Using the slim evidence left over from the botched investigations in 1963 and experiments with a rifle identical to the one Lee Harvey Oswald bought mail order, ballistics experts Luke and Mike Haag and other forensics experts put together a pretty convincing case that Oswald fired all three shots: The first one missed. The second one hit Kennedy in the back, exited at the neck, passed through Governor John Connally, passed through his wrist and then lodged in his leg. The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the head, causing a small entry wound and a large explosion of brain and blood at the exit point in the forehead.
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| Carcano 6.5 mm cartridge |
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| 30.06 cartridge |
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| Rear View of Magic Bullet |
The cylindrical shape of the Carcano slug means that it has more contact with the riflings inside the rifle barrel than a 30.06 slug does, which gives it more spin and therefore makes it fly truer through the air.
However, once it passes through something -- say, a head or ballistics gel -- it begins to "yaw" or tumble. The bullet had started to tumble when it struck Connally, and hit him sideways instead of straight on.
The Haags' experiments in the NOVA program bear all this out.
The Carcano slug was also copper-jacketed, which means it would deform less than a naked lead slug. And the slug that was found on Connally's gurney was deformed -- the rear end was pinched in, just as you would expect if it hit Connally sideways, as shown in the third photo.
The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the head and caused a massive shockwave through the skull, causing the forehead to explode. The pattern of cracks in the skull is consistent with a rear entry wound, ruling out a shot from the Grassy Knoll. The backward jerking of Kennedy's body evident in the Zapruder film was due to a spasm that caused all Kennedy's muscles to contract, but since back muscles are stronger than abdominals, his head jerked back.
Other incidentals such as people hearing more than three shots are due to echoes and the supersonic speed of the Carcano slug.
From all this it seems that Oswald really was the lone gunman. Which means Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission actually got something right with the single-bullet theory.
Oswald, an avowed Marxist, apparently tried to assassinate Edwin Walker, a retired general who Oswald called a Fascist (Walker had tried to stop desegregation in Mississippi). So it's plausible that Oswald was a nut and was just moving on to higher things by assassinating Kennedy, with no orders from Cuba or Moscow or Vegas or the Teamsters. Oswald may also have had an accomplice in the Walker assassination attempt, which means... Well, you get the picture.
However, the fact that Oswald shot Kennedy single-handedly doesn't mean there was no conspiracy. Jack Ruby's shocking murder of Oswald on live TV is incomprehensible. Why would a strip club owner with mob connections sacrifice his own life to spare Jackie Kennedy the pain of testifying in the trial of the century?
Unfortunately, forensics and ballistics will never provide the answers for the machinations that led up to Ruby's silencing of Oswald.
4 comments:
The cylindrical shape of the Carcano slug means that it has more contact with the riflings inside the rifle barrel than a 30.06 slug does, which gives it more spin and therefore makes it fly truer through the air.
That's just nonsense on stilts. Who came up with that crap? This "fact" is unknown to firearms and ammunition manufacturers. It's unknown to the world's militaries, and it's certainly unknown to snipers today. It's just a jaw-droppingly stupid statement, and I would question most anything else such an "expert" said.
However, once it passes through something -- say, a head or ballistics gel -- it begins to "yaw" or tumble.
There is a tendency to yaw, but round-nosed bullets have less tendency to do so, often quite a lot less than spire-point (or spitzer) bullets because with a round-nose bullet of the type used by the Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm, the center of mass of the bullet is much farther forward than it would be with a pointed bullet, such as the .30-06. With a spitzer bullet, the center of mass is well behind the center of pressure, so when it encounters something significantly denser than air, the center of mass rotates rapidly around the center of pressure toward the front, i.e., the bullet tumbles. This is rather basic physics.
So what do you think happened in Dallas on that day, Larry? Was the head shot a shot from the front or the back?
I honestly don't know. At the least, you've got the DPD, the FBI, and CIA doing their best to cover up their fuckups and questionable actions (or inaction). Neither FBI nor CIA were above giving the Warren Commission false or misleading info, and withholding or destroying other evidence. It appears the Warren Commission had a pre-set conclusion from the beginning for which it then assembled evidence. A very Progressive-Liberal stance, if you will. Kennedy's autopsy was a botch, especially with all the original notes burned as per Navy orders. Much primary info was possibly lost there (burning original notes is highly non-standard).
I lean towards the simplest hypothesis, but where there's so much smoke, it's natural to wonder if there was a fire.
One addendum on ballistics: a long, round-nosed bullet that doesn't have sufficient spin to stabilize it will tumble on impact, and may even tumble in flight. That was a definite problem with some Mannlicher-Carcano carbines because the rifles were made with progressive gain-twist rifling, which means the bullet will gain most of its spin in the last inches of the barrel where the rifling rate is highest. Many carbines were made simply by cutting of the end of the barrel, thus eliminating the most important part of the barrel for imparting a high rate of spin. The particular model Oswald bought was only in production for one year, when Italy first entered the war. If surplus rifle barrels were used, and they did what they did in the past, it's understandable that they might cease production in the middle of war to gear up to make something better. It certainly says nothing good about that model.
Larry's right about the ballistics.
Magic bullet?
Nothing magic about it
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