The deformation of CE-399 adds credibility to the SBT

[Tom Graves]

Bumping this reply because Tom Graves ignored it and once again responded with his phony strawman questions about how many people were involved in the plot and cover-up.

Dear Comrade Griffith,

Do you deny that the Haags showed that that kind of bullet can penetrate 36 inches of pine wood without being deformed, and that it has a tendency to start yawing / tumbling upon exiting something soft -- like a bloc of ballistics gel or a human neck?

-- Tom

[Michael T. Griffith]

BTW, speaking of the Haags, there is good reason to doubt their truthfulness. Regarding Oswald's alleged shooting feat, Luke and Mike Haag claim that they duplicated it many times:

[Luke]"It’s a very clear picture. There was plenty of time to shoot all three shots from when the car turned the corner into Elm. We tried replicating it ourselves and could do so many times."

[Mike]"I've shot this drill these distances with a firearm that my dad acquired that is exactly the same as Oswald's rifle with ammunition of this type. These are not really tough shots."

Wow! That's amazing, considering that the WC's three Master-rated riflemen, using the alleged murder weapon itself, did not even come close to duplicating Oswald's supposed performance. In the 1967 CBS rifle test, not one of the 11 expert riflemen duplicated Oswald's alleged feat (a few of them did score two or three hits but only on their second or third attempts--Oswald would have had only one attempt--and they were all allowed to fire practice rounds before the test and did not have to fire through a half-open window in cramped conditions).

The Haags have also claimed that an FMJ bullet they fired into pine wood penetrated 3 feet into the wood and emerged undeformed. Pure hokum. No FMJ bullet tearing through 3 feet of pine is going to emerge with its lands and grooves intact. Here's a picture of an FMJ bullet that penetrated only a few inches into a piece of store-bought pine wood--notice that the bullet's lands and grooves are twisted and no longer run straight:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10009147442527916&set=pcb.24054241594265168

Again, that FMJ bullet only penetrated a matter of a few inches into pine wood, yet it emerged with its lands and grooves distorted. But, the Haags claim that their FMJ bullet penetrated 36 inches of pine wood and emerged undeformed. Bollocks. Hogwash.

More reading on the Haags' junk science:

https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/AguilarWechtAFTA2016.pdf

https://share.google/nZYCiaroTEpjo1c5h

Finally, regarding Tom Graves' silly question about the number of plotters, I have explained to him several times that when I say "20 or 30," I am talking about the head planners who initiated the plot and who knew all the components of the plot, and that there were dozens of other people involved but that many of them did not realize they were aiding the plot and many knew very little about the overall plot and its scope.

How many people who were involved with the planning and preparations for D-Day knew all the components of the plan and understood how the various units would execute the plan? And mind you, D-Day was no criminal conspiracy but a closely guarded military secret, and the D-Day operation involved the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, hundreds of Navy ships, and thousands of military aircraft. At the most, perhaps 100 of those who planned D-Day knew the entire scope and logistics of the operation.

Or, take the Iran-Contra conspiracy. There were maybe two or three dozen high-level plotters who knew the whole scheme and the big picture. Most of those who were involved in the plot either did not know they were aiding a plot or only understood one small aspect of the plot and did not realize how their aspect related to others.

[Tom Graves]

BTW, speaking of the Haags, there is good reason to doubt their truthfulness. Regarding Oswald's alleged shooting feat, Luke Haag claims that he and his brother duplicated it many times.

Wow! That's amazing, considering that the WC's three Master-rated riflemen, using the alleged murder weapon itself, did not even come close to duplicating Oswald's supposed performance. In the 1967 CBS rifle test, not one of the 11 expert riflemen duplicated Oswald's alleged feat (a few of them did score two or three hits but only on their second or third attempts--Oswald would have had only one attempt--and they were all allowed to fire practice rounds before the test and did not have to fire through a half-open window in cramped conditions).

Dear Comrade Griffith,

How many seconds did those experts have to fire all three shots?

Six?

Seven?

Gasp . . . eight?

Based on a scientific analysis of the timing of the conscious reactions of five people in the limo and two others near it to the sounds of Oswald's first, missing-everything shot half-a-second before Zapruder resumed filming, Oswald took 10.2 seconds.

The Haags have also claimed that an FMJ bullet they fired into pine wood penetrated 3 feet into the wood and emerged undeformed.

They didn't claim that, Comrade Griffith.

They showed it.

Perhaps you missed it.

Or . . .  gasp . . . do you think the "Cold Case JFK" show was a hoax, and that the Haags are just two of the oodles and gobs of bad guys who are still trying to cover up the actions of the evil, evil CIA or [fill in the blank] on 11/22/63?

Do you think the evidence that Russia installed The Traitorous Orange Bird (rhymes with "Xxxx") as our "president" on 20 January 2017 is a hoax, too?

Finally, regarding Tom Graves' silly question about the number of plotters, I have explained to him several times that when I say "20 or 30," I am talking about the head planners who initiated the plot and who knew all the components of the plot, and that there were dozens of other people involved but that many of them did not realize they were aiding the plot and many knew very little about the overall plot and its scope.

So, a couple hundred, then?

Couple thousand?


-- Tom

[Michael T. Griffith]

Dear Comrade Griffith,

How many seconds did those experts have to fire all three shots? Six? Seven? Gasp . . . eight? Based on a scientific analysis of the timing of the conscious reactions of five people in the limo and two others near it to the sounds of Oswald's first, missing-everything shot half-a-second before Zapruder resumed filming, Oswald took 10.2 seconds.

You and others who keep peddling this argument continue to ignore the fact that the gunman would have had to go two for two in 5.6 seconds, no matter how much time he had after firing the first shot. According to your impossible Z224-lapel-flip SBT, the gunman's final two shots came after JFK emerged from beneath the oak tree, which would have given him no more than 5.6 seconds to fire his final two shots.

I repeat that the Master-rated riflemen in the WC's rifle test did not even come close to duplicating Oswald's alleged shooting feat, even though they fired from only 30 feet up, fired at stationary target boards, and took as much time as they wanted for their first shot. The WC's rifle test is the most revealing and crucial because the riflemen used the alleged murder weapon itself.

The WC riflemen's most inaccurate shots were their second and third shots--indeed many of those shots missed the target silhouettes entirely or landed near their edge! Their most accurate shot was their first shot. But you guys assume that your "sharpshooter" lone gunman's most accurate shots were his second and third shots.

They didn't claim that, Comrade Griffith. They showed it. Perhaps you missed it.

They showed nothing. They wrongly assumed CE 399 exited JFK's throat, ignoring the fact that we know that's impossible because there was no hole through JFK's tie. They wrongly assumed Connally's back wound was 3 cm wide so they could assume the bullet was traveling sideways when it hit him, even though Dr. Robert Shaw, the surgeon who operated on the wound, said the wound was 1.5 cm wide, not 3 cm wide. They assumed it hit Connally's fifth rib while traveling sideways, even though Shaw said the wound tract was small in width.

BTW, the Haags put a 8-10-inch gelatin block with a cloth on it in front of the pine wood, so their test bullet did not strike the wood directly but first had to go through the gelatin block. Are you aware of that?

Are you aware that in their analysis of the head shot, the Haags erroneously assume the entry point was in the cowlick, nearly 4 inches higher than where the autopsy doctors placed it? Even your favorite expert Dr. S-t-u-r-d-i-v-a-n admits the cowlick site is fiction. I'm sure the Haags are oblivious of the fact that Dr. Boswell told both the HSCA and the ARRB that part of the rear head entry wound was contained in a skull fragment that arrived during the autopsy, which proves the wound was not in the cowlick (and also proves that the late-arriving skull fragment was occipital bone). 

And how do you explain the fact that in every single SBT test where animal or human bones were used and where the test bullets did at least part of the bone damage attributed to CE 399, the bullets emerged much more deformed than CE 399? How do you explain the fact that bullets fired into cotton wadding emerged as deformed or more deformed than CE 399? Even in the 1967 CBS SBT test, not one of the bullets that passed through 12 inches of gelatin and then hit a cadaver wrist had the energy to penetrate the simulated human thigh, and several of them did not even exit the wrist.

Or . . .  gasp . . . do you think the "Cold Case JFK" show was a hoax, and that the Haags are just two of the oodles and gobs of bad guys who are still trying to cover up the actions of the evil, evil CIA or [fill in the blank] on 11/22/63?

The Cold Case JFK show is riddled with errors, many of them inexcusable. Again, the Haags erroneously assume Connally's back wound was 3 cm wide and that therefore the bullet hit him while traveling sideways, but the wound was only 1.5 cm wide, the same width as JFK's head wound. The Haags have the SBT bullet hitting Connally's rib sideways, ignoring the fact that Dr. Shaw noted that the Connally chest bullet created a "small tunneling wound" and that it "stripped the rib out without doing much damage to the muscles that lay on either side of it." They don't explain the fact that JFK's tie had no hole through it, that there was no fabric missing from the shirt slits, that there was no metallic reside found around the slits, and that Parkland medical personnel have confirmed that the slits were made by the nurses.

The Haags make no effort to explain all the previous SBT tests that contradict their claims. They assume a priori that the bullet was a 6.5 mm Carcano missile, even though NAA has destroyed that assumption. They assume the shot came from the sixth-floor window but do not even address the forensic evidence that the bullet hit JFK's back at an upward angle and that the wound was tunneled upward--the only way to make that work is to assume JFK was leaning over 60 degrees forward when the bullet hit.

The Haags ignore the timing problem in JFK and Connally's reactions. They ignore JFK's dramatic Z226-232 reaction, the second-most visible reaction in the Zapruder film. This dramatic reaction proves JFK was hit by two bullets to the torso before he was hit in the head--the Z186-190 hit and the hit that visibly jolts his upper body forward and causes his arms to fling upward starting in Z226. The Haags ignore the clear indications that JFK was hit before Z190. They ignore Connally's adamant rejection of the idea that he was hit before Z229. They ignore the violent slamming down of Connally's right shoulder in Z238-244--the right shoulder collapse is self-evident proof that Connally was correct in identifying Z234 as the moment of impact, and that impact begins to slam his shoulder downward just 4/18ths of a second later.

And on and on and on we could go.

Do you think the evidence that Russia installed The Traitorous Orange Bird (rhymes with "Xxxx") as our "president" on 20 January 2017 is a hoax, too?

Oh, boy, so you still buy the fairy tale that the Russians rigged the 2016 election to elect Trump???! Umm, even Special Counsel Robert Mueller, appointed to investigate the matter, admitted he found not one shred of evidence that the Russians stole the election for Trump.

So, a couple hundred, then? Couple thousand?

Somehow you've completely misread, or just don't understand, my plain-English explanation. Please re-read it. You keep ignoring the precedent of the Iran-Contra conspiracy, where only a few dozen people were the prime movers behind the plot, and where the dozens of others who were involved either had no idea they were aiding a plot or only vaguely understood that they were involved in something criminal. I cited the example of D-Day, where no more than about 100 people planned the overall operation, knew all the logistics and units that would be involved, and knew how each op order related to the op orders and to the overall objectives.

I guess if you'd stop ignoring these precedents, you wouldn't be able to keep asking the same silly strawman questions about the JFK plot, so perhaps that's why you keep ignoring them.

[Tom Graves]

You continue to ignore the fact that the gunmen [sic] would have had to go two-for-two in 5.6 seconds, no matter how much time he had after firing the first shot.

With an accurate bolt-action rifle that already has a round in the chamber and more in the magazine, what's so hard about hitting a target twice in 5.6 seconds at 70 yards and 90 yards when the target is travelling slowly and almost directly away from you down a slight downhill slope?

[Michael T. Griffith]

With an accurate bolt-action rifle that already has a round in the chamber and more in the magazine, what's so hard about hitting a target twice in 5.6 seconds at 70 yards and 90 yards when the target is travelling slowly and almost directly away from you down a slight downhill slope?

Dear Fellow Conspiracy Theorist Graves (since you claim that a massive Russian conspiracy rigged the 2016 election for Trump),

"What's so hard" about it? Well, again, as I told you in my reply, the three Master-rated riflemen in the WC's rifle test failed to do it, even though they were firing from only 30 feet up, were firing at stationary targets, and took as long as they wanted for their first shot. In the 1967 CBS rifle test, not one of the 11 expert riflemen scored two hits on his first attempt. Are you able to process that these facts prove that going two for two in 5.6 seconds was a feat that 14 expert riflemen, three of whom were Master-rated, were unable to perform, and that those riflemen were far more skilled and experienced than Oswald?

I notice you ignored all of my points about the Haags' faulty claims. A reminder:

-- They assumed a bullet exited JFK's throat and shirt slits, but we know this is impossible because there was no hole through JFK's tie. So from the get-go, the Haags' entire case is built on a myth.

-- They assumed that the back-wound bullet was a 6.5 FMJ bullet, but NAA testing has contradicted this assumption.

-- They ignored the hard physical evidence of the rear JFK clothing holes, which prove the back wound was several inches below the throat wound.

-- They said Connally's back wound was 3 cm wide, but it was only 1.5 cm wide.

-- They erroneously doubled the size of Connally's back wound so they could claim that the bullet hit his back and rib while traveling sideways, but the wound was only 1.5 cm wide and the surgeon who operated on Connally's torso said the bullet created a "small tunneling wound" and that it "stripped the rib out without doing much damage to the muscles that lay on either side of it."

-- They assumed the back-wound bullet came from the TSBD's sixth-floor window but did not explain the fact that the bullet struck the back wound at an upward angle and that the interior of the wound was tunneled upward. To make this work, they would have had to lean JFK at least 60 degrees forward when the bullet struck.

-- They did not explain the stark difference between the exit wound in their ballistics gelatin and the small (3-5 mm), clean, punched-in wound in JFK's throat. Nor did they explain why all the exit wounds in the WC's SBT test were twice as large as JFK's throat wound.

-- In their analysis of the rear headshot, they assumed the bullet struck in the cowlick, nearly 4 inches higher than the location given in the autopsy report. Even Dr. Larry S-t-u-r-d-i-v-a-n, whom you guys love to quote, acknowledges that the cowlick entry site is fiction. So from the get-go the Haags' arguments about the rear headshot are based on an erroneous location for the entry wound.

-- They made no effort to explain why all the previous SBT tests where test bullets did at least part of the bone damage attributed to CE 399 emerged more deformed than CE 399.

-- They made no effort to explain why bullets fired into cotton wadding in the WC's SBT test emerged as deformed or more deformed than CE 399.

Many more problems with the Haags' "research" could be cited.

[Tom Graves]

The three Master-rated riflemen in the WC's rifle test failed to do it, even though they were firing from only 30 feet up, were firing at stationary targets, and took as long as they wanted for their first shot.

Comrade Griffith,

Did they try to squeeze off all three shots in 6.8 seconds or something like that?

-- Tom

[Michael T. Griffith]

Comrade Griffith, Did they try to squeeze off all three shots in 6.8 seconds or something like that?-- Tom

Is this how you explain in your own mind the fact that the WC's three Master-rated riflemen, using the alleged murder weapon itself, did not even come close to duplicating Oswald's alleged performance? This suggests to me that you are immune to fact and reason when it comes to the JFK case.

Do you understand what the NRA rating of Master means? Even the Army's Ronald Simmons told the WC that the Master rating was far above the Marine Corps rating of Sharpshooter. There's simply no comparison.

The only way you can expand the firing time to 10-11 seconds is to make the silly assumption that your supposedly highly skilled lone gunman was not only foolish enough to fire almost straight down with his first shot but was stupid enough to fire when a traffic-signal pole or a tree branch was smack-dab in the middle of his center of aim, or very close to it. The tale gets even worse and sillier when you try to explain the manhole-cover-grass bullet hole and the Tague curb bullet mark and wounding with a fragment from this mythical shot.

(Trying to attribute the Tague bullet mark and wound to a fragment from the head shot is just about as absurd, given that any fragments would have exited the top or right side of the head, would have been heading away from the Tague curb/Tague, and would have had to clear both the roll bar and the windshield before starting its amazing 260-foot journey.)

If there was a shot in the missing-frame range of Z110-117 (or pseudo Z110-117), how in the world do you explain the Z145-155 shot and the Z186-190 shot? Let's take the Z145-155 shot, since the Z186-190 shot is covered adequately in the HSCA PEP report, in PEP member William Hartmann's HSCA testimony, and by Olson and Turner in the Journal of Forensic Sciences:

-- There is a noticeable blur episode in the Zapruder film at around Z158.

-- Connally starts to turn his head rapidly to the right at Z162.

-- A 10-year-old girl named Rosemary Willis, running along the grass to the left of the limousine, begins to noticeably slow down between Z162 and Z174, and she is standing still by no later than Z187. When she was an adult, Ms. Willis explained that she stopped running because she heard a loud noise behind her.

Are you seriously going to argue that the Z158 blur episode and Connally's and Rosemary Willis's reactions were in response to a shot at pseudo Z110-117? Really?

The problem is that you can't objectively, credibly analyze Oswald's alleged shooting feat and all the shot reactions that refute it because you are chained down by the three-shots-only myth.