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JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

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No Other said:
A magazine housing is not a trigger guard. To describe it simply, a trigger guard is the metal loop that surrounds the trigger and minimizes an accidental discharge. A magazine holds the rounds. A trigger guard and a magazine are distinct with two totally different purposes...
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Often yes, however in the case of the Caracano the trigger guard and the magazine are the same piece of metal.

Also, in Mannlicher style weapons the rounds are held in a clip which is held in a housing when the weapon is loaded - there is not a magazine in the sense of a Mauser, or Lee Enfield
 
No Other said:
A magazine housing is not a trigger guard. To describe it simply, a trigger guard is the metal loop that surrounds the trigger and minimizes an accidental discharge. A magazine holds the rounds. A trigger guard and a magazine are distinct with two totally different purposes...
Click to expand...

On a Carcano, the trigger guard and clip housing are a single piece.

Take a look.
 
I think it is worth stating again, that picking at inconsistencies is not going to convince most posters here of a conspiracy. Even if many of the claims were not misunderstandings of evidence, in which there is no shame, it is important to realise that the idea of the official story being absolutely proven is often misrepresented in CT literature.

We are looking at the overall pattern. We expect noise, we expect blanks in the record, and we expect conflicting memory.

So we look at the evidence and follow the narrative that best fits all the evidence.

If you want to say the bag could not carry a rifle because a guy did not guess it to be that length, then you need to offer a better explanation.

If you dont want to be seen as moving goal posts then plainly state the narrative you think best explains the assassination and investigation, and tell us why.

Oswald is innocent? Or didn't fire the rifle? Offer an alternative narrative, then support it.
 
Quotes without comment.

No Other said:
If that bag was used there would have been evidence of a well oiled rifle in the bag.. plus a Spectrographic test was conducted and found no metal tracings.
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No Other said:
The problem with any typed message is that there is no syntax or pace to a response/statement. I could have used the word "plus" instead of "and", however it gets posted it was not meant to say that the Spectrographic analysis was for traces of metal.
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Hank
 
Tomtomkent said:
I think it is worth stating again, that picking at inconsistencies is not going to convince most posters here of a conspiracy. Even if many of the claims were not misunderstandings of evidence, in which there is no shame, it is important to realise that the idea of the official story being absolutely proven is often misrepresented in CT literature.

We are looking at the overall pattern. We expect noise, we expect blanks in the record, and we expect conflicting memory.

So we look at the evidence and follow the narrative that best fits all the evidence.

If you want to say the bag could not carry a rifle because a guy did not guess it to be that length, then you need to offer a better explanation.

If you dont want to be seen as moving goal posts then plainly state the narrative you think best explains the assassination and investigation, and tell us why.

Oswald is innocent? Or didn't fire the rifle? Offer an alternative narrative, then support it.
Click to expand...
You are just plain wrong in your statement. To disprove something, you do not have to provide an alternative. Our jurisprudence system is not based on your approach, if it was, there would always be someone convicted in every trial instead of finding someone either guilty or not guilty of the charge. The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd. Example: I know my wife didn't kill JFK but it doesn't mean I have to find the real killer to make my declaration.

There is no moving of the goal post on my part but your insistence on me providing an alternative is just that... moving the goal post.

By the way, I am sure your mentioning of CT literature does not include the Warren Commission Report and all of the accompanying exhibits along with the HSCA, so your admonishment is not applicable.

I have made comments and you and others have not been successful in rebutting them and talking in third person does not provide you or anyone else a free ticket to make incorrect assertions about me.
 
No Other said:
Our jurisprudence system is not based on your approach, if it was, there would always be someone convicted in every trial instead of finding someone either guilty or not guilty of the charge. The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd.
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Too many JFK conspiracy theorists posture the debate as if it were a court trial, and as if all they have to do is amass enough uncertainty to qualify under the law as reasonable doubt. They stand themselves up as Oswald's defense attorney, Warren et al. as would-be prosecutors, and try to poke holes in the "case," essentially holding a mock trial in their minds, playing both parts, and naturally exonerating Oswald at the end.

Of course criminal trials necessarily have a narrow scope. They are interested only in speedily disposing of the proffered defendant because that's what the constitutional constraints permit. Just because such narrow examinations of historical questions exist for such specific purposes doesn't mean this is the only, accepted, or even effective method of studying history. There is a larger historical (or at least, non-legal) context, and the general unwillingness of conspiracy theorists to go there is unsatisfying.

Books that, for example, explore allegations of FDR's foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor don't adopt a courtroom paradigm. Other books on Nixon's handling of Watergate don't investigate it only as a court would. You simply beg the notion that we must look at Oswald and the Kennedy assassination as if we were a court of law -- specifically that we must adopt the presumptions and constraints that fetter a court.

To the skeptic it is all too clear why this happens. It seems the concert of conspiracy theories cannot provide a single melody clearer than Oswald's. There is only a cacophony of speculation and weak allegations pointing every which way, and this is ultimately embarrassing. It is not at all unreasonable to ask those who say the conventional narrative is unacceptably murky to provide a clearer picture. But they insist on judging the conventional narrative by one standard -- and a dubiously applicable one at that -- and their own speculative narratives by a vastly more permissive standard.
 
It was Oswald.

His rifle with his prints, found in his place of employment.

Oswald fled the scene. Not the act of a innocent man.

Oswald shot and killed Officer Tippet with the handgun seen in his waistband in the set of two photographs showing him holding HIS rifle - the murder weapon.

Oswald almost shot another Dallas police officer during his arrest in the movie theater, with only the quick reflexes and webbing between the thumb and forefinger preventing another dead cop at the hands of Oswald.

It was Oswald.
 
No Other said:
I have made comments and you and others have not been successful in rebutting them...
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Did I overlook one?

Most of your comments have been rebutted by me - with, in many cases, detailed citations and quotations from the evidence. I'm still awaiting your responses to those rebuttal arguments.

Hank
 
No Other said:
You are just plain wrong in your statement. To disprove something, you do not have to provide an alternative. Our jurisprudence system is not based on your approach, if it was, there would always be someone convicted in every trial instead of finding someone either guilty or not guilty of the charge.
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We're not talking jurisprudence anymore. That ship has sailed. Oswald is dead and is beyond justice, and the only man ever tried for conspiracy to assassinate JFK was found not guilty. Nobody else is in the docket. So a trial is a non-starter - unless you're going to name some names and start the case moving. What we're talking about at this time is historiography - the writing of history.

And on that subject, as I understand it, you and I agree. All the evidence points to Oswald. We only differ on the reason it points to him. I am firmly of the opinion all the evidence points to Oswald because he committed the crime. You, as I understand it, are of the opinion the evidence points to Oswald because all the evidence has been manufactured or faked or forged or planted or swapped to point to him. Correct me if that is wrong. But if that summary is correct, you have yet to provide any evidence for any of these alleged forgeries, or plantings, et. al. Neither have you suggested how and why it was done, nor who was involved. I will speak only for myself, but I need far more evidence than you've provided at this point (to wit, none) to even consider your argument.


No Other said:
The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd. Example: I know my wife didn't kill JFK but it doesn't mean I have to find the real killer to make my declaration.
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Nobody, to my knowledge, is accusing your wife, so let's take that off the table right now. Oswald has been named as the most likely assassin by me and others in this thread. I trust you are NOT claiming naming him as the assassin is 'patently absurd', given all the evidence pointing to his guilt. Please clarify.

And if you're not claiming naming him is 'patently absurd', but you wish to exclude him from consideration nonetheless, please do name some other names of persons you suspect might be the assassin(s) in lieu of Oswald, and do provide that evidence for our consideration. After all, JFK didn't commit suicide in that limo, to the best of my knowledge.


Tomtomkent said:
Even if many of the claims were not misunderstandings of evidence, in which there is no shame, it is important to realise that the idea of the official story being absolutely proven is often misrepresented in CT literature.
No Other said:
By the way, I am sure your mentioning of CT literature does not include the Warren Commission Report and all of the accompanying exhibits along with the HSCA, so your admonishment is not applicable.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

TomTomKent was saying the WC and HSCA conclusions ("the official story") have been misrepresented by the conspiracy literature, as I understand his point. The Warren Commission Report and their 26 volumes of evidence, and the HSCA Report and their volumes of evidence are not now and never have been conspiracy theorist literature. Can you clarify the meaning of your response? It reads like a non sequitur to me.

Hank
 
No Other said:
You are just plain wrong in your statement. To disprove something, you do not have to provide an alternative. Our jurisprudence system is not based on your approach, if it was, there would always be someone convicted in every trial instead of finding someone either guilty or not guilty of the charge. The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd. Example: I know my wife didn't kill JFK but it doesn't mean I have to find the real killer to make my declaration.

There is no moving of the goal post on my part but your insistence on me providing an alternative is just that... moving the goal post.

By the way, I am sure your mentioning of CT literature does not include the Warren Commission Report and all of the accompanying exhibits along with the HSCA, so your admonishment is not applicable.

I have made comments and you and others have not been successful in rebutting them and talking in third person does not provide you or anyone else a free ticket to make incorrect assertions about me.
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Last time I checked, almost every incident regarding a criminal charge or indictment that goes before a jury or judge results in a ruling of innocent or guilty, other than mistrials.

The WC findings may be not be acceptable to you. If you wish to assert that your pov is correct you'd better bring something to the discussion other than gratuitous assertions, and so far that has been the sum total of your argument.

As you noted in your post, The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd. Since you're making the assertion that the WC got it wrong, it's on you to prove it.

How's that petard feel right about now? can you see Dealey Plaza from there.
 
No Other said:
You are just plain wrong in your statement. To disprove something, you do not have to provide an alternative. Our jurisprudence system is not based on your approach, if it was, there would always be someone convicted in every trial instead of finding someone either guilty or not guilty of the charge.
Click to expand...

This is not a trial. It is a discussion of a historical event.
I am not asking you to prove who did or did not commit the crime.
I am asking you for a narrative that best fits the evidence.
Even if I WAS arguing from a legal standpoint, you would STILL be wrong. Because a barrister for the defence would STILL offer a narrative that better fits the evidence, in which their client is innocent.


No Other said:
The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd. Example: I know my wife didn't kill JFK but it doesn't mean I have to find the real killer to make my declaration.
Click to expand...

Still not what I was asking for.


No Other said:
There is no moving of the goal post on my part but your insistence on me providing an alternative is just that... moving the goal post.
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If you don't want to be seen as moving the goalposts, simply make a coherent case for what you believed happened that day. If you think evidence was planted, altered, faked, or otherwise left to implicate Oswald, then give us your coherent narrative.

No Other said:
By the way, I am sure your mentioning of CT literature does not include the Warren Commission Report and all of the accompanying exhibits along with the HSCA, so your admonishment is not applicable.
Click to expand...

So by coincidence you have chosen the same cherry picked statements that have been the foundation of CT ,literature, and happen to be ignorant of the larger interviews that debunk or place them into context?

I will stop acting as though your misunderstanding is at least understandable then, if you claim you came to such flawed conclusions from primary sources. Or even worse, if you have come to this decision based on the full evidence and have chosen to pick at nits rather than offer a full narrative.

No Other said:
I have made comments and you and others have not been successful in rebutting them and talking in third person does not provide you or anyone else a free ticket to make incorrect assertions about me.
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Your claims have not required rebutting, because you are failing to substantiate them. And when I offer you advice on how to convince me, how to show me there is something to your claims, you argue against it with posts like this.

I am telling you how to convince me. You are telling me I am wrong about that, with a straw man attack, pretending I want something very different from what was asked for.

You have made a statement of fact, "the bag could not hold the rifle", based on the flawed memories of somebody who did not pay the bag much heed.

You have made statements about tests not finding this and that in the bag, then been unable to show why it would be assumed they would be. You then back pedalled.

You have made statements about fingerprints, then failed to display an understanding of how long fingerprints adhere to different surfaces, how they are collected, and the different methodologies available to different forces and labs.

Do not try to suggest it is my fault for not being convinced.

Can you at least supply a narrative that you think better fits the evidence?
 
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No Other said:
You are just plain wrong in your statement. To disprove something, you do not have to provide an alternative. Our jurisprudence system is not based on your approach, if it was, there would always be someone convicted in every trial instead of finding someone either guilty or not guilty of the charge. The requirement to offer an alternative to something that is patently false is absurd. Example: I know my wife didn't kill JFK but it doesn't mean I have to find the real killer to make my declaration.

There is no moving of the goal post on my part but your insistence on me providing an alternative is just that... moving the goal post.

By the way, I am sure your mentioning of CT literature does not include the Warren Commission Report and all of the accompanying exhibits along with the HSCA, so your admonishment is not applicable.

I have made comments and you and others have not been successful in rebutting them and talking in third person does not provide you or anyone else a free ticket to make incorrect assertions about me.
Click to expand...

And going by the CTist approach would mean that nobody would ever be found guilty. The whole point of the post you responded to is that a certain amount of noise is expected along with the signal; but, even in jurisprudence, consilience is a thing, which means that the signal has enough weight to reach a verdict. If you want to counter the verdict, the noise must have more weight than disconnected nitpicks about the evidence, it must, in effect, be a meaningful signal of its own- specious waffling about the bag, rifle terminology, etc., simply don't add up to any standard of reasonable doubt.

The problem is that you demand the "official story" shoulder a burden of absolute proof for LHO's guilt that wouldn't even be demanded by the "jurisprudence system" you use as an excuse to avoid any burden of your own.
 
HSienzant said:
TomTomKent was saying the WC and HSCA conclusions ("the official story") have been misrepresented by the conspiracy literature, as I understand his point. The Warren Commission Report and their 26 volumes of evidence, and the HSCA Report and their volumes of evidence are not now and never have been conspiracy theorist literature. Can you clarify the meaning of your response? It reads like a non sequitur to me.

Hank
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That was my point... But if he is claiming to be basing his accusations purely on the WC and HSCA, I find it odd that he would also be talking about the "proven" case against Oswald, as opposed to the conclusions that best fit the evidence. He is falling into a CT pattern:

The bag does not prove Oswald transported the rifle, because somebody said it was the wrong size, or it does not have the traces he expects. But no alternative explanation is given. Nothing that is more likely than Oswald using it to carry the rifle.

CTs keep thinking they can play the innuendo game. The prints are suspicious? But no alternative explanation of how they got there...

The rifle wasn't Oswalds? So explain how it got there.

Nobody has to identify another shooter. They just have to explain the evidence in a way that fits, and show it to be more likely an explanation. But... they never do.
 
JayUtah said:
Too many JFK conspiracy theorists posture the debate as if it were a court trial, and as if all they have to do is amass enough uncertainty to qualify under the law as reasonable doubt. They stand themselves up as Oswald's defense attorney, Warren et al. as would-be prosecutors, and try to poke holes in the "case," essentially holding a mock trial in their minds, playing both parts, and naturally exonerating Oswald at the end.

Of course criminal trials necessarily have a narrow scope. They are interested only in speedily disposing of the proffered defendant because that's what the constitutional constraints permit. Just because such narrow examinations of historical questions exist for such specific purposes doesn't mean this is the only, accepted, or even effective method of studying history. There is a larger historical (or at least, non-legal) context, and the general unwillingness of conspiracy theorists to go there is unsatisfying.

Books that, for example, explore allegations of FDR's foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor don't adopt a courtroom paradigm. Other books on Nixon's handling of Watergate don't investigate it only as a court would. You simply beg the notion that we must look at Oswald and the Kennedy assassination as if we were a court of law -- specifically that we must adopt the presumptions and constraints that fetter a court.

To the skeptic it is all too clear why this happens. It seems the concert of conspiracy theories cannot provide a single melody clearer than Oswald's. There is only a cacophony of speculation and weak allegations pointing every which way, and this is ultimately embarrassing. It is not at all unreasonable to ask those who say the conventional narrative is unacceptably murky to provide a clearer picture. But they insist on judging the conventional narrative by one standard -- and a dubiously applicable one at that -- and their own speculative narratives by a vastly more permissive standard.
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Didn't they do "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" on TV in the 70s? With F Lee Bailey serving as the defense attorney?

And in that trial, didn't the jury return a guilty verdict?

F Lee Bailey couldn't create unreasonable doubt, but some folks on the internet think they can?
 
pgwenthold said:
Didn't they do "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" on TV in the 70s? With F Lee Bailey serving as the defense attorney?
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I'm presuming you mean this.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Trial-Lee-Harvey-Oswald/dp/B00000F6QZ
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076841/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

That movie had the most disappointing ending. EVER.

If you mean the mock trial with Vincent Bugliosi as the prosecutor, that was in 1984, and Gerry Spence was the defense attorney.
http://www.amazon.com/On-Trial-Lee-Harvey-Oswald/dp/B001CDLASU
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983902/


pgwenthold said:
And in that trial, didn't the jury return a guilty verdict?
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Don't recall. I think it was a hung jury, from my own recollection.


pgwenthold said:
F Lee Bailey couldn't create unreasonable doubt, but some folks on the internet think they can?
Click to expand...

Everyone likes to play detective.

Hank
 
HSienzant said:
If you mean the mock trial with Vincent Bugliosi as the prosecutor, that was in 1984, and Gerry Spence was the defense attorney.
http://www.amazon.com/On-Trial-Lee-Harvey-Oswald/dp/B001CDLASU
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983902/




Don't recall. I think it was a hung jury, from my own recollection.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Spence#Mock_trial:_United_States_v._Oswald
« In 1986, Spence defended Lee Harvey Oswald, the deceased assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, against well-known prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in a 21-hour televised unscripted mock trial sponsored by London Weekend Television in the United Kingdom.[12] The mock trial involved an actual U.S. judge, a jury of U.S. citizens, the introduction of hundreds of evidence exhibits, and many actual witnesses to events surrounding and including the assassination. The jury returned a guilty verdict. »
 
No Other said:
Wesley Frazier testified under oath that LHO did not bring anything home with him on the 22nd of November.
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To the best of my knowledge Oswald did not return home with Frazier on the 11/22/1963.

There were no traces of oil on the paper bag as there were no traces of paper bag on the rifle.
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Where do you get the idea from, that oil traces should be present on the paper bag?

On page 97 of the Warren Commission Hearings Vol. IV a Mr. Cadigan of the FBI stated that he could not find any evidence that a rifle was ever housed in the bag.
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I think it would be a good idea if you'd actually quote his statement instead of paraphrasing it!
 
No Other said:
Even more puzzling is how did the bag that is claimed to have hidden the rifle get to the home of Ruth Paine? Wesley Frazier testified under oath that LHO did not bring anything home with him on the 22nd of November.
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Where do you get the idea from, that the paper bag got home to Ruth Paine? To the best of my knowlegde it was found in the TSDB.

There were no traces of oil on the paper bag as there were no traces of paper bag on the rifle.
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And where do you get this idea from?

On page 97 of the Warren Commission Hearings Vol. IV a Mr. Cadigan of the FBI stated that he could not find any evidence that a rifle was ever housed in the bag.
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And I'm sure you can quote the actual statement, can't you?
 
Tomtomkent said:
The bag does not prove Oswald transported the rifle, because somebody said it was the wrong size, or it does not have the traces he expects. But no alternative explanation is given. Nothing that is more likely than Oswald using it to carry the rifle.

CTs keep thinking they can play the innuendo game. The prints are suspicious? But no alternative explanation of how they got there...

The rifle wasn't Oswalds? So explain how it got there.

Nobody has to identify another shooter. They just have to explain the evidence in a way that fits, and show it to be more likely an explanation. But... they never do.
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This is all great stuff.

See, the rifle found on the 6th floor WAS the murder weapon. We know that none of the other Depository employees was the shooter as they have all been accounted for, and there were no strangers in the building that day. The only employee not accounted for was LHO, who fled the building, and happened to own the exact same rifle with the exact same serial number,.

Weird, I know.

Why does Oswald flee? To get a sandwich?

Here's an overlooked fact, at the moment Oswald flees the building he is the only person in Dealey Plaza who knows for certain the President is dead. This is why he runs. This is why he kills Officer Tippet, and almost kills a second Dallas policeman at the theater.

These are not the actions of an innocent man.

Of all the men detained by Dallas PD that day, Oswald is the only one to resist. Why?

Why does Oswald remove his wedding ring on the morning of the assassination?

Why was Oswald scouting locations around Dealey Plaza in the days leading to the President's visit?

Again, not the actions of an innocent man.
 
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