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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: How could former Marine sharpshooter Oswald miss everything with his first shot?
« Last post by Michael T. Griffith on Today at 12:27:07 PM »How in the world could former Marine sharpshooter Oswald miss everything with his first shot?
Newcomers to the case would not realize how misleading and problematic this statement is. To read this statement, along with the speculation and errant statements that follow it, they'd never know that it has been pointed out to you that there is considerable evidence Oswald was not even on the sixth floor during the shooting, that the kind of ammo Oswald allegedly used could not have caused the bullet fragmentation seen in the JFK autopsy skull x-rays, that the HSCA photographic experts determined JFK was first hit at a time (around Z190) when the sixth-floor gunman's view of JFK would have been obstructed by the oak tree, that voice-stress polygraph analysis of Oswald's statement that he didn't shoot anybody indicates he was telling the truth, and that the WC's three Master-rated riflemen were unable to duplicate Oswald's alleged shooting feat, to name a few problems with your scenario.
Newcomers would also not know that your use of the term Marine sharpshooter is misleading. They would not know that "sharpshooter" is the name of the middle/second of three Marine Corps rifle qualification categories; that some new recruits who've never fired a rifle before manage to qualify in the "sharpshooter" category; that Oswald barely qualified in the "sharpshooter" category on his best day at the range; that he was using a superb rifle (the M1) that had been zeroed and that did not require him to manually operate the bolt, whereas the alleged murder weapon was a bolt-action rifle with a misaligned scope; that nearly all of Oswald's fellow Marines who saw him shoot regarded him as a poor shot; that members of Oswald's hunting club in Minsk regarded him as a poor shot; that even during the so-called "rapid fire" phase of the rifle qualification test, Oswald had 60 seconds to fire 10 shots--and, again, with a semi-automatic rifle that had already been zeroed.
And, newcomers would also not know that in all the JFKA rifle tests that have been done, not even experienced, expert riflemen have been able to score two hits in three shots in 5.6 to 9.0 seconds on the first and only attempt, with the two hits being scored in 5.6 seconds and landing in a small area of the head and upper back no more than 13 inches high and 4 inches wide. This has never been done. Never. Never, ever. Not once. Yet, this is the shooting feat that Oswald supposedly performed.
I won't name any names, but recently a lone-gunman actually posted the grade-school-level circular argument that there was no need for rifle tests to prove Oswald could have done the shooting because, gee, Oswald already proved he could do the shooting! I kid you not. Someone presenting themselves as an adult actually made that argument. Apparently they've never been exposed to even the most basic elements of logical reasoning.
Background: A 2020 study by Brian Roselle and Kenneth Scearce determined that seven prime witnesses to the assassination of JFK (including everyone in the limousine except for the hard-to-see driver) made conscious head movements in the Zapruder film within half-a-second of each other upon hearing the first of three shots at hypothetical “Z-124,” i.e., half-a-second before Abraham Zapruder resumed filming at Z-133 after about a 15-second pause.
You realize that a sixth-floor gunman would have been firing virtually straight down at hypothetical Z124, right? This makes no sense. He would have had far, far easier shots when the limo was coming straight toward the window while it was traveling on Houston Street. But, no, you have him passing up the easiest shots of the day and waiting until he had to fire virtually straight down.
I'm just waiting for Lance Payette and John Corbett to get on here and say, "Yeah, that totally makes sense to us!"
I actually agree that a shot may well have occurred before Z133, but it almost certainly did not come from the sixth-floor window. I think the Zapruder film was spliced to remove the limo's turn from Houston onto Elm. Zapruder did not stop filming. The film was edited to remove the turn. More on this below.
Zapruder filmed motorcycle policemen turn onto Elm Street, and when he realized the limousine wasn't immediately behind them, he turned his camera off, not resuming until approximately 15 seconds later when he saw the limousine heading toward him down Elm Street. Z-133 represents the first frame of resumed filming. "Z-124" is a hypothetical moment half a second before Z-133, during the filming gap. [SNIP]
This, too, makes no sense, and it contradicts what Zapruder himself said. Zapruder never indicated that he stopped filming at this time but only after the shooting when the limo sped out of sight after going under the triple underpass.
If Zapruder had intended to start filming only after the limo turned onto Elm Street, he never would have started filming when the lead motorcycles began turning onto Elm Street. He would have been able to plainly see that the two lead cars in the motorcade were still on Houston Street. He would have simply waited until the limo began to make its turn.
The Warren Commission never considered the possibility of a shot during the filming gap, anchoring its entire analysis to the filmed sequence. It placed the earliest possible first shot at Z-166, constrained partly by an oak tree that obscured the line of sight from the sixth-floor window. However, the oak tree did not obscure the line of sight to the limousine's position at "Z-124," meaning the Commission's earliest possible shot date was unnecessarily conservative. [SNIP]
The WC was not really constrained by the oak tree but by a slavish adherence to the idea that only three shots were fired and that there was only one gunman. That is why the Commission refused to acknowledge the evidence that additional shots were fired and landed elsewhere in Dealey Plaza. That is why the Commission initially tried to ignore the Tague curb shot and wounding.
Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WRwhDQ9HMydf5pICsHwgtkoNKw0YSO8T/viewA miss under these conditions would have been entirely explicable.
Utter nonsense. Even though firing virtually straight down, a sixth-floor gunman would have had to be blind to miss the entire gigantic limousine--21.25 feet long, 6.5 feet wide--with a shot aimed at JFK, who was sitting 6 feet from the back bumper and on the righthand end of the back seat. To miss the entire huge limo, the gunman would have had to fire when the barrel was pointed at a part of the street to the right of the limo's passenger side and with no part of JFK anywhere near his aiming point. It boggles the mind to believe he would have fired at that time and with that shot view. Well, unless you want to assume he looked away and then pulled the trigger!
I mean, you really need to stop and think before you post such implausible, illogical theories.The Warren Commission's failure to consider this scenario — despite the line of sight being clear, the shot being geometrically possible, and the filming gap providing a window of unrecorded opportunity — represents a significant gap in their analysis.
No, the WC did this because they knew that a pre-Z166 shot meant there were more shots than Oswald could have fired, since they were chained to a three-shots-only scenario.
