The Assassination was Sloppy and Amateurish

[Richard Smith]

IMO
The CTer alternative to Oswald taking the shots always seems to involve professional hitman/snipers or even teams of them at various points in and around Dealey Plaza. Apparently the plan being to have people firing from all different angles while trying to make it look like there is only one guy firing three shots from a specific location.
Imagine the planning meeting for that!
Surely someone would've pointed out the impossibility of this plan or the stupidity of it.
These guys are professionals after all, highly trained and organised...

Q: ...and how many people should we expect in Dealey Plaza?

A: I'm not sure, it could be hundreds, it could even be thousands. People could be swarming all over the Grassy Knoll and behind the picket fence. We have no way of knowing but we're going to assume the crowds have disappeared by this point.

Q: What's a grassy Noel?

The target is JFK's head.
A professional hit would involve a single shot to the head.
Of the three clearly audible shots reported by over 160 witnesses, only one hits the target. If there are more shots than three, these also miss the target making the whole escapade even more sloppy.
I've never been, but anyone I've ever heard talk about Dealey Plaza are amazed at how small it is, how small the distances are.
For a professional, a head shot in these circumstances is easy.
For an amateur it involves missing the limo and all it's occupants completely, hitting JFK but not in the right place and, eventually a head shot (but not necessarily in that order).
The speed of the three shots implies panic, not a cool head.
And the most important fact is this - JFK is shot through the throat and there is, at the very least, a 5 second gap between this non-fatal shot happening and the fatal head shot. In this 5 second gap anything could happen: the limo speeds off or starts evasive swerving manoeuvres, one of the Secret Service agents actually does his job and makes it to JFK and covers him or JFK slumps all the way over to his left, puts his head in Jackie's lap and is impossible to hit, or any other number of scenarios where the head shot cannot be made.
The point is this - there is a truly massive slice of luck involved in the assassination of JFK.
Professionals would not find themselves in a situation that involved this amount of luck.
The assassination is perpetrated by a non-professional.
IMO

One interesting thing about the Grassy Knoll is that it is usually depicted from the Elm St. perspective where it appears to offer a secluded shooting location.  In fact, on the backside of the fence/treeline it is wide open to half of Dallas.  It is the very last place that anyone would put themselves with a rifle. 

[Charles Collins]

While I tend to agree with the main point of the first post, I think that often times we can create conditions where “luck” becomes more likely to happen. The limited time that the assassin apparently had to plan his ambush made things more difficult. Especially for him to “cover his tracks.” However, consider the items he managed to get accomplished in order to be able to get three shots off before anyone could stop him.

1.  He managed to retrieve the rifle and sneak it into the TSBD without any apparent suspicions being voiced before the assassination. This is even though he didn’t drive and had to hitch a ride from BWF.

2.  He planned his ambush to be from behind and above the target. This gave him not only the element of surprise, but also maximized the time he would have to fire multiple shots.

3.  He managed to find and select a position that was visually well shielded from both outside and inside the TSBD. While sitting on the box seat, he was also able to stay out of sight of the SS agents as they approached the TSBD on Houston Street by simply sitting up straight. The boxes in the window would have made it more difficult for any of the SS agents to see him even if they had looked back at that window during the shooting. And keeping his position essentially initially undetected by LEOs he was able to then have a reasonable chance to escape after the assassination.

4.  This position was also well selected for having a “kill zone” where the target was moving almost directly away from him. This substantially increased his chances of hitting the target.

5. His ability to act calm and blend in with other people after the assassination helped his escape efforts (for a while). This was lost after the Tippit murder and all the frantic police activity in the area and subsequently led to his capture.

[Royell Storing]

One interesting thing about the Grassy Knoll is that it is usually depicted from the Elm St. perspective where it appears to offer a secluded shooting location.  In fact, on the backside of the fence/treeline it is wide open to half of Dallas.  It is the very last place that anyone would put themselves with a rifle.

   Per Skinny Holland, that parking lot on the other side of the Picket Fence was jam packed with cars. Holland claimed that he and his railroad workers crew that ran from their position atop the Triple Underpass to that parking lot, had to climb over cars to move across the parking lot. A shooter hugging that picket fence would be tough to spot within that ocean of autos. This obstructed view also casts doubt on the Ed Hoffman account of seeing a shooter inside that same parking lot. And Hoffman was standing roughly 2 football fields away.

[Royell Storing]

While I tend to agree with the main point of the first post, I think that often times we can create conditions where “luck” becomes more likely to happen. The limited time that the assassin apparently had to plan his ambush made things more difficult. Especially for him to “cover his tracks.” However, consider the items he managed to get accomplished in order to be able to get three shots off before anyone could stop him.

1.  He managed to retrieve the rifle and sneak it into the TSBD without any apparent suspicions being voiced before the assassination. This is even though he didn’t drive and had to hitch a ride from BWF.

2.  He planned his ambush to be from behind and above the target. This gave him not only the element of surprise, but also maximized the time he would have to fire multiple shots.

3.  He managed to find and select a position that was visually well shielded from both outside and inside the TSBD. While sitting on the box seat, he was also able to stay out of sight of the SS agents as they approached the TSBD on Houston Street by simply sitting up straight. The boxes in the window would have made it more difficult for any of the SS agents to see him even if they had looked back at that window during the shooting. And keeping his position essentially initially undetected by LEOs he was able to then have a reasonable chance to escape after the assassination.

4.  This position was also well selected for having a “kill zone” where the target was moving almost directly away from him. This substantially increased his chances of hitting the target.

5. His ability to act calm and blend in with other people after the assassination helped his escape efforts (for a while). This was lost after the Tippit murder and all the frantic police activity in the area and subsequently led to his capture.

   There was at least 1 previously planned attempt to kill JFK via the use of a tall building. That attempt was kibosh'd. Point being, the "plan" inside Dealey Plaza did not necessarily start from scratch.

[Richard Smith]

   Per Skinny Holland, that parking lot on the other side of the Picket Fence was jam packed with cars. Holland claimed that he and his railroad workers crew that ran from their position atop the Triple Underpass to that parking lot, had to climb over cars to move across the parking lot. A shooter hugging that picket fence would be tough to spot within that ocean of autos. This obstructed view also casts doubt on the Ed Hoffman account of seeing a shooter inside that same parking lot. And Hoffman was standing roughly 2 football fields away.

There is no way that someone is going to stand out in the wide open with a rifle in that location.  And it doesn't make any sense to frame Oswald as the shooter from behind JFK but to place another shooter to his right and front on the Grassy Knoll.  If someone else were going to do this and Oswald was the patsy, then they fire the shot from the location that they were going to frame Oswald and use his rifle.  Another shooter at a different location using a different rifle is laughable as a plan. 

[Royell Storing]

There is no way that someone is going to stand out in the wide open with a rifle in that location.  And it doesn't make any sense to frame Oswald as the shooter from behind JFK but to place another shooter to his right and front on the Grassy Knoll.  If someone else were going to do this and Oswald was the patsy, then they fire the shot from the location that they were going to frame Oswald and use his rifle.  Another shooter at a different location using a different rifle is laughable as a plan.

   You say, "..stand out in the wide open". As described by Holland, that is not how the parking lot at the top of the grassy knoll looked at roughly 12:30pm 11/22/63. The Ed Hoffman visual presentation of that "wide open/empty" parking lot on, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", is not accurate per Holland. Mark Lane filmed a Holland walk-through which detailed his journey from atop the Triple Underpass to/through the parking lot. During this walk-through, Holland describes the 11/22/63 jam packed parking lot. This Lane/Holland walk-through is posted on You Tube. 

[Jarrett Smith]

Why do you have a psychological need to believe the assassination was a conspiracy?

Because Oswald only fired three times, and there was a fourth shot from the front. Many of the witnesses heard the first at Z-224 and bang-bang at the time of the head shot. For this scenario to work no shot was fired at Z-160, but we have visual proof there was.