I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the topic of whether Mannlicher-Carcano Rifle No. C2766 was in Ruth Paine's garage on Thursday, November 21, 1963.
I know you'll dispute the following statement about Oswald ordering the rifle, but I'll say it anyway because I think it needs to be said in a discussion of this nature:
Since we know (via the multiple documents that exist to prove it) that Lee Oswald definitely did order a rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago in March of 1963, and Marina took pictures of Lee holding a rifle just a couple of weeks after Lee ordered a rifle by mail....then isn't it very likely that the rifle that Marina Oswald said she saw in the blanket inside Ruth Paine's garage is the very same rifle that Lee Oswald ordered from Klein's seven months earlier?
Or would a more reasonable and more sensible conclusion be that the rifle Marina saw in the blanket in late September or early October* was a rifle that belonged to somebody else other than Lee Harvey Oswald?
I think it's fairly easy to figure out the most-likely-to-be-correct answer to that one.
* BTW, my "October" estimate for when Marina said she saw the rifle in Ruth's garage is, indeed, an accurate estimate (based on Marina's Warren Commission testimony [at 1 H 52]):
MARINA OSWALD -- "There was only once that I was interested in finding out what was in that blanket, and I saw that it was a rifle."
J. LEE RANKIN -- "When was that?"
MRS. OSWALD -- "About a week after I came from New Orleans."
Marina and Ruth Paine arrived back in Irving, Texas, from New Orleans on September 24, 1963. A week later was October 1st. But it's hardly worth quibbling over. At any rate, Marina saw the rifle in the garage no earlier than the last week of September '63.
I don't think you can make any kind of assumption about what rifle (if any) was in Ruth Paine's garage and when, based on events that happened several months earlier and here's why;
Even if Oswald ordered the rifle and he did so for himself (instead of possibly being manipulated to do it) and even if the rifle he is holding in the BY photos is the MC rifle, all that tells you, at best, that he had a rifle in March/April 1963. Although it might seem logical to assume that the rifle in Ruth Paine's garage, in late September, would be the same rifle, it really isn't logical at all.
Oswald is alleged to have used his rifle to shoot at General Walker in April. He is then supposed to somehow have taken that rifle, a weapon that has now been used in an attempted murder, with him to New Orleans, risking possible exposure of himself with the rifle. He then is supposed to have kept the rifle with him during his entire stay in New Orleans only to turn it over to Ruth Paine, a person he barely knew, giving up total control over that rifle for several weeks and potentially causing a problem between himself and the woman with whom his wife and daughter would be staying.
It seems far more logical to me that he would have disposed of the rifle after shooting at General Walker (if that's what he did) and before his trip to New Orleans.
then isn't it very likely that the rifle that Marina Oswald said she saw in the blanket inside Ruth Paine's garage is the very same rifle that Lee Oswald ordered from Klein's seven months earlier?
Or would a more reasonable and more sensible conclusion be that the rifle Marina saw in the blanket in late September or early October* was a rifle that belonged to somebody else other than Lee Harvey Oswald?
I think it's fairly easy to figure out the most-likely-to-be-correct answer to that one.The problem with this is that whatever you think you can figure out is nothing more than conjecture based on assumptions. It is not evidence. You can consider something to be very likely as much as you like, but that doesn't mean that it is true. The basic error you are making is that you base your assumptions on your opinion that Oswald is guilty, which is the world upside down.
The bottom line is that there is no evidence whatsoever to show that there ever was a rifle in Ruth Paine's garage, at any time, except for Marina telling us that she once saw one, about a week after her trip from New Orleans. Everything else Marina said about that rifle, that it belonged to Oswald and still was there on 11/21/63 are mere assumptions. I find it incredibly unbelievable that Marina never confronted Oswald about that rifle being there, especially because she knew that Ruth Paine didn't like guns one bit and a rifle being stored in her garage could well cause major problems between Marina and Ruth.
