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.
This test has been replicated 100 times. Many have been able to duplicate Oswald’s apparent fete.
One of them recently died and had an elaborate state funeral.
I bet they needed counseling after a live firearm was brought into their presence. I can only wonder how the Italian testers would have scored on my patented KG9 Kid 'Flinch-O-Meter' that I typically use at the range to see how competent a shooter the subject is.
Thanks also to the sensationalist UK Sunday Telegraph for bringing up this nonsense yet again.
Yeah OK
Explains a lot about WWII I guess.
lol.
Loading an extra round doesn’t account for the difference between 8.3 and 19. Having said that I thought somewhere along the line I had seen video of someone demonstrate how Oswald could have done it within the time limit.
I’m with you... one look at the Zapruder film and it is obvious the head shot cam from right front, and no one will convince me otherwise.
Oh, and I have a degree in Physics.
The Zapruder film shows more than 3 shots if you know what to look for.
Plus the one that missed and hit a man under the overpass.
Plus the one that missed everyone and hit a curb (they actually removed the portion of the curb)
“Okay, I am among those who do not believe the Warren Commission findings! I never have, I never will.”
There’s an excellent show that comes around on the History Channel. Check it out and you might look at some of the evidence differently.
And I hope you’re feeling well today!
Where did they find the limo in a parade to do it?
Dare I ask? Dare I? Ah, WTF? Who, pray tell, would that be?
Yeah...Someone mentioned last night it was a Friday night with a full moon, looks like it carried over to today.
The Roswell story earlier today and now this.
BONG!
Mark Furman, in a book published sometime last year, presents
a detailed an analysis of the facts and presents a reasonable explanation of the evidence. He makes a very convincing case that Oswald acted alone.
“shoot, drop rifle, load, shoot, drop rifle, load shoot.
yep..18 seconds.”
It was a bolt action rifle not a musket.
No human could’ve possibly fired 3 shots in that amount of time so clearly Oswald was a robot! < /s >
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.