Was the Rifle that Lt. Day carried out of the TSBD the same as in evidence?

[Charles Collins]

Btw, I don't know how many are aware of this, but NARA in 2023 produced a set of 33 UHQ photos of CE 139 that is available for download (they are the ones numbered 13-45). Included are also 12 HQ photos from 2013.

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/305134?objectPage=45

 

[Michael T. Griffith]

Thank you very much Mark. That’s a very interesting scrape. It looks to me like the Alyea image is showing the same scrape.

A scrape here. A scratch there. Not two of them clear and exactly alike. Yet, you folks continue to ignore obvious differences between Lt. Day's rifle and CE 139. Let's review them:

One, CE 139 has the markings "CAL" and "Made Italy" on it, but we can see from enlargements of the high-resolution picture of Lt. Day carrying the rifle outside the TSBD that the rifle he's holding does not have these markings. They're just not there. 

Two, the scope on Lt. Day's rifle is clearly different from the scope on CE 139. Is anyone seriously going to argue that the scopes are the same?

Three, the flange behind the "Made Italy" stamp under the scope is not the same as the one on CE139. CE 139's flange has a noticeable ridge, but the flange on Lt. Day's rifle does not. Is anyone going to say they do not see the ridge on CE 139's flange, and the fact that the flange on the Day rifle has no such ridge?

Four, the distance from the flange to the sight is different on the rifles. Isn't this readily apparent to anyone with decent eyesight?

We can all see these things. They are plainly visible. The problem is that you folks won't allow yourselves to process these undeniable visible facts because you are ideologically and emotionally committed to the belief that there was no evidence tampering and hence no cover-up.

[Richard Smith]

I gather some CT'ers believe in fact a Mauser, likely the true murder weapon, was first found on TSBD6, and then a M-C was subbed in, but not CE 139.

That is to say Lt. Day carried another M-C from TSBD to the DPD HQ, and then CE 139 was subbed in for the ersatz M-C inside the DPD.

That stretches credulity. Besides all that, the M-C was serviceable rifle (or carbine) at 70 yards.

And imagine the unnecessary complexity and risk of this as part of some conspiracy plan.  They shot Oswald with one rifle, frame Oswald with another rifle, do the old switcharoo but only after allowing the original rifle to be filmed and photographed.  It is very silly.  Anyone who goes down that rabbit hole is not series about the evidence but exercising some subjective theory that comports to their desired narrative.

[Benjamin Cole]

Indeed.

OK---if, as some CT'ers say, the paperwork framing LHO was ginned up after the fact...why not gin up paperwork connecting LHO to the purported 7.65 Mauser? Why all the mumbo-jumbo about M-C's?

Why gin up paperwork connecting LHO to the M-C, then use another M-C as a fake in the TSBD?

After Lt. Day left the TSBD with the fake M-C...then what happened to the "real" Mauser? That means someone else knowingly participated in framing LHO, in addition to Lt. Day. They hid the Mauser and carried it out later. And that someone never talked about it either.

How many witting participants are there in the JFKAC and the immediate cover-up...before credulity is snapped?

[Michael T. Griffith]

Indeed. OK---if, as some CT'ers say, the paperwork framing LHO was ginned up after the fact...why not gin up paperwork connecting LHO to the purported 7.65 Mauser? Why all the mumbo-jumbo about M-C's? Why gin up paperwork connecting LHO to the M-C, then use another M-C as a fake in the TSBD?

We could ask the exact same kinds of "why didn't they do X instead?" questions about most other conspiracies that have been exposed.

Why didn't the Iran-Contra conspirators destroy the mountain of incriminating paperwork that they created as they went along, before the conspiracy first began to be exposed in a Lebanese newspaper? How could they have been so stupid as to create all that damning paperwork in the first place?

I mean, these were educated, experienced intel, diplomatic, and military people. If one didn't know the facts about the Iran-Contra plot, one could say, "Surely they wouldn't have been so dumb as to leave behind such a damning paper trail." But they did. They inexplicably waited too long to try to destroy the damning documents, and the material that they failed to destroy ended up being used against them and to more fully expose the conspiracy.

Whether one likes it or not, the photographic evidence is compelling that CE 139 is not the rifle that Lt. Day carried out of the TSBD. Theories must be made to conform to facts, not the other way around. I mean, CE 139's "CAL" and "Made Italy" stamps are just not there on the Lt. Day rifle. The scope is clearly different. The noticeable ridge on the flange behind CE 139's "Made Italy" stamp is nowhere to be seen on the flange on the Lt. Day rifle. And the flange-to-sight distance is visibly different on the two rifles.

I can think of two plausible scenarios where the plotters would have needed to swap out the rifles due to the fact that their Plan A patsy, Oswald, unexpectedly escaped from the TSBD. The plotters would have initially assumed that Oswald was gone forever and that they needed to switch to Plan B, but then reverted to Plan A after Oswald was found 80 minutes later.

But, in any case, the photographic evidence shows what it shows, and no theory can be possible if it fails to explain that evidence, no matter how disturbing that evidence might be to some people.

After Lt. Day left the TSBD with the fake M-C...then what happened to the "real" Mauser? That means someone else knowingly participated in framing LHO, in addition to Lt. Day. They hid the Mauser and carried it out later. And that someone never talked about it either.

Someone did talk about it. Roger Craig talked about it. Before they were pressured to change their stories, Weitzman and Boone talked about it. Nearly 24 hours later, police sources were still not identifying the rifle as a Carcano.

Remember, too, that we're talking about the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas DA's office, who were later caught fabricating evidence and suppressing exculpatory evidence in the Thin Blue Line case. The list of obvious cases of misconduct by the DPD and the Dallas DA in the JFK case is a long one, e.g., the latent palmprint (which we know the WC strongly doubted), the grossly fixed lineups, the "failure" to record a single minute of Oswald's hours of interrogations, the refusal to provide a defense attorney for Oswald, arraigning Oswald without legal representation, the disappearance of the 133-A negative of the backyard rifle photos, the suspiciously belated "discovery" of the backyard rifle photos, the false denial of Roger Craig's interaction with Oswald during one of his interrogations, etc., etc.

And it is undeniable that CE 139 is not the rifle that was ordered from the Klein's catalog. CE 139 is 4 inches longer and has different strap attachments than the rifle shown in the catalog. These are major differences. The catalog rifle's strap attachments were built onto the bottom of the rifle, but CE 139's strap attachments are embedded on the side of the rifle. That alone is a major difference.

How many witting participants are there in the JFKAC and the immediate cover-up...before credulity is snapped?

Well, again, we're talking about several different kinds/levels of witting participants, most of whom knew nothing of the plot, were only following orders, were led to believe it was a moral imperative that they produce evidence against Oswald, and had no idea they were furthering or covering up a plot to kill JFK.

Again, look at the hundreds of people who were involved in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. Many of them had no idea they were aiding a plot to sell arms to terrorists. Many others thought they were merely helping to get aid to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, and had no idea that the two efforts were connected or that part of the money was coming from arms sales to terrorists. Those participants who did have some idea about the plot only knew a limited amount about it. The number of Iran-Contra plotters who actually knew the big picture was limited to a few dozen people.

[Mark Ulrik]

A scrape here. A scratch there. Not two of them clear and exactly alike. Yet, you folks continue to ignore obvious differences between Lt. Day's rifle and CE 139. Let's review them:

One, CE 139 has the markings "CAL" and "Made Italy" on it, but we can see from enlargements of the high-resolution picture of Lt. Day carrying the rifle outside the TSBD that the rifle he's holding does not have these markings. They're just not there. 

It seems to me that you're expecting a lot from a photo taken of a moving object in a sunlit street. You may consider it hi-res, but when you zoom in, it's actually quite blurry, and since the markings are etched into the metal, light and angles would also need to be right for them to stand out.

Two, the scope on Lt. Day's rifle is clearly different from the scope on CE 139. Is anyone seriously going to argue that the scopes are the same?

Three, the flange behind the "Made Italy" stamp under the scope is not the same as the one on CE139. CE 139's flange has a noticeable ridge, but the flange on Lt. Day's rifle does not. Is anyone going to say they do not see the ridge on CE 139's flange, and the fact that the flange on the Day rifle has no such ridge?

Four, the distance from the flange to the sight is different on the rifles. Isn't this readily apparent to anyone with decent eyesight?

We can all see these things. They are plainly visible. The problem is that you folks won't allow yourselves to process these undeniable visible facts because you are ideologically and emotionally committed to the belief that there was no evidence tampering and hence no cover-up.

I strongly suspect that you're wrong about all this, but it might become clearer if you would simply show us (with images) the differences that you think you're seeing. Preferably without piggybacking too much on poor David Josephs. Thanks in advance.

[Mark Ulrik]

Or maybe this could serve as a conversation starter (click to enlarge).

[Richard Smith]

Indeed.

OK---if, as some CT'ers say, the paperwork framing LHO was ginned up after the fact...why not gin up paperwork connecting LHO to the purported 7.65 Mauser? Why all the mumbo-jumbo about M-C's?

Why gin up paperwork connecting LHO to the M-C, then use another M-C as a fake in the TSBD?

After Lt. Day left the TSBD with the fake M-C...then what happened to the "real" Mauser? That means someone else knowingly participated in framing LHO, in addition to Lt. Day. They hid the Mauser and carried it out later. And that someone never talked about it either.

How many witting participants are there in the JFKAC and the immediate cover-up...before credulity is snapped?

Exactly.  Any conspiracy planned to assassinate JFK and frame Oswald would go like this.  They would use the same rifle that is linked to Oswald to assassinate JFK.  That eliminates the risk and complexity involved in switching the rifles and recovering any bullets from the bodies fired from a different rifle.  They also fire the shots from the same location used to frame Oswald (i.e. the 6th floor window).  They would also need to control Oswald's movements during the assassination.  That means ensuring that:  1) he shows up to work that day after taking an unexpected trip to the Paine residence; and 2) he was not in the presence of anyone who could give him an alibi such as doing the most likely thing by standing outside to watch the motorcade.