he belief in a conspiracy exists because 1) Dealey Plaza was an echo chamber, making it hard for the lackadaisical-then-startled witnesses to count the number / timing / duration of the shots, 2) The assassin who fired all three shots from the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest and whose prints were found on the murder weapon (Oswald) took 10.2 seconds to fire them, more than enough time to fire the last two accurately, 3) the first shot, a steeply downward-angled one, missed everything and sounded "muffled" compared to the other two because the short-rifle's muzzle was completely inside the building when it was fired, 4) the bullet that wounded both JFK and JBC (CE-399) was strangely (i.e., no damage to the nose) and only moderately deformed because it struck only one hard bone (JBC's radial bone), and did so while travelling backwards at a greatly reduced velocity (see below), 5) JFK appears in the Zapruder film to have been stuck about half-a second before JBC only because the bullet nicked his spinal cord, causing his arms and hands to instantaneously react in a neuromuscular way, 6) The seeming contradiction between the non-fragmenting of CE-399 when it hit JBC’s radial bone versus the fragmenting of the third bullet when it hit JFK’s skull was due to the fact that CE-399, having already passed through JFK’s and JBC’s bodies, wasn’t going fast enough to fragment, whereas the headshot bullet was still going about 1800 feet-per-second when it stuck near the thickest part of JFK’s skull – the external occipital protuberance.
Media's influence was the number one contributor to the number of shots reported. Both the WC and the HSCA reference it in their conclusions, the HSCA sound analysis study also referenced medias influence.
Agree with it all except a first missed shot. Eyewitness statements all state JFK reacted to the first shot with the exception of Mary Woodward who places the first shot after Z207.
Forensic analysis and Josiah Thompson’s observation of the shells discovered in the SN indicate only two were fired in the rifle. The third was used as a snap cap for practicing finger control. As explained by Major Anderson, LHO would have been taught this method and trained to practice in this manner as part of his Marine Corp training.