BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
snipped...
Examining the testimony completely does not undermine the critics’ case at all. Three “master marksmen” took two tries at duplicating what Oswald was supposed to have done. As Meagher explains it, these “master marksmen” were rated at the very top of the scale, not by the Marines, but by the National Rifle Association. In other words, they were even better than the top shooters in the armed services by a level of two or more classes; so proficient they qualified for open competition and even the Olympic Games! Now compare this to Oswald, who barely made the lowest class possible when he left the Marines in 1959. How can one equate the two? Further, while these men practiced all the time, there is no known credible witness who saw Oswald target practice with the rifle in question. One wonders why the Commission allowed the military to select these marksmen and not a shooter more comparable to Oswald. The results show why. Of the three men, only one of them bettered Oswald’s time. But here’s the catch, Oswald was firing from sixty feet up at a moving target, while the three experts were firing from thirty feet up at still targets. As Meagher notes, wouldn’t it have been quite simple to just rope off Dealey Plaza, put these guys in the sixth floor window, place a convertible in the street below, and try a true experiment? If this was not done, why not? Neither in the text at this point, nor in the corresponding end note section does Bugliosi tell you about the different settings or pose the question as to why they were not the same.[/SIZE][/COLOR]"
Meagher was no better informed than you are.
First of all, duplication is not required to support the facts surrounding the mechanical aspects of the shooting. I've said it repeatedly - that one man's shooting can't be duplicated by me doesn't mean they did not perform at the level in evidence. Sarver shot .14 MO at 1000 yds w/ 5 V's. I can't. That doesn't mean Sarver didn't do what he did. Is that clear enough for you? If you've got any facts in evidence to prove otherwise...
Her understanding of marksmanship and marksmanship in competition is fatally flawed, and as a point of fact here's the current list for summer olympic shooting sports:
https://www.olympic.org/shooting
Here's the historical list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_at_the_Summer_Olympics
For those keeping score at home, it is interesting to note that service rifle competition took place one year only - 1920 - and after that actual rifle competitions have been restricted to purpose built target rifles that have the same relationship to a service rifle that an F1 car does to a production vehicle.
Marina Oswald stated that LHO did practice with the rifle and cleaned it several times:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/oswald_m1.htm
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever see him clean the rifle?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. I said before I had never seen it before. But I think you understand. I want to help you, and that is why there is no reason for concealing anything. I will not be charged with anything.
Mr. GOPADZE. She says she was not sworn in before. But now inasmuch as she is sworn in, she is going to tell the truth.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you see him clean the rifle a number of times?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Could you help us by giving some estimate of the times as you remember it?
Mrs. OSWALD. About four times---about four or five times, I think.
Mr. RANKIN. Did your husband ever tell you why he was cleaning the--that is, that he had been using it and needed to be cleaned after use?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, I did not ask him, because I thought it was quite normal that when you have a rifle you must clean it from time to time.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever observe your husband taking the rifle away from the apartment on Neely Street?
Mrs. OSWALD. Now, I think that he probably did sometimes, but I never did see it. You must understand that sometimes I would be in the kitchen and he would be in his room downstairs, and he would say bye-bye, I will be hack soon, and he may have taken it. He probably did. Perhaps he purely waited for an occasion when he could take it away without my seeing it.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever observe that the rifle had been taken out of the apartment at Neely Street---that is, that it was gone?
Mrs. OSWALD. Before the incident with General Walker, I know that Lee was preparing for something. He took photographs of that house and he told me not to enter his room. I didn't know about these photographs, but when I came into the room once in general he tried to make it so that I would spend less time in that room. I noticed that quite accidentally one time when I was cleaning the room he tried to take care of it himself.
I asked him what kind of photographs are these, but he didn't say anything to me.
Mr. RANKIN. That is the photographs of the Walker house that you were asking about?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. Later, after he had fired, he told me about it.
I didn't know that he intended to do it---that he was planning to do it.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you learn at any time that he had been practicing with the rifle?
Mrs. OSWALD. I think that he went once or twice. I didn't actually see him take the rifle, but I knew that he was practicing.
Mr. RANKIN. Could you give us a little help on how you knew?
Mrs. OSWALD. He told me. And he would mention that in passing---it isn't
as if he said, "Well, today I am going"---it wasn't as if he said, "Well, today I am going to take the rifle and go and practice." But he would say, "Well, today I will take the rifle along for practice."
So SM's research skills leave much to be desired and this is a good example. You fell for it because you don't have enough experience in the subject matter to make an objective evaluation of the evidence.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you took bad information that you have no way to evaluate, filtered it through your confirmation bias and came up with a poor theory that you're evidently now married to.
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