is an "infantry rifle"?

JimmyCarter'sSecondTerm: The thing that pisses me off about all the conspiracies is they make it seem like it was such a tough shot. Hitting a target at 75 yards with a rifle is not that hard.

Here's the US Army standard qualification target:



This is used at small ranges to simulate the size of a man at various distances. Note that at 50m and 100m the silhouette is not even a full torso but just the head, and they're still the easiest shots. Note the tight groups on those targets (not me just some random guy from Google.) 75 yeards would be about halfway between the 50m and 100m, so, an EASY shot.

Here's my first-ever target from Basic. You can cover all three round with a dime.