If I Had Planned The Conspiracy ...

[Mitch Todd]

It’s  the LAW and ORDER series which has influenced  me to be questioning stuff all the time

It's not bad to question things. The problem I have with Martin's position here isn't so much about authentication as that he wants to use it as a Get Out Of Jail Free card in order to ignore the pistol as evidence. The problem is, this tack will not accomplish that. He would need to show that the Pistol is somehow defective as evidence in this case. That is, that some fact about the pistol would actually disqualify it, like it was the wrong caliber, or that the barrel was welded shut rendering the gun incapable of firing.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

It's not bad to question things. The problem I have with Martin's position here isn't so much about authentication as that he wants to use it as a Get Out Of Jail Free card in order to ignore the pistol as evidence. The problem is, this tack will not accomplish that. He would need to show that the Pistol is somehow defective as evidence in this case. That is, that some fact about the pistol would actually disqualify it, like it was the wrong caliber, or that the barrel was welded shut rendering the gun incapable of firing.

As Robert Oswald said (I'm paraphrasing), "It's good to question things [the assassination]. But after the third time, the fourth, the fifth at some point it's enough."

This wasn't the police framing a black man or poor white man for shooting a gas station clerk in the middle of the night. Where one or two witnesses were either coerced or "encouraged" to point a finger at that person, someone who was "causing problems" anyway. Other witnesses ignored or not sought. That is either framing him or rushing an arrest. An easy conviction that was on page A-22 in the paper. The evidence is that Wade and the DPD did do things like that. It's a fact.

But this crime was investigated again and again and again (heck, it still is). By others, by the FBI, the WC, news reporters. Did the conspiracy include all of these people and investigations too? We go from a handful of people to dozens and dozens. Over half a century? Do we simply dismiss all of them as well? They were corrupt? Or possibly so? Hugh Aynesworth was on the ground there; he was at the assassination and then rushed to the Tippit scene. He interviewed the people. At that time. He was a heckuva reporter. Was he corrupt? Of course the conspiracists say *he was* corrupt, he was working for the CIA.

This is what, in part, "gets me". It's an endless series of charges of conspiracies, coverups, coverups of those coverups. Multiple generations of Americans in the government and outside of it. Aynesworth was corrupt. The WC was corrupt. The HSCA was corrupt. The news media were corrupt (Operation Mockingbird and all that). Really? This is the world that you think exists?

Asking questions is not only not bad but it's good. But at some point you have to accept the answers. This is all we have. We're not going to have a Perry Mason moment where everything falls into place. If you're not going to accept the answers then they're just not good faith questions but simply attempts to, for some odd reason, exonerate this very odd fellow Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Dan O'meara]

The Warren Commission was, in effect, the FBI investigation of the JFK assassination.
Less than 48 hours after the assassination Hoover let it be known that the outcome of the investigation was going to be that Oswald was the lone assassin.
This isn't a joke or an exaggeration - the outcome of the investigation was decided before the investigation had really got going.
The loyalty of FBI agents was not to the truth or justice or any of that...their loyalty was to the Bureau and the Bureau was Hoover.
Hoover was the FBI and the FBI was Hoover.

This is a very uncomfortable fact for Lone Nutters, who swallow down the Warren Commission's findings wholesale, because it pulls the rug out from under any notions of "truth".
Trying to present the Oswald-Did-It [ODI] theory as a result of the search for some kind of "truth" is a sick joke and the perpetuation of this sick joke is an indicator of a serious malfunction within society.

There is no more extreme mentality than that of the Lone Nutter.

[Tom Sorensen]

Steve M. Galbraith's contributions have at least been consistently devoid of substance over the last decade. Respect!

[John Iacoletti]

It's a plausible scenario, Iacoletti, whereas your implicit one -- that Oswald was innocent and therefore lots and lots of evil, evil CIA / FBI / Secret Service bad guys must have been involved in the planning, the "patsy-ing," the shooting, and the all-important cover up -- is so implausible that it would be laughable if only it hadn't helped "former" KGB officer Vladimir Putin install "useful idiot" (or worse) Trump as our "president" in 2017 and 2025..

Nice strawman, but I have no such scenario, "implicit" or otherwise.

[John Iacoletti]

Who defines "reasonable?" You think you alone do? In reality, once Hill and Carroll testify that they recognize this pistol with the identifying marks they put on it as the one seized from the defendant at the Texas Theatre," it's going to be considered authenticated at trial, whether you like it or not.

You think you alone know what would happen at a hypothetical trial?

The problem is that neither Hill nor Carroll "seized" anything from anybody, Carroll didn't know whose hand he grabbed a gun from, and he didn't mark anything until long after a gun left his possession.

No chain of custody whatsoever.

[John Iacoletti]

It's not bad to question things. The problem I have with Martin's position here isn't so much about authentication as that he wants to use it as a Get Out Of Jail Free card in order to ignore the pistol as evidence. The problem is, this tack will not accomplish that. He would need to show that the Pistol is somehow defective as evidence in this case. That is, that some fact about the pistol would actually disqualify it, like it was the wrong caliber, or that the barrel was welded shut rendering the gun incapable of firing.

There is no reason whatsoever (other than faith) to believe that CE143 ever touched Oswald.