Well, the British SA80 is 5.56 and is an amazingly accurate weapon, In standard issue it has a built in scope. It did have some initial problems with jamming in hot and dusty conditions but since they have been re-engineered (Like the M16 was re-engineered into the A1) they have been superb. In it's 'light Support Weapon' role with extended barrel and bipod it's even more amazing.

Also the P90 ammunition is designed to be armour piercing as well isn't it?

__________________
All Moderation in Purple
To report a post (even this one) to the moderation team, click the reporting icon in the upper-right corner of the post:
─────────────────────────────────────────────
◄Rules For Posting To This Board ► ◄Forum FAQs ► ◄ Conspiracy Theory Advice ► ◄ Alternate Theory Advice ►

Obviously you're not an American Civil War buff.

This Union Army marching song was the inspiration for Julia Ward Howe's stirring "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

As a side note, being an ACW buff myself, and the word being very uncommon, I never realized until your post that moldering is the preferred spelling today, and mouldering is considered archaic.

As for learning a new word, and then having it pop up again once or twice in the next few weeks, I've had that happen a few times myself.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

On the Desert Eagle in general, one thing to keeop in mind, and it's a big factor... the grip is huge. I can't reach all the way around with any finger and touch my thumb. The slide release needs two hands for most people to operate. I have to pull the slide back with one hand to get get the pressure of off the lever. For a combat handgun, it has a lot of flaws. For a hunting handgun there are probably no semi-autos I'd trust over it. The 50 AE and 44 compare about the same ballistcally, but on a boar hunt, my dad (44) dropped his with 2 shots. The other guy (50AE) had to reload the magazine while running from the pig after he had hit it 6 times. Three were solid hits they just didn't penetrate well enough to do what needed to be done. Part of it was bullet design, but part was the factory rounds were underloaded for what the round, and gun can handle. Big handguns scare shooters.

On the M-16. I agree they are trying to get back into the trend of aiming. In 1988, they only let us fire on fully auto in basic one time. But I was thinking about the philosophy that occured back in the 60's when the change was made. Also, I wasn't saying that the weapons that use the 5.56 round aren't accurate, just that the shooters aren't really encouraged to use the accuracy available.

The p-90 fires a tiny little bullet a little bigger around than a 5.56 and with a case about 1/2 as long. Velocity is about 3/4 that of the 5.56 as well. Every description I've ever seen of this gun included the line, " It was developed for that 2/3 of the military whose primary duty is something other than firing a weapon", or something to that effect. Basically, it's the weapon to be issued to the file clerks, the truck drivers, etc. It probably can penetrate very well, I just wonder how much damage it could really do given it's small size.

Getting back to where this tangent split off. It seems unlikely to me that they would plan on a low penetration bullet for an assassination. Even if it were one that could somehow break up and disolve in the body, there would seem to be too great a risk that it wouldn't get the job done.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Yes, the shell casing lip denting is caused by a hard ejection. There is a small protrusion at the front of the receiver (at the rear of the barrel) in a Carcano, and ejected shell casings hit it on the way out. If the ejection is hard, this protrusion will dent the front of the shell casing of a Carcano shell.

I remember reading an article about this when it was first in development--the original design used a 4.85 mm round that had superior ballistic and penetration capabilities compared with the 5.56 mm NATO round. The new round was scrapped, however, in favor of standardization with other NATO armies.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

So let's see if I've got this straight. The gun experts have no problem with the shot being fired from that location and that gun, right? The medical experts have no problem with the wound tracks, right? The sound experts . . . well, there's still debate there. Most of the proposed shooting sites are physically impossible (or, in one memorable case, didn't actually exist in 1963!). People with actual forensic training have no problem with Kennedy's movements in the Zapruder film, right?

So what's the problem? All the evidence is there. The US has a strong history of lone-nut assassinations. Oswald actually did have a pretty strong motive for killing Kennedy. Ruby actually did have a pretty strong motive for killing Oswald. (In both of these cases, remember that the strength of motive should be measured by how the person sees it, not by how outsiders see it. Mental illness, in both cases, might also have been a contributing factor.)

Oliver Stone didn't believe it, but the history in his movie was notoriously bad. Jim Garrison didn't believe it, but it only took a jury 45 minutes to acquit the one person he ever brought up on charges, and even most Kennedy conspiracists distance themselves from Garrison because his ideas are too crazy. (See, for example, the list of big-named CTs that didn't want their names on the Stone film once they found out he was going with the Garrison thing.) Basically, once people take a few hours to familiarize themselves with any and all pieces of the evidence they distrust, they stop distrusting it unless they want there to have been a conspiracy.

So why do they want there to have been a conspiracy? Because people have a hard time, despite the historical support to the idea, that a lone nut can kill a popular and beloved president. I don't remember Kennedy, gods know (I was -13 at the time), but my mother still has a pretty sizeable memorabilia collection from the assassination, and my mother's not big on saving things. Johnson used this to get some of Kennedy's legislation passed, but over the last 40-plus years, a lot of people have used their dissatisfaction (or lack of understanding) to sell a lot of books.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Regarding the “sound experts”...... the vast majority of “sound experts” say there are no gunshots on the police recording at all.

In the first place, when you play the recording you hear no gunshots, just some traffic noise. Then when you study the exact place on the tape where the House Committee sound lab said there are four gunshots, you can hear Sheriff Decker telling the dispatcher to get all of his men up into the railroad yard to find out what happened back there and “...hold everything secure...” until police investigators can get there.

This is known as “crosstalk.” The motorcycle with the stuck microphone on Channel 1 drove past another motorcycle that had its radio tuned to Channel 2, and just as the one motorcycle passed the other, the stuck microphone picked up Decker’s message of “...hold everything secure...”, which went out over Channel 2 and was picked up by the passing Channel 1 stuck microphone.

The original House Committee sound lab technicians just didn’t notice that faint crosstalk transmission on the Channel 1 recording. That transmission took place more than a minute after the assassination, so there can not be any gunshots on the Channel 1 recording at that place at all, because that place on the tape occurred more than a minute after the assassination.

What the House Committee sound technicians did was not say they could actually hear the gunshots, but they said some of the noise waveforms (a visual printout of the noise) resembled gunshot waveforms, and the majority of the House Committee members fell for that mistake. The National Academy of Sciences acoustics experts later issued a report pointing out the error.

About four years ago a bug doctor, an expert on bugs, issued his own “report” claiming that the NAS report was wrong, and that got some media attention. The old NAS guys went to work on a newer report and it said the bug doctor was wrong. I and other independent researchers agree with the NAS guys. There are no gunshots on the Dallas police recording, and, furthermore, the stuck microphone wasn’t even in Dealey Plaza. It was either at the Trade Mart or closer to Parkland Hospital, because about 3 minutes after the assassination we can hear the motorcade sirens of the speeding motorcade passing the stuck microphone on the way to Parkland Hospital, and that means the stuck microphone was somewhere between the Trade Mart and Parkland, and it was never in Dealey Plaza in the first place.

I had originally planned to address this in my reply to turbonium's answers, but as this discussion is ongoing, I'll go ahead and tackle it now.

First, the issue of whether the autopsy "was a complete farce."

As has been mentioned, clearly the autopsy should have been performed in Dallas, by experienced forensic pathologists. However, for perfectly understandable but misguided reasons of emotion, Kennedy's body was immediately flown back to Washington. The decision on where the autopsy should be performed was left to Mrs. Kennedy--she chose Bethesda Naval Hospital because "Jack was a Navy man."

The doctors selected had little practical experience in performing autopsies; additionally, they were requested to expedite the procedure.

For these reasons, the HSCA report identified the following ways in which the autopsy might have been better conducted.

Although some unfortunate but understandable mistakes were made, the autopsy was not, as you have characterized it, "a complete farce." (see also testimony following)

1. No, I do not dispute it--however, I dispute your premise, that the reason no exit wound was found is that there never was an exit wound to begin with.

2. See following.

First of all, you have used the following quotation from the autopsy report at least three times, by my count: "The missile path through the fascia and musculature cannot be easily proved." [emphasis added] The report actually reads "probed," rather than "proved." This is a typo that occurs on about half of all the web sites with text versions of the report (including McAdams' site--I've emailed him about it). That is the reason that the probes wouldn't go through--because the wound was not easily probed.

The following is from the HSCA's forensic panel's report:

Wow, turbonium, what can I say? You've got me dead to rights--they should have deferred to the Parkland doctors' opinions.

Now, turbonium, two specific questions.

1) You stated that the opinions of the Parkland doctors about whether or not the throat wound was an entry wound were the only ones that mattered. Are you still willing to accept that, as it clearly flies in the face of your assertions, or are you going to claim that Arlen Specter was pointing a sawed-off shotgun at them as they testified, or some other such handwaving?

2) In view of the foregoing, do you still consider the Single Bullet Theory "utterly ludicrous?"

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Also, the police officer whose Dictabelt is claimed to have recorded the whole thing states enequivocally that it was not, in fact, his, based on what it didn't record--the sirens as he accompanied the motorcade to the hospital.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Exactly.

If the stuck mic was on a motorcycle in Dealey Plaza during the assassination and if that motorcycle accompanied the limousine to the hospital, we would hear the siren sounds start right after the assassination and continue for 3 to 4 minutes, all the way to the hospital.

If the stick mic was on a motorcycle or 3-wheeler that was in the Plaza to help with traffic in the Plaza, and did not accompany the limousine or motorcade to the hospital, we would hear no siren sounds, expect maybe faint ones fading away as the limousine left Dealey Plaza right after the assassination.

But for us to hear NO siren sounds during the stuck mic sequence, for about 3 minutes after the start of the drive to the hospital, after Chief Curry said, “Go to the hospital officers!”, then we hear several sirens passing the stuck microphone, that places the stuck microphone somewhere between the Trade Mart and the hospital.

Many people have driven the route to check the timing of the drive from first tunnel of the triple overpass to the hospital. A fast drive can take as little as about 3 minutes, if there is not much traffic, and a fast drive that gets caught in a little traffic can take as long as 4 minutes.

The siren sounds come up on Channel 1 about 3 minutes after the start of the drive to the hospital from the area of the first tunnel of the triple overpass at the end of the Plaza. That would place the stuck microphone somewhere between the Trade Mart and the hospital.

1) You stated that the opinions of the Parkland doctors about whether or not the throat wound was an entry wound were the only ones that mattered. Are you still willing to accept that, as it clearly flies in the face of your assertions, or are you going to claim that Arlen Specter was pointing a sawed-off shotgun at them as they testified, or some other such handwaving?

2) In view of the foregoing, do you still consider the Single Bullet Theory "utterly ludicrous?"

The statements from Carrico and Perry do not refute my assertions - they both claimed later during WC testimony, as you emphasized, that they did not know if it was an entry or exit wound. And Dr. Perry even said In the press conference I indicated that the neck wound appeared like an entrance wound, and I based this mainly on its size and the fact that exit wounds in general tend to be somewhat ragged and somewhat different from entrance wounds.

And Specter didn't need to point a gun at the doctors, with the absolutely ridiculous lengths that he took in a blatant attempt to mislead and stray from the actual known facts of the case....

Permit me to supply some additional facts, Dr. Perry, which I shall ask you to assume as being true for purposes of having you express an opinion.

What a joke! Since when do "facts" become things one has "to assume as being true"?!? The entire line of questioning based on unfounded assumptions is completely worthless. What's the point in asking for opinions based on whatever "facts" the questioner simply makes up? How about.....

Mr. Specter: "Dr. Perry, let's assume there was a 3000 lb. pink elephant named "Lulu" sitting beside the President. Assume as well, that "Lulu" was carrying a Makita 18v portable drill with variable speed. Let's further assume that "Lulu" bored a 6.5 mm hole into the President's back at a 45 degree downward angle, hitting no bone as it went through muscle tissue and the right lung, until it exited the hole you said was at the midline of the neck. Now, assuming those "facts" to be true, would the hole which you observed in the neck of the President be consistent with an exit wound under those circumstances?"

Dr. Perry: "Certainly would be consistent with an exit wound."

Mr. Spector: "Would you agree, Dr. Carrico?"

Dr. Carrico: "Yup."

Wow! That sure would convince me that the throat wound was an exit wound!

Both doctors you cite did in fact describe the throat wound as an entry wound. Dr. Perry has already been mentioned, and Dr. Charles Carrico, who saw the throat wound even before Kennedy's shirt was removed, described the wound as a "small penetrating wound" in his 11/22/63 report (WCR 519; CE 392).

And you failed to mention any other witnesses (just an oversight, I'm sure).

In a taped 1979 interview, Dr. Charles Baxter, who was one of the Parkland doctors who saw the wound, said the wound "was no more than a pinpoint." He added that it was "made by a small caliber weapon. And it was an entry wound"

http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id65.htm

Dr. Ronald Jones described the President’s throat wound as being “compatible with an entrance wound.” In his handwritten report of November 22, 1963, the injury was noted as “a small hole in [the] anterior midline of [the] neck thought to be a bullet entrance wound” (WCH 20, page 333). Twenty-nine years later, he stated that “I would stand by my original impression.”

http://www.jfklancer.com/parkland_drs.html

Dr.Charles Crenshaw said...

"I considered the throat wound to be an entrance wound and the large head wound to be an exit wound. Along with many of my Parkland colleagues, I believed at the time that President Kennedy had been hit twice from the front."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcrenshawC.htm

The Parkland doctors, as I said, all agreed that the throat wound was an entry wound. And the doctors and all others present at the autopsy were unanimous (despite Dr. Humes only willing to state that probing was "difficult") that the back wound was a shallow entry wound, only a few inches deep when probed, and had no exit point. James Jenkins has consistently maintained this to be absolutely factual.

So to answer your second question: In view of the overwhelming evidence, the SBT is indeed utterly ludicrous.

Mr. Turbonium,

Since the trajectory of the bullet through Kennedy’s back and neck was slightly downward, for that trajectory to have come from the front, that would have required a gun firing from inside the limousine from the level of Governor Connally’s back, and the Zapruder film shows no gun inside the limousine.

For one shot to go into Kennedy’s back at the same time another separate bullet went into Connally’s back, would have required two shooters from the same window of the TSBD.

For the shot into Connally’s back to not go through Kennedy and to produce an oblong wound in Connally’s back would have required a bullet to be fired from the book depository and travel sideways all the way to Connally’s back.

Didn’t you state earlier that some doctor claimed the bullet that hit Kennedy in the back didn’t go all the way through? And now you say that the neck wound was a front entrance wound? So he was hit by two bullets going in exactly the opposite directions at the same time, one hitting from the front and another hitting from the back?

You can’t take brief initial observations and opinions from several different witnesses and try to solve a case with that information while assuming it is all correct. Garrison did that and that’s how he wound up with 3 foreign guns coming out of the Book Depository (two were actually initial misidentifications by eyewitnesses) and 7 shooters in Dealey Plaza (taken from various witnesses who heard echoes of the shots coming from different directions).

While you are quoting only some of the initial testimony that you want to quote, professional researchers and investigators have studied the whole case and have worked out what actually happened and the reason why some of the initial eyewitness testimony was not correct.

After drilling its way through Kennedy’s back and out his neck, the Carcano bullet left a small exit wound that could have easily been mistaken for an entrance wound during the quick observations before the tracheotomy, since the Parkland doctors were not familiar with Carcano wounds. It would have been quite different had a group of WW II American doctors, who were familiar with Carcano wounds, been working in Parkland that day.

Whoa. You are making some unfounded claims here -

1.That one bullet entered the back and exited at the throat. As mentioned earlier, all the Parkland doctors stated that the throat wound was a very small entry wound, and the autopsy clearly established that the back wound was a shallow entry wound with no exit point.

2.A downward trajectory for the neck wound is also an unfounded claim. The actual trajectory of the throat wound was not established, and was described by all the doctors at Parkland as a small entrance wound.

Where has it been established that two separate bullets would need to hit both JFK and Connally at precisely the same time? And why would the shots both have to originate from the same TSBD window?

Why do you assume any and every bullet hitting Connally (and JFK) must originate from the TSBD? And why would the bullet have to travel "sideways", when the back wound in Connally was stated by Dr. Shaw to be 1.5 cm "in its greatest diameter" and that it created "..a smaller tunneling wound..."?

I said that all those present at the autopsy, including the doctors, had established beyond any doubt that JFK's back wound was shallow and had no exit point. And yes, the throat wound was also solidly established at Parkland as an entry wound. Why do you claim that both wounds had to be from two bullets hitting JFK "in exactly the opposite directions at the same time"?

No - all the observations, whether brief or not, corroborate the fact that JFK's back wound was a shallow wound with no exit point, and his throat wound was a very small entry wound. Furthermore, the throat wound was at most only 5 mm in diameter, likely only 3 mm dia. - too small to have been made by the alleged 6.5 mm bullets fired from the Carcano rifle allegedly used by Oswald.

If you want to make this claim, then please provide specific examples that you are disputing.

Unfounded SBT claim once again - why insist a single bullet entered the back and exited the throat when it's well established that it didn't?

As for experience - Dr. Humes, who conducted the autopsy was not only unfamiliar with "Carcano wounds", he was unfamiliar with any bullet wounds. He was conducting his first ever autopsy involving bullet wounds - starting with the President no less! (Only the best for our dearly departed Jack).

Has anyone mentioned Oswald's demeanour immediately after the assassination? I seem to recall that a cop ran into the book depository and was accompanied up the stairs by a fellow employee. When they came to the floor beneath the one from which the shots had been fired they met Oswald.

He may have been a very good actor, and very cool under pressure. I don't know. But it would take some brass neck to blow your president's head off and then calmly go downstairs, and remain completely calm when a cop runs in with his gun drawn! Oswald was allowed to pass when he was identified as an employee. He just calmly went to a vending machine and bought a bottle of Coke, and then walked calmly out of the building.

His calmness in these moments seems at odds with his "hunted rabbit" demeanour later that day. Admittedly, though, there may be nothing to this. Perhaps he was just mad.

__________________
- Learn a lot teaching others.

All you are doing is taking a typical defense attorney’s position and you’re trying to cause “reasonable doubt” in the minds of the jury so you can save your murderous client, Mr. Oswald, from the gas chamber, and you are also hoping that the jury is so dumb it will fall for your tactics. You keep saying there was an entrance wound to the back and an entrance wound to the front, and both bullets disappeared.

Well, Mr. turbonium, the jury is not that stupid.

Well, since the Zapruder film clearly establishes that Kennedy reacts once (and then is shot in the head, producing a different reaction), and that Connally reacts so quickly that it supports the SBT (despite what Garrison, ye gods, wants you to think), yes, in fact, the bullets would have to be fired simultaneously.

A combination of the reactions seen on the Zapruder film and . . . er . . . what, exactly, do you think happened? In short, we're applying basic physics and ballistics. What are you doing?

Well-established by whom? By the people you keep insisting didn't know what they were doing? By Garrison, ye gods? And are you yet willing to concede the whole "Connally was in a jump seat and they weren't sitting still and facing forward" thing, or are you going with a bullet jumping around despite all the physical evidence to the contrary?

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It seems to me that to accept that Kennedy's two wounds (other than the head wound) were made by the same shot, all one has to accept is that the doctors at Bethesda were inexperienced in doing post mortems on gunshot victims, which they admit they were. Thus the failure to dissect the bullet track or get a probe through the track, as well as the confusion about entry vs. exit wounds.

To accept that they were made by two different shots, you have to accept one of the following things:

1) The two bullets remained in Kennedy's body, but went completely undetected.

2) There were two other wounds (both exit wounds) that none of the examining physicians noticed.

3) The two bullets were removed by some person or persons unknown, without anyone noticing that it happened. How it was accomplished, and why the conspirators would take such a risk, are exercises left to the reader.

4) Both wounds were made by non-penetrating, evaporating bullets that were chosen by the assassins over other types of ammunition that could actually cause fatal damage.

Personally, I can't place very high credibility on any of those possibilities. I'd like to know which of them turbonium accepts (and why), or if he has another hypothesis I haven't considered.

__________________
Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

The statements from Carrico and Perry do not refute my assertions

Sigh--I can see we're going to have to do this the hard way...

they both claimed later during WC testimony, as you emphasized, that they did not know if it was an entry or exit wound

But you said the autopsy doctors should have deferred to the Parkland doctors' opinions about whether it was an entry or an exit wound, and that that was an "inexcusable mistake." Now it develops that in fact they didn't know whether it was or not. Further, Dr. Perry and Dr. Carrico both stated that the autopsy report was completely consistent with their observations at the time.

[edit: how does their stating that they didn't know if it was an entry or exit wound support your claim? It undermines it, because you assert that the throat wound couldn't possibly have been an exit wound, yet they both state that it could have been.]

And Dr. Perry even said In the press conference I indicated that the neck wound appeared like an entrance wound, and I based this mainly on its size and the fact that exit wounds in general tend to be somewhat ragged and somewhat different from entrance wounds.

Of course, you had to omit the rest of the quotation, where he states that "that was just a guess," because it completely destroys this part of your case. Also, at that time, Dr. Perry didn't know what type of weapon had been used, or where the shots had come from (see also Dr. McClelland's testimony following).

And Specter didn't need to point a gun at the doctors, with the absolutely ridiculous lengths that he took in a blatant attempt to mislead and stray from the actual known facts of the case....

It's only ridiculous to you because you postulate a conspiracy--anyone else who thinks it's ridiculous, please speak up.

The entire line of questioning based on unfounded assumptions is completely worthless. What's the point in asking for opinions based on whatever "facts" the questioner simply makes up?

All right, turbonium I specifically request that you list every "unfounded assumption" and "made-up fact" from Specter's question to Dr. Perry, and explain why each is so.

<snip of lame attempt to ridicule Specter's line of questioning>

Both doctors you cite did in fact describe the throat wound as an entry wound. Dr. Perry has already been mentioned, and Dr. Charles Carrico, who saw the throat wound even before Kennedy's shirt was removed, described the wound as a "small penetrating wound" in his 11/22/63 report (WCR 519; CE 392).

And, as you continue to ignore, again because it destroys this part of your argument, "that was just a guess."

And you failed to mention any other witnesses (just an oversight, I'm sure).

Your sarcastic insult is unwarranted. I failed to mention any other witnesses because of Dr. Perry's testimony that he and Dr. Carrico were the only ones to see the wound up close, which I highlighted, and you ignored. Further, going back and selecting relevant passages from the original sources is much more time-consuming than simply parroting factoids from conspiracist web sites. I gave these two as examples because I consider their testimony most relevant, particularly as Dr. Perry was the one who made the tracheostomy incision and who was consulted during the preparation of the autopsy report. Both men stated that the wound could have been an exit wound.

This also goes to an issue that you frankly appear to have trouble grasping--the burden of proof. You claim that the Single Bullet Theory is "utterly ludicrous," which I take to imply that you believe it is either "impossible," or "virtually impossible." It is not enough for you to show that it is merely improbable; you must demonstrate that it is at least "virtually impossible." Conversely, any unrefuted demonstration that the SBT is possible, even if unlikely, destroys your claim.


burbonium, please comment on your understanding of this concept.

In a taped 1979 interview, Dr. Charles Baxter, who was one of the Parkland doctors who saw the wound, said the wound "was no more than a pinpoint." He added that it was "made by a small caliber weapon. And it was an entry wound"

Dr. Ronald Jones described the President’s throat wound as being “compatible with an entrance wound.” In his handwritten report of November 22, 1963, the injury was noted as “a small hole in [the] anterior midline of [the] neck thought to be a bullet entrance wound” (WCH 20, page 333). Twenty-nine years later, he stated that “I would stand by my original impression.”

Dr.Charles Crenshaw said...

"I considered the throat wound to be an entrance wound and the large head wound to be an exit wound. Along with many of my Parkland colleagues, I believed at the time that President Kennedy had been hit twice from the front."

Here is an item from McAdams' web site concerning a NY Times article about Crenshaw.

Additionally,

Dr. McClelland also had some interesting comments concerning speculation about the throat wound:

[continued next post...]
[edit: typo]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

[...continued]

The Parkland doctors, as I said, all agreed that the throat wound was an entry wound

Oh, they did, did they?

Also, the following is from the article "Clinicians' Interpretations of Fatal Gunshot Wounds Often Miss the Mark," which appeared in the April 1993 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Note: these quotations (and the one following) are from an article copyrighted 1993 by the AMA, and are reproduced here pursuant to the fair use exemption to US copyright law, for research purposes.)


I want to head off a potential objection to the preceding--possibly you will attempt to claim that so many doctors couldn't all be wrong. Well, yes they could, because their observations are correlated, due to the fact that they were all observing the same set of wounds. As discussed in the doctors' Warren Commission testimony, a jacketed, high-velocity bullet can cause an exit wound that looks similar to an entrance wound, and would be quite likely to be mistaken for one.

And the doctors and all others present at the autopsy were unanimous (despite Dr. Humes only willing to state that probing was "difficult") that the back wound was a shallow entry wound, only a few inches deep when probed, and had no exit point. James Jenkins has consistently maintained this to be absolutely factual.

All right, turbonium, I'm calling you out on this one. You deliberately ignored my quotation from the HSCA that totally destroys the other part of your claim that the Single Bullet Theory is "utterly ludicrous." That's failure to debate, pure and simple. You keep mindlessly repeating your "shallow entry wound" mantra as if your doing so somehow makes it the truth, but the evidence that the autopsy doctors were very likely mistaken about this is incontrovertible. As has been pointed out numerous times, the fact that you uncritically accept this one autopsy "finding" (which was subsequently corrected in the report) while at the same time characterizing the entire autopsy as "a complete farce" demonstrates the lengths to which you will go to cherry-pick data that you believe points to a conspiracy.

Here's the quote again:

No one disputes that, before learning of the throat wound from Dr. Perry, everyone involved in the autopsy believed that the back wound was a shallow entrance wound. The problem is, this belief was a mistake, caused by the pathologists' inexperience and their haste to complete the autopsy so that the President's body could be moved. After speaking with Dr. Perry the next day, Dr. Humes learned of the throat wound, realized his mistake, and corrected the report accordingly. Do you dispute this version of events?

Also, from the JAMA article quoted above:

I'll have a detailed question for you on this in a bit.

So to answer your second question: In view of the overwhelming evidence, the SBT is indeed utterly ludicrous.

turbonium, again, it seems that you are being deliberately obtuse, and I suspect the moderators agree with me on that. It is obvious that for some reason, you are simply ignoring large amounts of evidence that have been presented that discredit your theory.

Now, turbonium, I pose the following specific questions, which I request that you answer, or affirmatively admit that you cannot answer. For your convenience, I'll restate my questions from earlier in this post.

1) You have maintained that the Single Bullet Theory is "utterly ludicrous." Your primary support for this assertion has consisted of the claims that a) The autopsy showed that the wound in Kennedy's back was only a shallow entrance wound, and b) the doctors at Parkland hospital all stated that the throat wound was an entrance wound.

With respect to a): Given the autopsy doctors' lack of practical experience, their lack of knowledge of the throat wound, the known pressure to finish the autopsy quickly, and the fact that "[p]robing a track blindly [i.e., without dissecting it] may produce false tracks and misinformation," how can you continue to claim that there is little or no chance that the "shallow entrance wound" appraisal was incorrect? Please address all four of these points in your response.

With respect to b): Given statements by the Parkland doctors that their judgments of whether gunshot wounds are of entry or of exit were only "educated guesses" and "speculation," their statements that jacketed, high-velocity rifle rounds can produce exit wounds that look similar to entrance wounds, their testimony that they agreed with the final autopsy report, and the JAMA article showing that emergency room physicians frequently misidentify entry and exit wounds, how can you continue to claim that that there is little or no chance that the "entry wound" identification was incorrect? Again, please address all four of these points in your response.

2) You state that Arlen Specter's question to some of the doctors in which he asks them whether, in the case of a Mannlicher-Carcano shot from above and behind, the wound would represent an exit wound, is completely based on "unfounded assumptions" and "made-up facts." Please list every unfounded assumption and made-up fact in Specter's question to Dr. Perry, and give at least one reason why each is unfounded or has been made up. As a follow-up, please explain how any of the supplied assumptions or facts do not fit the theory that a Mannlicher-Carcano shot fired from the 6th floor of the Depository building struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat.

3) Please comment, as specifically as you can, on your understanding of the concept of proving that a theory is possible, or that a theory is impossible.

4) Finally, if you could, and taking into account your answers to the foregoing, please summarize your "overwhelming evidence" that the SBT is "utterly ludicrous."

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Wait, I missed that. The suppostition here is that the wound in front was an entrance wound, with the exit being Kennedy's head?

Correct me if I'm wrong, here--I'm an expert on neither angles nor ballistics--but wouldn't that essentially mean the shooter had to be pretty much crouched between Kennedy's knees? Surely--surely someone would've noticed . . . .

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Actually, I believe the supposition is that the throat wound is an entrance wound with no exit. In other words, the bullet is still in the body. Another claim for which there is no evidence.

Whoa. You are making some unfounded claims here

Hmmm--turbonium is accusing someone of making unfounded claims...

That one bullet entered the back and exited at the throat. As mentioned earlier, all the Parkland doctors stated that the throat wound was a very small entry wound, and the autopsy clearly established that the back wound was a shallow entry wound with no exit point

See my two-part post above

A downward trajectory for the neck wound is also an unfounded claim. The actual trajectory of the throat wound was not established, and was described by all the doctors at Parkland as a small entrance wound

Ditto.

I said that all those present at the autopsy, including the doctors, had established beyond any doubt that JFK's back wound was shallow and had no exit point. And yes, the throat wound was also solidly established at Parkland as an entry wound. Why do you claim that both wounds had to be from two bullets hitting JFK "in exactly the opposite directions at the same time"?

turbonium, your use of the terms "beyond any doubt" and "solidly established" qualifies as troll-like behavior. You can obviously read and write English at a reasonably educated level, so it's clear that you're being deliberately obtuse by ignoring the very strong evidence presented that there is at least some doubt about both of these "facts."

No - all the observations, whether brief or not, corroborate the fact that JFK's back wound was a shallow wound with no exit point, and his throat wound was a very small entry wound. Furthermore, the throat wound was at most only 5 mm in diameter, likely only 3 mm dia. - too small to have been made by the alleged 6.5 mm bullets fired from the Carcano rifle allegedly used by Oswald.

Is this another "factoid," turbonium, or did you just make this up yourself?

The estimates of the wound diameter are as follows:

Perry: 5 mm (WC)
Carrico: 5-8 mm (WC)
Baxter: 4-5 mm (WC)
Jones: <= 6mm (WC)

Also, from forensicmed.co.uk:
In light of the above, turbonium, I specifically request that you retract the above claim, or else provide some real evidence for it.

Unfounded SBT claim once again - why insist a single bullet entered the back and exited the throat when it's well established that it didn't?

Well established in your and other conspiracists' minds.

As for experience - Dr. Humes, who conducted the autopsy was not only unfamiliar with "Carcano wounds", he was unfamiliar with any bullet wounds. He was conducting his first ever autopsy involving bullet wounds - starting with the President no less!

And yet, you contend that his initial impression that the back wound was a "shallow entry wound" was infallably accurate. I'd have to characterize that as "utterly ludicrous."

(Only the best for our dearly departed Jack).

As usual, you're out of line, turbonium. I explained that Bethesda was chosen by Jackie Kennedy because of JFK's Navy service. Undoubtedly for reasons of pride, the Navy chose not to engage a qualified forensic pathologist to assist with the autopsy. The fact that Kennedy was a public figure does not entitle you to make comments like this--how do you suppose Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg or Senator Ted Kennedy would feel about your statement if they were to read this page (which they conceivably might)?

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

No, the speculation was that the bullet had been deflected into Kennedy's skull and out the back of his head by striking the front (anterior) of the central part (the body) of one of Kennedy's cervical vertebrae. Here is an illustration of the upper spine and a cervical vertebra.

Here is that portion of Dr. McClelland's testimony again, with the relevant passage highlighted. As he mentions, the hypothesis "required some straining of the imagination." That should make it popular with conspiracists.

[edit: one other thing I should have pointed out--at the time they were speculating, the doctors didn't know any of the details of how Kennedy had been shot. They didn't know what type of gun, what range, or even the number of times he'd been hit (which, as I've shown several times, is why most of them initially assumed that the throat wound was an entry wound). For all they knew, he could have been shot at close range with a .32 automatic held about chest-high and fired up into his throat. They also didn't find either of the actual entry wounds, because they never turned him over, so they were speculating about how only one shot from the front could have caused both the head wound and the throat wound.]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

These last few pages have been quite interesting.

Turbonium, I understand where you are coming from. I read Best Evidence by James Lifton, and he had me quite convinced - for a while. Eventually the necessary conspiracy had become so large as to break my limits of suspended disbelief.

You (Turbonium) have an advantage in these arguments: the official theory is out there, clearly delineated, warts and all. Very easy to pick and choose little factoids such as a description "presumably of entrance" and say "Aha! the whole dang theory falls apart!"

Not so fast bucko. I want to hear your theory. All of it. How many shooters, where were they, how many plotters on the Secret Service (I'll accept a rough estimate), how many stationed at the hospital for contingencies such as planting bullets, etc. etc. etc.

So let's hear it. Then we'll talk.

See turbonium's post#178 for his list of excuses for not articulating a theory.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

It all starts to remind me of the famous headline from The Onion: "KENNEDY SLAIN BY CIA, MAFIA, CASTRO,LBJ, TEAMSTERS, FREEMASONS
President Shot 129 Times from 43 Different Angles"

Priceless.

i love the onion, one of the few good things to come out of boulder.

__________________
There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.

"I reject your reality and subsitude in my own" Adam Savage - Mythbusters

Free Tibet?....STEAL MONGOLIA!

Hahahahaha--I wish I had that one. I first encountered The Onion in 1994, when I went to visit a friend of mine when she was in grad school at Illinois. They hadn't had it where we were undergrads (Purdue). The article that really got me was "Scientists Reach a Conclusion," which is basically a parody of the Scientific Method. Unfortunately, they don't have the pre-web-site editions archived, but it went something like "American scientists today succeeded in reaching a conclusion. This was accomplished by forming a hypothesis..." The last line was, "Well, that ought to show those French [expletive deleted]."

As to the "Shot 129 Times..." story, the last count of conspiracy theories I saw was 30 different shooters from 10 different locations. Someone earlier posted, "They can't all be right, can they?" I responded, "If they were all true, the limo would have been riddled with bullets, and all six occupants would have been killed."

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

LOL, very good perfessor!

I’ve noticed over the years that all these critics can do is criticize the true facts of the case and the various non-conspiracy books, etc., but they can NEVER tell us who they think did it. They can never tell us who carried it out, who the conspirators were, how the grassy knoll gunmen escaped, how they got out of the Plaza, why they don’t show up in all the Plaza photos, or what happened to the bullet that was supposed to have been fired from the grassy knoll.

All they have been doing for the past 42-1/2 years is criticize the true facts of the case and the books that present the true facts. All they can do is try to exonerate Oswald, but they can never actually solve the case, because there is no other solution other than Oswald did it alone.

Indeed.