Moderated JFK conspiracy theories: it never ends III

[mikegriffith1]

Yes, odd how the gun he was holding in his hands was easier to try and hide than the shell casings which were scattered around on the ground... Dear oh dear.

"Scattered around"? They were "scattered" in a small area close to the window, were in plain view, and could have been easily picked up. Why oh why would he hide the rifle but leave his shells in plain view to be found by police?

Indeed, it would have been much, much easier to have hidden the shells than to hide the rifle. He could have stuck the shells in his pocket and thrown them away at any point between the TSBD and his house. Or, he could have dropped the shells into one of the hundreds of boxes on the sixth floor, where they most likely never would have been found.

And, to get back to the main point, the dented shell could not have fired a bullet that day. Go read ballistics expert Howard Donahue's discussion on this. There is simply no way on this earth that that shell could have been used by the sixth-floor gunman to fire a bullet. Among other things, experts have noted that not one--not a single one--of the shells fired from Carcano rifles in the various reenactments, including the HSCA's, emerged with anything close to the kind of dent--and marks--seen on CE 543.

 

[BazBear]

I'll agree that that shell couldn't be fired with that dent. But it's also obvious that shell had been fired. The primer was spent, and the inside of the casing was blackened with the residue from burning gun powder. So it was obviously dented after being fired. Your or others inability to recreate such a dent only proves that you couldn't figure out how it was dented. It's certainly not proof of a conspiracy.

 

[Border Reiver]

Here's a link to the photos of the casing in question. The dent is clearly shown on the next page.

Looking at the photos it would appear to me that this casing was dented after being fired and ejected from the weapon. If I had to guess, I would say that it struck a hard corner of something, say a crate.

 

[Hellbound]

Or more likely it was stepped on, leaned on, or banged with the rifle butt while it lay on the window sill.

Having been military for 17 years, and been on rifle ranges where, afterwards, I've picked up literally thousands of empty shell casings, a dent like that is far from unusual.

 

[RoboTimbo]

I'll agree that that shell couldn't be fired with that dent. But it's also obvious that shell had been fired. The primer was spent, and the inside of the casing was blackened with the residue from burning gun powder. So it was obviously dented after being fired. Your or others inability to recreate such a dent only proves that you couldn't figure out how it was dented. It's certainly not proof of a conspiracy.

I've seen a lot of spent shell casings with dents. They aren't that robust. It's difficult to believe that any CTist would hang their hat on something so inane.

 

[BazBear]

I'll also add this: If Bob's contention is that the rifle and spent shells were planted on the sixth floor, wouldn't the conspirators use spent cartridges fired from the rifle they were planting? After all the trouble they went to to assassinate JFK, and set up Oswald as a patsy, we are to believe that they would make the amateur and stupid mistake of leaving mismatched evidence? I'm not buying it.

 

[BStrong]

"Scattered around"? They were "scattered" in a small area close to the window, were in plain view, and could have been easily picked up. Why oh why would he hide the rifle but leave his shells in plain view to be found by police?

Indeed, it would have been much, much easier to have hidden the shells than to hide the rifle. He could have stuck the shells in his pocket and thrown them away at any point between the TSBD and his house. Or, he could have dropped the shells into one of the hundreds of boxes on the sixth floor, where they most likely never would have been found.

And, to get back to the main point, the dented shell could not have fired a bullet that day. Go read ballistics expert Howard Donahue's discussion on this. There is simply no way on this earth that that shell could have been used by the sixth-floor gunman to fire a bullet. Among other things, experts have noted that not one--not a single one--of the shells fired from Carcano rifles in the various reenactments, including the HSCA's, emerged with anything close to the kind of dent--and marks--seen on CE 543.

Or as an alternative to grand conspiracy, the case was dented by a ham-fisted LEO after the initial discovery, which happens even today.

And I'm not inclined to believe anyone who starts with the premise that since "they" did something, someone else unknown to them (LHO) couldn't have done the same thing. That's Donahue's bedrock principle driving his theory. He made the shots in testing, therefor LHO couldn't have.

It's not even bad science, it's ego.

 

[JayUtah]

Indeed, it would have been much, much easier...

According to whom? Since when has the standard of evidence for authenticity been what you think you would have done in the same situation?

Among other things, experts have noted that not one--not a single one--of the shells fired from Carcano rifles in the various reenactments, including the HSCA's, emerged with anything close to the kind of dent--and marks--seen on CE 543.

Exactly the opposite is true -- HSCA Hearings, vol. 1, p. 454.
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/html/HSCA_Vol1_0229b.htm

 

[BStrong]

Or more likely it was stepped on, leaned on, or banged with the rifle butt while it lay on the window sill.

Having been military for 17 years, and been on rifle ranges where, afterwards, I've picked up literally thousands of empty shell casings, a dent like that is far from unusual.

It wasn't a Carcano, but I've examined an AK 74 rifle that came through with an out of spec chamber that produced casings split from extractor groove to the neck, any ammo type.

All of the various recoil operated HK rifles and the CETME series are famous for tearing up brass, and throwing it into the next county as well. The problem is so pronounced that HK developed a rubber shell deflector for the rear of the ejection port so the fired brass could be reloaded by civilian users - military G3's and 33's get no such consideration.

 

[JayUtah]

I've seen a lot of spent shell casings with dents. They aren't that robust. It's difficult to believe that any CTist would hang their hat on something so inane.

In Conspiracy Land, occurrences alleged by the conventional narrative must pass through arbitrary and constrictive goalposts set up by the conspiracy author in order to be considered authentic. Anything that doesn't pass through it is automatically, and only for that reason, suspicious and therefore subject to summary denial as "impossible." And yes, it's an obvious straw-man approach.

For some reason, on this point conspiracy authors get it in their heads that the dent could only have occurred prior to firing, such as in a manufacturing mishap. On that basis alone they assert it cannot possibly have held a bullet and charge and been fired out of a rifle. When forced to consider the post-firing scenario, they just lie.

But indeed, the downfall of most conspiracy theorists who focus only on vigorously contesting the conventional narrative is that the world ends up being a whole lot more complicated and diverse than their narrow dismissals allow for.

 

[JayUtah]

It wasn't a Carcano..

I had a .30-30 Winchester lever-action that would sometimes crease the brass on the way out. I never figured out exactly why.

But not only has testing shown that a Carcano will dent the neck of the casing if you jerk back hard on the bolt, it was shown specifically that Oswald's Carcano sometimes dented its casings upon ejection. The notion that the HSCA was unable to reproduce the dent on the casing using Oswald's rifle is a bald-faced lie.

 

[turingtest]

According to whom? Since when has the standard of evidence for authenticity been what you think you would have done in the same situation?

Among other things, experts have noted that not one--not a single one--of the shells fired from Carcano rifles in the various reenactments, including the HSCA's, emerged with anything close to the kind of dent--and marks--seen on CE 543.

Exactly the opposite is true -- HSCA Hearings, vol. 1, p. 454.
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/html/HSCA_Vol1_0229b.htm

I'm guessing you'll get a goal-post shift here from taftfan, based on his wording of "anything close to the kind of dent," and his desire to substitute his standard of "anything close" for the HSCA's expert witness's "similar." Since the expert in question actually examined the evidence and taftfan hasn't (or at least hasn't said he has), I think I'll go with the expert's standard, which led him (along with comparisons of firing-pin impressions and extractor marks) to conclude that "CE543 was fired from that rifle [CE 139- Oswald's MC]."

Taftfan is using "anything close" as a baseline to claim that the HSCA didn't reproduce the dent exactly- the same tactic CTists use when they unrealistically expect recreations of the shooting to mimic the precise flight path of the bullets, down to hitting Tague, or it didn't happen.

 

[JayUtah]

I'm guessing you'll get a goal-post shift here from taftfan, based on his wording of "anything close to the kind of dent," and his desire to substitute his standard of "anything close" for the HSCA's expert witness's "similar."

Yep, that's what I'm betting too. Conspiracy theorists have to find the little irrelevant details to obsess over in order to distract from their large-scale inability to actually accomplish anything.

 

[mikegriffith1]

I'll agree that that shell couldn't be fired with that dent. But it's also obvious that shell had been fired. The primer was spent, and the inside of the casing was blackened with the residue from burning gun powder. So it was obviously dented after being fired. Your or others inability to recreate such a dent only proves that you couldn't figure out how it was dented. It's certainly not proof of a conspiracy.

But nobody has been able to create a dent of that nature after simply firing one bullet from a Carcano rifle. That's the point. Not one of the shells from the HSCA reenactments had such a dent.

Furthermore, Dr. Chapman noted that the dent and other marks indicated that the shell was fired empty from the rifle, and that the only way the WC could duplicate the dent was to fire an empty shell from the rifle. So, simply put, that shell did not fire--and could not have fired--a bullet from the alleged murder weapon on 11/22/63.

 

[mikegriffith1]

According to whom? Since when has the standard of evidence for authenticity been what you think you would have done in the same situation?

Exactly the opposite is true -- HSCA Hearings, vol. 1, p. 454.
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/html/HSCA_Vol1_0229b.htm

That dent was not nearly as substantial as the dent on CE 543. Donahue looked at all the HSCA shells, and Dr. Chapman looked at the WC/FBI shells. Champagne's claim that one of the shells had a "similar" dent is a reach, to put it mildly; it's not even close. Donahue scoffed at Champagne's claim that the dent was "similar."

The only reenactment shell that bears a substantial dent, and other markings, like the one seen on CE 543, is the one that the FBI fired empty from the Carcano. That's it. No others are close.

Even J. Edgar Hoover admitted, in a letter to the WC, that the damage on CE 543 was unique. Dr. Kurtz:

In a letter to the Warren Commission of 2 June 1964, J. Edgar Hoover noted that Commission Exhibit 543 (FBI Number C6), the case with the dent, had "three sets of marks on the base of this cartridge case which were not found [on the other casings]." The case, according to Hoover, had also been loaded into and extracted from a weapon three times. The only marks linking the case to Oswald's rifle were marks from the magazine follower. As noted above, Case 543 could not have obtained the marks from the magazine follower on 22 November, since the last round in the clip must have been the unfired one in the chamber. Furthermore, Commission Exhibit 543 lacks the characteristic indentation on the side made by the firing chamber of Oswald's rifle.​

 

[BStrong]

But nobody has been able to create a dent of that nature after simply firing one bullet from a Carcano rifle. That's the point. Not one of the shells from the HSCA reenactments had such a dent.

Furthermore, Dr. Chapman noted that the dent and other marks indicated that the shell was fired empty from the rifle, and that the only way the WC could duplicate the dent was to fire an empty shell from the rifle. So, simply put, that shell did not fire--and could not have fired--a bullet from the alleged murder weapon on 11/22/63.

How does one fire an empty cartridge, and you do realize that any round fired in any type of cartridge firearm produces an empty piece of brass?

 

[mikegriffith1]

Here is a good, comprehensive article on the dented shell and the two other shells.

http://www.giljesus.com/jfk/rifle_shells.htm

After laying out the DPD's incomprehensible failure to follow standard evidence-marking procedure in their handling of the shells (I know: just another coincidence), the author then discusses the dented shell.

BStrong asks how one fires an empty shell. Did you read my article? This has already been done, and the empty shell that was fired was the only one that ended up with a sizable dent like the one on CE 543. Go read the article:

http://miketgriffith.com/files/dent.htm

 

[JayUtah]

Champagne's claim that one of the shells had a "similar" dent is a reach, to put it mildly; it's not even close.

Yep, the goalposts moved exactly as predicted.

 

[JayUtah]

Here is a good, comprehensive article on the dented shell and the two other shells.

http://www.giljesus.com/jfk/rifle_shells.htm

Down the rathole of "admissibility." Yeah I already read that article long ago. It's pretty funny, but I don't accept his narrow view of what would be admissible, nor what constitutes acceptable methods, nor the entire notion that legal admissibility means much to the study of your conspiracy theories.

And thanks, but on the subject of cartridge damage I'll stick with the judgment of the firearms experts in an investigation you seem to trust. It jives with my own experience. Your authors can "scoff" all they want. To convince me requires a lot more that just scoffing at the conventional narrative dismissively.

Go read the article:

http://miketgriffith.com/files/dent.htm

Make an argument here, please, without trying to drive more traffic to your web site.

 

[Belz...]

But nobody has been able to create a dent of that nature after simply firing one bullet from a Carcano rifle.

And ?