JFK - 3 shooters 6 shots

[twik]

Potential to explore a conspiracy, I think not.
Case Closed.

'Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason'

That about sums it up.

There's certainly no chance to explore it when you play "guess what's in the box" with your evidence.

You sincerely believe, I presume, that there were six shooters in three locations. Why are you afraid to show what led you to that specific conclusion? Why not three shooters in two locations? Five shooters, five locations?

[gillianren]

Heck, why not a single shooter in a different location?

[ka9q]

Heck, why not a single shooter in a different location?

Like the extreme northwest corner of the roof of the Dal-Tex building across Houston St from the TSBD. Dale Meyer's computer model shows it as the only place (other than Oswald's window) with the correct geometry for shot #2.

And it can't even see the limousine at shot #3. Blocked by the TSBD. I suppose that means one shot came from each place, huh? And since shot #1 missed entirely and we know almost nothing about its trajectory, it could have been shot from practically anywhere in Dealy Plaza. So that one must have been taken by a third shooter in yet another location...

I swear, if I listen to these conspiracy nuts much longer my brain is going to explode. Remember Johnny Cochran's "Chewbacca Defense" on South Park? He obviously learned it from the JFK conspiracists.

[Echnaton]

Heck, why not a single shooter in a different location?

Heck, why not one shooter in multiple locations.  That would really have confused the investigators and has almost equal plausibility with the Grassy Knoll shot.

[Mr Gorsky]

I don't generally wade in on the JFK stuff ... interesting as I find it to read the evidence and learn more about it. However, one thing jumps out at me, and there is a parallel here with the "911 Truth" stuff.

If there was a conspiracy, and they wanted to convince the world that the assassination was the work of one man, then there would be inherent risk in having more than one shooter. Imagine if there were two shooters, for example, both hit Kennedy from different angles, and the bullets remained in his body. Now you have clear evidence of two shooters and ballistics evidence showing clearly two different weapons fired from two different positions. Makes it kind of hard to argue a lone gunman.

If the conspiracy wants three shooters in three locations to make sure of the kill, then surely what you do is set up three patsies to take the fall for it. Or am I over-simplifying.

As I say, this just reminds me of the 911 stuff. If you want to convince the world that a jet airliner crashed into the world trade centre towers, why argue for missiles and hologram projections and all the other junk. Surely the conspirators (being powerful people and all) would just have found a way to crash jet airliners into the building.

Just like the airliners themselves are not proof that 911 was not a conspiracy, Oswald as lone assassin of JFK is not proof that there was no conspiracy there either. Surely anyone believing that either of these were conspiracies US government conspiracies has to begin their examination with an assumption that the established method by which the action was carried out is true, but the motivation and persons ultimately responsible are not as reported.

Everything else is just white noise until that can be put to bed.

[Jason Thompson]

If the conspiracy wants three shooters in three locations to make sure of the kill, then surely what you do is set up three patsies to take the fall for it. Or am I over-simplifying.

No, your mistake is applying logic to the conspiracy theory. Those two never quite meet...

[Echnaton]

If the conspiracy wants three shooters in three locations to make sure of the kill, then surely what you do is set up three patsies to take the fall for it. Or am I over-simplifying.

Simple. You are insufficiently conspiratorially aware!

[twik]

I agree. I think that conspiratorialists look for overly complicated plots, because that's what would provide them with the "anomalies" they see.

For example, with 9/11, the simplest solution, should the PTB want to bring the towers down, would be to have an agent in bin Ladin's camp to hatch the plan, and make sure that it's implemented. Or, failing that, to create one's own splinter cell. The rest of the plot goes as generally accepted.  The trouble with that is that it's basically unprovable by someone at home with Google as their main investigative tool. So, such people prefer to see controlled demolition, and voice-morphed phone calls, and holographic planes - those things can be spotted (they believe) with the tools they have at hand. It's a little like looking under the streetlight for the keys you lost two blocks away, because the light's better there.

[Echnaton]

For example, with 9/11, the simplest solution, should the PTB want to bring the towers down, would be to have an agent in bin Ladin's camp to hatch the plan, and make sure that it's implemented.

It is interesting that this is what the CIA did in the recently foiled underwear bombing plot, so the news reports say.  They had an agent infiltrate a Yemeni Al Qaeda cell and volunteer to be the suicide bomber, but on leaving the camp, he returned to CIA instead.  If they can infiltrate Al Qaeda now, it stands to reason that they could have in the pre 9/11 days.

[gillianren]

Oh, yeah.  In my "let's make this conspiracy theory work" thought exercises, I always start with the physical evidence.  (It's one of the reasons Apollo is impossible to make into a working conspiracy theory!)  I never bother with stolen bodies or exploding rebar, though that latter is still my absolute favourite invention of a conspiracist.  It's not that I don't believe the government ever lies; I know better.  It's that I don't think the government is stupid enough for most of the lies these people assume are being told.  If you want JFK to be a conspiracy, the easiest way to do it is to put someone else into the sniper's nest and assume Oswald is what he said he was--a patsy.  Of course, I've never been able to make him innocent of the murder of Tippit, but why assume he had to have killed both, if you insist on a conspiracy?  If you insist on a conspiracy, why assume the two are even related?

[BazBear]

This is the one CT family I used to believe in. Well, belief might be too strong a word, so maybe I should say I had seen and read enough JFK CT material that it had put doubts about the "official story" in my mind. It was nothing I ever took too seriously, and for years I didn't think about it much nor look into it further.

Sometime in the early 2000s I found some internet forums where it was being debated, and these debates pushed me into researching it further. It didn't take long for me to realize the various CT theories were almost all pure bunk.

I just can't understand how anyone who has really looked at the (credible) evidence could come to any other conclusion than that LHO killed JFK, and then killed Tippit, at least beyond any reasonable doubt. I think the only CT argument that could be made is that Oswald was working for or with someone else; and there is simply no credible evidence of this either, not to mention Lee's biography seems to indicate he wasn't one to play well with others.

[gillianren]

Yeah, Lee was a character, all right.  He was in a lot of ways a terrible human being.  And yet somehow, we're supposed to believe him when he said he was innocent, as if no one in all of history had ever lied about their guilt in a crime.

[BazBear]

Yeah, Lee was a character, all right.  He was in a lot of ways a terrible human being.  And yet somehow, we're supposed to believe him when he said he was innocent, as if no one in all of history had ever lied about their guilt in a crime.

Exactly. After all, prisons are full of "innocent" people.

[gillianren]

And it's not as though Lee Oswald had an impeccable record regarding the truth, either.  He lied about plenty of things.  Things which are matters of public record and undisputed even by most conspiracists.

[ka9q]

And it's not as though Lee Oswald had an impeccable record regarding the truth, either.  He lied about plenty of things.  Things which are matters of public record and undisputed even by most conspiracists.

Including his answers to just about every relevant question during his 12 hours of interrogation.

I recently had some JFK conspiracist repeatedly demand that I explain why the judge in the Abraham Bolden bribery case took the fifth when the Court of Appeals asked if he had suborned perjury during the trial. He really seemed to feel that this one action by a judge, in a case having nothing to do with the assassination, somehow proved JFK was killed by a massive conspiracy that included the Secret Service. Yet he has absolutely nothing to say about Oswald's long string of provable lies, e.g., telling his "curtain rod" story to Wesley Frazier and then denying to the police that he had done so. Frazier estimated the length of the package at 28", the disassembled rifle was 34", so the package couldn't possibly have contained the rifle and Oswald wasn't the killer despite a mountain of evidence. End of story.

You really wonder if these people are serious, and if so, whether they're sane.