JFK Assassination Forum

I figured out why my sources on the Marine Corps rifle qualification standards differed somewhat in the allotted times for the slow-fire and rapid-fire phases: the source I'd been using was for the 1943-1955 standards, whereas the source I found last week includes the 1943-1955 standards and the 1955-1968 standards. Oswald was in the Marine Corps from October 1956 to September 1959.

The 1955-1968 rifle qualification standards prove it is untenable to cite Oswald's Marine Corps rifle scores as evidence he could have performed the alleged shooting feat.

Oswald's performance on 11/22/1963 proved he was capable of making the shots that killed JFK because the evidence he did that is overwhelming. The burden of proof is on the CTs to provide the evidence that he was NOT capable of making he shots.

First off, we must keep in mind that when firing for qualification in the Marines, Oswald was using a superb semi-automatic rifle, either the M1 or the M14 (the M14 replaced the M1 in 1957, but the M1 was still often used for rifle practice and qualification). Thus, whether using the M1 or the M14, he had no bolt to manually operate--he just had to aim and squeeze the trigger. This is a huge difference compared to firing a bolt-action rifle where you have to manually operate the bolt for each shot.

A semi-auto like the M1 does automate the chambering of each round after the clip is inserted, but once the round is in the chamber, the fundamentals for making an accurate shot are pretty much the same. Both rifles have significant recoil which will require the shooter to reacquire the target and put the sight on the intended target. A bolt action rifle has the added step of manually operating the bolt to eject the spent round and chamber the next round in the clip.

Second, when firing for qualification, Oswald was firing at stationary targets, targets that he had practiced against several times beforehand.

A slow moving target moving almost directly away from the shooter is almost stationary in that there is very little movement in relation to the line of fire. That would have been true for Oswald's second and third shots but not for his first which is why that shot was by far the most difficult.

Third, and this is a crucial point, to score a hit at 200 and 300 yards, Oswald had to hit a black circle on the target sheet that was 10 inches in diameter (10 inches wide and 10 inches tall), nearly twice as wide and 22% taller than the average male head. The average male head is 5.5-6.0 inches wide and 7.8 inches tall (from bottom of chin to top of head). To score a hit at 500 yards, Oswald had to hit a black circle that was 20 inches in diameter, more than triple the width and more than double the height of the average male head.

The effect of firing at greater ranges effectively makes the target smaller. I guess during your critical thinking you failed to take that into account.

Fourth, even in the two "rapid-fire" phases, Oswald had 5 seconds to fire each shot. For the four slow-fire phases, he had 72 seconds (1.2 minutes) to fire each shot. Let's look at all the times for all the phases:

Stage One-Slow Fire
200 yards
12 minutes
10 rounds
Firing rate: 1.2 minutes per shot

Stage Two-Slow Fire
Stage Three-Slow Fire
300 yards
6 minutes
5 rounds
Firing rate: 1.2 minutes per shot

Stage Four-Slow Fire
500 yards
12 minutes
10 rounds
Firing rate: 1.2 minutes per shot

Stage Five-Rapid Fire
200 yards
50 seconds
10 rounds
Firing rate: 5.0 seconds per shot

Stage Six-Rapid Fire
300 yards
50 seconds
10 rounds
Firing rate: 5.0 seconds per shot

See: https://www.wwmcmillan.info/usmc_FirearmsQual.html.

Fifth, to qualify in the "sharpshooter" category, Oswald only had to achieve a score of 210 out of a possible 250, with each shot counting as 5 points. This means he could miss 8 of his 50 shots and still qualify as a "sharpshooter"--and, again, this was while using a semi-automatic rifle against 10-inch and 20-inch targets that he had practiced against several times beforehand.

Let me see if I can do the arithmetic without a calculator. Oswald had to hit 42 out of 50 shots to qualify. That's an 84% hit rate. When shooting at JFK, he hit his target 2 out or 3 times. That's a hit rate of 67%. Sounds like Oswald was a little sharper when shooting in the USMC, but let's cut him some slack. He was firing with a bolt action rifle.

Sixth, Oswald was always firing from a level position at Marine Corps rifle ranges, and never from an elevation, not to mention an elevation of 60 feet. Thus, he never had to worry about the high-low factor when firing from an elevation. It is doubtful he ever even heard of the high-low factor. 

When firing from a level position or an elevated position, gravity starts to take effect as soon as the bullet leaves the barrel. The shorter the distance, the less the bullet will drop while in flight. Oswald's longest shot was 88 yards, so gravity had less effect on his shot.

Clearly, his Marine Corps rifle scores tell us little about his ability to use a bolt-action rifle from 60 feet up while firing through a half-open window in cramped conditions and to score 2 hits in 3 shots in a 14 x 4-inch area in no more than 11 seconds and to score his 2 hits in 5.6 seconds (since everyone agrees the alleged lone-gunman's first shot missed).

14 x 4 inch area? I didn't know JFK was a pinhead.

Martin Weidmann— I did not realize you were proposing a crime scene wallet might be the one turned in later as the Oswald wallet in evidence, and not the one said to have been taken from Oswald in the car. That removes some of my objection of irrelevance to the crime scene issue. But may I ask, are you meaning this as evidence Oswald was present at the crime scene with Hidell ID? Do you think Oswald shot Tippit? Do you think he accidentally dropped his wallet at the scene, or handed his wallet to Tippit? I’m having trouble seeing where you go with this.

30 years later for a first mention of something that would be expected memorable from the beginning is the key fact making this urban legend genre. Not all witness claims are equal. Analogy that comes to mind is the claim of Secret Service agent Mike Howard that a torn out page in Oswald’s address book had a death list of four people Oswald intended to kill, that Howard claimed he saw the first week. The problem is there is no verification and Howard first mentioned it nearly 30 years after the fact. Sure he said it. Still does. But nobody believes it (I sure don’t) because of the 30-yr delay for a first witness claim that has no other verification. This Oswald wallet at the crime scene very parallel to the Mike Howard claim. They’re both equally unbelievable and for exactly parallel reasons.

I did not realize you were proposing a crime scene wallet might be the one turned in later as the Oswald wallet in evidence, and not the one said to have been taken from Oswald in the car.

In my previous posts I made it clear enough that this was a possibility.

Let's examine what we actually know;

Hill and Bentley were sitting on either side of Oswald on the back seat of the car, when Hill asked Bentley to look for identification. Bentley found a wallet and, according to Hill, mentioned Lee Oswald. Not a word about Hidell by any of the officers in the car until Hill, during his WC testimony on April 8, 1964, vaguely remembers another name, which could have been Hidell, was also mentioned in the car. There is not a single report (including the one filed by Bentley on 11/22/63) that actually mentions an Hidell ID being found in that wallet.

On the other hand we have FBI agent Barrett who not only clearly states that Westbrook was holding a wallet and asked him about Hidell and Oswald at the Tippit crime scene but also called the suggestion that the wallet with the Hidell ID in it was taken from Oswald in the car, "hogwash".

This is were it gets complicated. When the car arrived at City Hall, Bentley went to the homicide bureau to write a report (the one in which he does not mention Hidell!) before being taken to the hospital. What happened to the wallet that Bentley has is anybody's guess. Bentley writes in his report that he gave the identification to Lt. Baker, after he had initialed the revolver together with Hill. The problem is that, according to Hill, that happened at around 4:00 PM. And then we have officer Walker who had been at the Tippit crime scene, who claims in his WC testimony that when Oswald was brought into the homicide bureau (at around 1:15 PM , IIRC) he (Walker) had the revolver and the Hidell identification.

So, now we turn to Guy Rose, who had been called in and arrived just as Oswald was being brought in. He was the first officer to talk to Oswald and just before that happened an unidentified patrol officer gave him a wallet and told him it belonged to the suspect. That's the wallet in which Rose found the Hidell ID.

So, here is the discrepancy; if Bentley gave the wallet to Lt Baker at around 4:00 PM, how could Rose have had it at just past 1:00 PM when he talked to Oswald and how could the wallet containing the Hidell ID be submitted to the evidence room at 3:35 PM.

Do you understand the problem now?

But may I ask, are you meaning this as evidence Oswald was present at the crime scene with Hidell ID?

No. It's only potential evidence that a wallet containing the Oswald and Hidell ID was at the Tippit crime scene. How it got there is anybody's guess.

Do you think Oswald shot Tippit?

What I think is not really important, but since you asked; I think it's a mistake to jump to conclusions.

It all comes down to opportunity and motive. Could Oswald have arrived at 10th street in time to kill Tippit? What was he even doing there? And if he shot Tippit to evade arrest why not leave after Tippit was down? Why go back and shoot him in the head to ensure he was dead? It doesn't make sense to me. The coup the grace shot is a complete mystery to me.

Do you think he accidentally dropped his wallet at the scene, or handed his wallet to Tippit?

I have no idea. Once again, you assume that it was Oswald himself who carried that wallet but we don't know that.

30 years later for a first mention of something that would be expected memorable from the beginning is the key fact making this urban legend genre.

I've already said this once before. What if Barrett, for 30 years, had no knowledge there was even a problem with the wallet until he talked to Hosty? Vicki Adams wasn't heard from for decades because she wasn't aware what the WC had said about her reliablity or lack thereof. As the case was closed in 1964, Barrett, like most people, would have gotten on with his life and most likely never had a reason to second guess the WC report.

This Oswald wallet at the crime scene very parallel to the Mike Howard claim. They’re both equally unbelievable and for exactly parallel reasons.

No. The wallet story has footage showing it being held at the Tippit scene. There's also circumstantial evidence to support the possibility of wallets being switched.

The only reason for you to call them both unbelievable is that you don't want to believe them. It is as simple as that.

Why is the precise time of death the least bit irrelevant to the question of who shot Tippit?

Wow. 35 years research and this is the best you can do.

It's the best I need in this case.

In all those years of intense study you must have noticed that different witnesses were located in different positions.

Yes I did. I noticed Sitzman was behind Zapruder.

JBC had just passed the front of the TSBD building and was clearly in LoS of the shooter so, of course he would have heard the shot clearly. There are other witnesses positioned in front of the building who describe the shots as being very loud.
However, and here you might have to consult your copious notes made over the years, Zapruder and Sitzman were located on the west side of the building, not directly in front.
This affected how they heard the shots.

So you think sound only travels in a vector?

This is from Sitzman's Oral History interview given in '93:

"The last shot that we heard was right in front of us and it was like the same sound—far off and to the left...
...the sound we heard… the third sound still sounded a distance because if it had been as close as everybody’s trying to tell us...we would have jumped sky-high.
[referring to a young couple sat a few feet away] ...they were sitting in a park bench and they dropped their pop bottle on that cement there and cracked it. That’s what kind of woke us up, and that’s when we got down off of the concrete. But that sound was, like, five… eight feet from us. That, yeah, we did hear, but that’s the only other sound other than that far away sound that we heard."

Oh, goody. Another version of what happened from an ear witness. Just how many different ways do you think the JFKA happened?

Here we have a witness, stood next to Zapruder, describing the sound of the shots as "far off".
Because you are a Tinfoil Nutter any witness that undermines or disproves any fraction of your spoon-fed beliefs about this case, is dismissed or are talking nonsense.

Eye and earwitness accounts don't prove anything unless you can prove the witness' account is accurate. I trust people's observed reactions far more than I trust their recollections. The Newmans, who were not far from Zapruder reacted by pushing their kids on the ground and shielding them with their bodies.

I've no doubt you believe you treat all the evidence fairly but this is not the case. Here is a witness who completely undermines your naive approach to the issue of the shots but, because you are so utterly deluded, you believe you know better 

You're so gullible you think one witness undermines a wealth of evidence which is contrary to their account. I always get a chuckle when somebody starts and argument with, "So-and-so said....." as if what so-and-so said. People choose to believe the witnesses who support what they want to believe. Because there are so many differing versions of what happened, it's not hard to find a witness who will support your argument. I don't accept any witness' account that can't be corroborated through other evidence. We have visual evidence that Zapruder's camera shook noticeably 7-8 frames after the second shot was fired and 7-8 frames after the third shot was fired. Is that just a coincidence? It would have taken about 4 frames for the sound of the muzzle blast to reach Zapruder's ears which leaves another 3-4 frames for a startle reaction, about what that should take.

Funnily enough, in an interview with Josiah Thompson Sitzman disagrees with the notion of jiggle analysis, presumably because the sound of the shots was so distant it couldn't have caused a startled reaction.

That is one of the dumbest things I have read on this forum. It is silly to think the sound of the muzzle blast would have dissipated in just 90 yard. You want to be all your eggs in the Sitzman basket as if her account is the definitive story of the JFKA. Foolish.

Zapruder was an old man with vertigo stood on a narrow plinth taking a home movie. To expect a completely smooth tracking shot is ridiculous. Jiggle Analysis is over as a method of analysing the Z-film. Get over it.

Funny how his vertigo only kicked in 7-8 frames after the second and third shots.

Martin Weidmann— I did not realize you were proposing a crime scene wallet might be the one turned in later as the Oswald wallet in evidence, and not the one said to have been taken from Oswald in the car. That removes some of my objection of irrelevance to the crime scene issue. But may I ask, are you meaning this as evidence Oswald was present at the crime scene with Hidell ID? Do you think Oswald shot Tippit? Do you think he accidentally dropped his wallet at the scene, or handed his wallet to Tippit? I’m having trouble seeing where you go with this.

30 years later for a first mention of something that would be expected memorable from the beginning is the key fact making this urban legend genre. Not all witness claims are equal. Analogy that comes to mind is the claim of Secret Service agent Mike Howard that a torn out page in Oswald’s address book had a death list of four people Oswald intended to kill, that Howard claimed he saw the first week. The problem is there is no verification and Howard first mentioned it nearly 30 years after the fact. Sure he said it. Still does. But nobody believes it (I sure don’t) because of the 30-yr delay for a first witness claim that has no other verification. This Oswald wallet at the crime scene very parallel to the Mike Howard claim. They’re both equally unbelievable and for exactly parallel reasons.