The next issue I'd like to discuss regarding using logic and critical thinking in the JFK assassination is the lone-gunman theory's problematic and implausible shooting scenario: Oswald firing three shots in 4.8 to 11 seconds, wildly missing his first and closest and easiest shot, and then scoring two hits in 5.6 seconds after JFK reemerged into view from beneath the oak tree at Z210. This scenario shows a pronounced lack of logic and critical thinking.
The first shot was the closest but by far was the most difficult and it did not require a wild miss. His target was in the extreme right of the limo and only had to miss a foot or two to the right to miss the limo. I've listed the difficulties of the first shot before but I will do so again:
1. He would have had to acquire and track his target as it was making the turn onto Elm St. it would have been moving in an arc rather than a straight line.
2. His target was moving across his line of fire rather down the line of fire as it was for the subsequent shots. This created a difficult cross shot at a moving target.
3. Firing downward at such a steep angle would have forcedd him to raise up out of either the sitting or kneeling position that he would have had for his subsequent shot. He would have been firing
from an unsteady crouching position.
4. The boxes he stacked to create a rifle rest would have been of little to no use in steadying the rifle on a near vertical shot.
5. With the window open only about a foot or so, the bottom of the sash would have partially obscured his view, especially if he was using the scope. This might have forced him to use the iron sights.
6. His target was about to pass under the true which could have forced him to rush the shot.
Given these difficulties which would not have been present for the second or third shots, it's easy to understand why he would miss his first shot.
There is wide disagreement among lone-gunman theorists about when Oswald started firing and when his first hit occurred. However, the majority view among lone-gunman theorists is that the first shot occurred well before Z166 and missed (not only missed JFK but the entire huge limousine), that the second shot hit JFK and Connally at Z224, and that the third shot hit JFK's head at Z312. This is why they say Oswald would have had up to 11 seconds to fire his supposed three shots.
Missing the limo would be hard to believe if he was trying to shoot the limo which I'm betting he was not. He was trying to shoot a guy on the extreme right side of the limo and only had to pull his shot to miss the limo.
Here is one giant problem with this scenario: Oswald's alleged shooting feat has never been duplicated. Never. Not even once.
No shooting feat has ever been duplicated. Never. Not once. Every shooting is unique with its own set of variables.
[/u][/i] In all the rifle tests that have been done, not even experienced, expert riflemen have scored two hits in three shots in 4.8 to 11 seconds on their first attempt and with their two hits landing in an area no more than 14 inches tall and 4 inches wide (previously I've said 12 x 4 inches, but I'll posit 14 x 4 inches just to be extra cautious).
All such tests I am aware of did not give the shooters 11 seconds. They were expected to fire 3 shots in 5.6 seconds. A limitation Oswald was not operating under.
What makes this fact even more telling and devastating is that not one of the rifle tests included all the conditions under which Oswald supposedly fired. Consider:
-- The rifle tests allowed the participants to fire practice rounds before firing for record, but Oswald would have had no such opportunity.
Oswald had 8 months to practice with his rifle. We don't know how many practice rounds he fired but he fired one shot at Walker and had four more rounds in his rifle when he commenced firing. The ammo was sold in boxes of 20 so that leaves 15 rounds unaccounted for and we don't know how many boxes he purchased.
-- The rifle tests included rifles that had been zeroed, but the alleged murder weapon's scope was misaligned, and a Marine Corps rifle expert told the WC that it would have taken 10 shots to zero the alleged murder weapon and that using the iron sights would have made the shooting feat even more difficult. Plus, there is no evidence that Oswald zeroed his alleged rifle in the weeks leading up to the assassination.
The rifle as tested aimed a few inches high and to the right. This approximates the amount of lead Oswald would have had to make on his target. Oswald might have known this, he might not have known this and just got lucky, or the scope might have been knocked out of alignment when he dropped it behind the row of boxes on the 6th floor. Whatever the combination of circumstances were with the rifle, we know that rifle put two rounds into JFK because the only two recovered bullets were fired by that rifle to the exclusion of all other rifles in the world. SOMEBODY used that rifle to kill JFK and the overwhelming amount of forensic evidence tells us that somebody was Oswald.
-- The rifle tests did not simulate the cramped, inhibiting conditions of the sixth-floor sniper's nest. Pat Speer has done an excellent job of documenting those conditions.
Oswald was not a large man so it was not that cramped for him. Given that his rifle was the murder weapon and 3 shells from that rifle were found in the sniper's nest, we can safely say SOMEBODY fired the shots from "the cramped, inhibiting conditions of the sixth floor sniper's nest". Again, the overwhelming amount of forensic evidence tells us that somebody was Oswald.
-- The rifle tests, such as the WC's rifle test and the 1967 CBS rifle test, counted as "hits" many shots that landed far outside the 14 x 4-inch area in which Oswald's alleged shots supposedly landed. Even then, not one of the WC's Master-rated riflemen was able to duplicate Oswald's supposed shooting feat, which is especially revealing because the WC's test was the only test that used the alleged murder weapon and because the riflemen fired from only 30 feet up and were allowed to take as much time as they wanted for their first shot. Also, only one of the 12 riflemen in the CBS test was able to score two "hits" in three shots on his first attempt, but not all of his hits landed in the required 14 x 4-inch area.
This is why I said earlier that no shooting has ever been duplicated. Oswald was not required to duplicate anybody else's shots. He just needed to put a bullet on his target which he did twice in three shots with deadly consequences. [/quote]
-- Nearly all the participants in the rifle tests were experienced, highly skilled riflemen, whereas Oswald was at best a mediocre marksman and was regarded as a poor shot by nearly everyone who saw him shoot in the Marine Corps and in his hunting club in Minsk.[/quote]
Even a mediocre trained Marine was capable of making those shots. Even the USMC's minimum qualifying standards required Oswald to be able to consistently hit his target at 200 yard. His longest shot in Dealey Plaza was only 88 yards.
In the rifle tests, most of the riflemen's first hits came on their first shots. This only makes sense because their first shots were the closest and easiest, just as would have been the case with the sixth-floor gunman. Yet, most lone-gunman theorists contend that Oswald missed both JFK and the entire huge limo with his first, closest, and easiest shot, with some of them floating the illogical and fanciful theory that Oswald hit the guy rod or the support arm of the traffic signal on Elm Street with his first shot and long before Z166.
None of the tests I've seen required the shooters to shoot from an awkward stance at a target moving across the target line. The targets were moving in a straight line away from the shooters, making their first shots fairly easy as compared to what Oswald faced. Again, no shooting can be duplicated because it is impossible to duplicate all the variables.
Even if one wants to assume Oswald would have had up to 11 seconds to fire, if he had missed with his first shot, he would have had to go 2/2 on his final two shots starting at Z210, which means he would have only had 5.6 seconds to fire those two shots. In the WC's rifle test, the three Master-rated riflemen missed nearly every one of their second and third shots.
Were they asked to fire 2 shots or 3 in the 5.6 seconds?
It should be noted that many if not most lone-gunman theorists--certainly all the ones who regularly post in this forum--make the surprising, discrediting claim that Oswald's alleged shooting feat would not have been difficult, with many claiming it would have been "easy." WC staffer Wesley Liebeler told the WC in an internal memo that the portrayal of the alleged shooting feat as not very difficult was "simply dishonest" (11 HSCA 230). [/quote]
That would be true if Oswald had to fire 3 shots in 5.6 seconds.
The inability of lone-gunman theorists to admit that the alleged shooting feat would have been extremely difficult even for a highly skilled marksman indicates a marked lack of objectivity, a key component of critical thinking.
If you were really interested in critical thinking, you would have applied it to your own arguments. You would have considered the points I have made to your arguments.
Finally, there are three other pronounced problems with the lone-gunman shooting scenario:
One, there is strong, convincing evidence that more than three shots were fired during the assassination,
That's true if one believes in junk science. If one relies on solid forensic evidence, there is only a basis for a 3 shot scenario.[/quote]
which renders the lone-gunman shooting scenario invalid from the outset. We have a number of credible accounts of extra bullets and missed shots in Dealey Plaza, two of them supported by photographic evidence. Lone-gunman theorists lamely reply that every single one of the witnesses in every single one of these accounts must have been "mistaken," another display of their tendency to judge the evidence by their theory rather than judge their theory by the evidence. They conclude that all those witnesses "must" have been mistaken because they cannot allow that more than three shots were fired.[/quote]
Wrong again. It is only necessary to believe SOME of the witnesses were wrong and since the witnesses gave differing accounts of the shooting, we KNOW some of them had to be wrong.
Two, there is strong, convincing evidence that CE 543, the dented shell found in the sixth-floor sniper's nest, could not have fired a bullet during the assassination. So convincing is the evidence on this point that it has led some lone-gunman theorists to make the untenable claim that the sixth-floor gunman only fired two shots, with some of these theorists even arguing that Oswald did not fire the ammo that hit JFK in the head in Z312 but that Secret Service agent George Hickey accidentally shot JFK in the head (the mortal-error theory).
The FBI expert who examined the shells disagrees with your assessment. He had the actual shells to examine instead of low resolution copies of photos of the shells examined by amateur sleuths. I'm going with the FBI's expert on this one.
Three, the single-bullet theory (SBT) has been refuted.
The SBT has been disputed, not refuted. Critics keep telling us it is impossible but are never able to give us a valid reason why it is impossible. I have asked you to explain why on numerous occasions and I have yet to see you attempt to do so. Have I missed your reply?
Without the SBT, there can be no single-assassin scenario. JFK's clothing provides hard physical evidence that refutes the SBT.
Now you are just making shit up.
In 2023, the respected forensic engineering firm Knott Laboratories conducted the most sophisticated, data-intensive SBT trajectory analysis ever done and found that the SBT is impossible.
Like you, they didn't explain why it was impossible. They thought just saying so would suffice. I guess it did suffice for the CT who paid for the study, that being John Orr.
Also, Gov. John Connally, who was supposedly hit by the alleged SBT bullet at Z224, refuted this myth.
JBC refuted the SBT because he believed the myth that JFK had been hit by the first shot. He knew he had been hit by the second shot. If JFK had also been hit by the second shot, that would mean they were both hit by the same shot.
After viewing the Zapruder film a few times, he informed the WC that he was not hit before Z230.
Not a bad guess. He was only off by about 1/2 second,
Two years later, in 1966, LIFE magazine gave Connally the chance to study a high-quality print of the Zapruder film under high magnification to determine when he was hit, and he concluded he was unquestionably not hit before Z229 and identified Z234 as the moment of impact.
Not as good as his earlier guess. That one was off by 2/3 of a second.
Even if one buys the mortal-error theory, the collapse of the SBT means that JFK and Connally were hit by separate bullets fired by two gunman from behind.
I'll leave it to the people who believe that nonsense to reply to that.
For more information on these issues, I recommend interested readers check out the following sources:
The 1967 CBS Rifle Test: More Evidence Against the Lone-Gunman Theory
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4580.0.html
What Would a Valid Lone-Gunman Rifle Test Look Like?
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4589.0.html
When Could Oswald Have "Zeroed" (Sighted-In) the Alleged Murder Weapon?
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4543.0.html
Chapter 15 in Pat Speer's online book A New Perspective on the John F. Kennedy Assassination
https://www.patspeer.com/jahs-chapter-15
Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WRwhDQ9HMydf5pICsHwgtkoNKw0YSO8T/view
The Dented Bullet Shell: Hard Evidence of Conspiracy in the JFK Assassination
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ihue8a0GmN_Ptl38bPjpu1F99nqU0Z6f/view
JFK's Clothing Proves the Single-Bullet Theory Is Impossible
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MAgWA0frOLVeWY6ok9nzdrgpRN4Wv1AL/view?usp=sharing
Ten Reasons I Reject the Single-Bullet Theory
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-7AW56BXCumXFsOwyN6lE0WTBltOzeYI/view
Knott Laboratory's Historic 2023 SBT Trajectory Analysis
https://knottlab.com/cases/knott-lab-presents-digital-reconstruction-and-findings-on-the-assassination-of-president-john-f-kennedy/
https://knottlab.com/knott-lab-uses-forensic-science-to-refute-warren-commission-findings-on-jfk-assassination/
I think I've dealt with enough of your nonsense. I don't have to go on a scavenger hunt to dig up more. I feel like I've traveled back in time to 1991 when I first started to refute these same arguments made by you and your Prodigy cohorts back then. Nothing much has changed. Same old crap. Oswald wasn't a good enough marksman. The rifle couldn't have made the kill shots. The SBT is impossible. Blah, blah, blah. The irony is that you called for logic and critical thinking in the title of this thread and yet you don't seem to have applied either to your goofy ideas.