JC-

Yes, you are correct about AI.

In this case, AI-Gemini accurately summarized the historical record on LBJ instructions to Warren and Russell.

You may regard my human intelligence with low regard, and have expressed as much many times, but I used human intelligence to monitor the AI intelligence results.

I regard you as
a smart guy, who happens to have different views on the JFKA than me.

You have yet to document any order LBJ gave to the WC that told them to do anything but find the truth of the JFKA. The staff lawyers who did most of the actual investigating, to a man said they wanted to find evidence of a conspiracy and were unable to do so. Do you think they would have done that had they been ordered to conclude Oswald acted alone?

I would never expect a reconstruction to exactly produce the same result as the actual shooting.  I never claimed it did.  But reconstructions/wound ballistics testing are frequently used in court as illustrative or demonstrative of a shooting incident. The goal isn’t to exactly reproduce a shooting incident—that’s an impossible standard—but to test whether the known/claimed forensic elements of the incident can be replicated consistently under similar conditions.

Exactly. As you note, it is an impossible standard (many would say a very unreasonable standard) to expect that wound-ballistics tests will always duplicate every single aspect and every single result of an alleged shooting incident.

Reconstructions are not meant as the final word either way but as a means of assigning weight to the credibility or believability of an assertion—if the shooting can substantially be replicated, it simply means it’s more likely than not it happened the way the evidence suggests.

Yes, indeed. And, conversely, if repeated wound-ballistics testing fails every single time to replicate most or all of the results of an alleged shooting incident, this is a solid basis for doubting it, if not for rejecting it.

Two SBT wound-ballistics tests (one of Lattimer's tests and an Australian test) actually duplicated all the wounds posited by the SBT, but in both cases the bullets emerged visibly more damaged than CE 399.

And, of course, both of those tests assumed that JFK and Connally were aligned in a way to make the wounding possible in the first place, when in fact the most advanced, sophisticated SBT trajectory analysis ever done, the 2023 Knott Lab analysis, found that the two men were not aligned in a way that would make the SBT theoretically possible. In addition, the few pro-SBT trajectory analyses have had to make demonstrably invalid assumptions about the size of Connally's back wound (doubling its size), the size and nature of the wound path through Connally's chest (ignoring the fact that it was rather narrow), and JFK and Connally's positions and rotations (putting the men in positions and/or rotations that are wholly unsupported by the photographic evidence). 

I was a longtime believer in the official conclusion of the assassination. But with forensic training and experience from a 29 year career as an FBI Agent and additional years working murder cases as a private investigator, I thought it would be an interesting project to test the ballistic and forensic elements of the assassination personally.  I had no agenda other than seeing what I came up with.  The work is actually fun to me.  I’ve extensively and redundantly tested the single bullet theory through ballistic tests, trajectory analysis using strings, lasers and rods with both mannequins and stand ins, and other forensic reconstructions.  I’m currently working on the head shot.  Despite rigorous and faithful replication of the official parameters, I cannot replicate numerous elements of the SBT.  Does that mean it didn’t happen?  No but the weight of what I’ve found sufficiently convinced me it’s wrong.

This is very interesting to hear. You are joining a long list of experts who initially believed in the lone-gunman theory but who changed their minds after doing more research into the case. These experts include Dr. David Mantik (radiation oncologist, radiologist, and physicist), Dr. Michael Chesser (neurologist), Dr. Joseph Riley (neuroanatomist), Dr. Roger McCarthy (wound-ballistics expert), and Howard Donahue (firearms and ballistics expert).

I, too, grew up believing in the WC's version of the shooting, since that's what I was taught in school. Oliver Stone's movie JFK caused me to start reading about the case, partly because I thought "this just can't be true."

The first big doubt that I formed involved Oswald's alleged shooting feat. I did 21 years in the Army and qualified at all three marksmanship levels (marksman, sharpshooter, and expert). When I became aware of the details of the alleged shooting performance, I recognized right away that it would have been extremely difficult even for an experienced, highly skilled rifleman, and far beyond the ability of someone whose best day at the Marine Corps rifle range was to barely qualify in the sharpshooter category using a semi-automatic rifle against targets he'd practiced against for hours and with vastly more time to fire than the alleged lone gunman would have had.   

True. Just nothing to indicate it was 2 fragments.
You made that part up.

Except for the two fragments that were recovered. The following is from a pro-conspiracy website:

During the autopsy inspection of the area of the brain, two fragments of metal were removed by Dr. HUMES, namely, one fragment measuring 7 x 2 millimeters, which was removed from the right side of the brain. An additional fragment of metal measuring 1 x 3 millimeters was also removed from this area, both of which were placed in a glass jar containing a black metal top which were thereafter marked for identification and following the signing of a proper receipt were transported by Bureau agents to the FBI laboratory.

https://22november1963.org.uk/jfk-assassination-documents/sibert-and-oneill-report#:~:text=The%20Chief%20Pathologist%20advised%20approximately%2040%20particles%20of,had%20fragmentized%20while%20passing%20through%20the%20skull%20region.

I've read through the arguments for a first shot strike

Outline a single one of these arguments.
It's not that I totally don't believe you when you say you've read through the arguments...

The one Andrew Mason is constantly relying on is that there are witnesses who say JFK reacted to being hit by the first shot.

I find it far more likely that 44 people didn't recognize the first shot for what it was than that JBC and Bennett imagined hearing a shot that never happened

It seems that every time you post something there is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation that needs to be cleared up.
It's not that I'm saying you're totally doing it on purpose...
Just to clarify - the 44 witnesses Pat Speer compiled were not referencing whether or not they recognised the first shot for what it was. They were describing JFK's reaction. I made this clear when I posted "Pat Speer compiled a list of 44 witnesses who report JFK reacting to the first shot as we see in the Z-film - hands flying up towards his throat, slumping to his left etc.

It makes all the difference in the world whether JFK reacted to the first or second shot and that depends on whether the witnesses you are referring two could tell whether that was the first or second shot JFK reacted to. If they didn't recognize the first missed shot for what it was, then it would have seemed to them that JFK was hit by the first shot.

You make the point that you "choose to believe the witnesses who are corroborated by the best witness available, Zapruder's camera."
The reactions these witnesses describe are corroborated by the Z-film!

Unbelievably you say you find it far more likely these witnesses were mistaken "than that JBC and Bennett imagined hearing a shot that never happened".
According to JBC he never even heard the shot that hit him!

That's right he didn't. It's called information overload. The brain can only process so much input at a time. JBC was overwhelmed by the sensation of the bullet passing through his chest. It's an established phenomenon that a shooting victim won't always hear the shot that hits them.
https://biologyinsights.com/what-does-it-feel-like-to-get-shot-a-scientific-look/

"While the sound of the gunshot itself is loud, the individual may experience auditory exclusion, where hearing becomes muffled or temporarily lost due to the body’s heightened state of awareness."

Are you not aware of this?

Of course I am. I've heard JBC tell this story countless times.

JBC reports that there was a "split second" between him hearing the first shot and feeling that he had been hit. He is reporting that there was a split second between the first two shots - do you accept this? Of course you do.

Quote

Now you are just plain lying. Why do you have to lie to make your points? This is what JBC actually said"
Mr. SPECTER. As the automobile turned left onto Elm from Houston, what did occur there, Governor?
Governor CONNALLY. We had--we had gone, I guess, 150 feet, maybe 200 feet, I don't recall how far it was, heading down to get on the freeway, the Stemmons Freeway, to go out to the hall where we were going to have lunch and, as I say, the crowds had begun to thin, and we could--I was anticipating that we were going to be at the hall in approximately 5 minutes from the time we turned on Elm Street.
We had just made the turn, well, when I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right

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shoulder, so I turned to look back over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing unusual except just people in the crowd, but I did not catch the President in the corner of my eye, and I was interested, because once I heard the shot in my own mind I identified it as a rifle shot, and I immediately--the only thought that crossed my mind was that this is an assassination attempt.
So I looked, failing to see him, I was turning to look back over my left shoulder into the back seat, but I never got that far in my turn. I got about in the position I am in now facing you, looking a little bit to the left of center, and then I felt like someone had hit me in the back.
Mr. SPECTER. What is the best estimate that you have as to the time span between the sound of the first shot and the feeling of someone hitting you in the back which you just described?
Governor CONNALLY. A very, very brief span of time.

A very, very brief time span does not equate to a split second. Do you really think JBC did all the things he described after hearing the first shot in a split second. The Z-film indicates there were about 58 frames, about 3 seconds, between JBC's visible reaction and the second shot striking both men. That seems to be a reasonable time frame that fits both the reaction he described and his estimate that there was a very brief time span between shots.

Quote

Do you believe the traumatised memory of a man who suffered a life-threatening injury and whose body went instantly into shock, is more reliable than 44 witnesses whose observations are corroborated by the Z-film? Of course you do.

There is nothing in the Z-film that corroborates those 44 witnesses. It refutes them and corroborates JBC.

Glenn Bennett wasn't shot so what is your excuse for believing he imagined a missed first shot?

The fact they misspelled a key word in the receipt indicates they didn't spend a lot of time composing this. Just fulfilling a technicality.

  True. Just nothing to indicate it was 2 fragments.
You made that part up.