From: mst4298@summa.tamu.edu (Mitchell S Todd)
Subject: Re: How easy was the rifle shot?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Applied Upyerstemmatey Corp
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 04:20:00 GMT

In article <schuck.713664345@sfu.ca>, Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca writes...
>Mitchell S Todd >>>>>  &  >>>  &   >
>Bruce Schuck >> & >>>> & >>>>>>

>>>Nellie Connally saw JFK reacting to his throat wound *before* John
>>>Connally was shot.

>>	By the time Nelly saw JFK, the Govenor's wounds were well out
>>	of alignment, and they never came into alignment again.

>Bullshit. Prove it. Point it out on the Z film.

	"Point it out on the Z film?" You must be in a damn neat
	reality.

>She heard the first shot, turned back, saw JFK reacting to his wound,
>and then saw John C get shot.

	She says she heard a shot, turned around, saw JFK "clutching
	his throat," "with his hands *at* his throat [my emph]," turned
	around again, heard a shot, and then saw her husband turn right,
	obviously reacting to the wound. Interestingly enough,
	Connelly says he said "Oh, no no no" after he was shot,
	while Nellie says she heard him say it before he was shot.

	JFK doesn't have his hands "at his throat" until frame 227.
	By that time, Govenor Connelly's wounds were already out of
	alignment, and would remain so. By 227, Connellys right hand
	is too far up and to the right to line up. To put it another
	way, Connelly's hand starts out on his left knee and ends
	up agaist his right shoulder. During most of this movement,
	his hand is going to be too high up, too far to the right,
	or too far forward to be in the way of a shot.


>>	Both the SBT and your latest offering require at the least that
>>	Connelly's chest and wrist wounds line up. After 227, at the
>>	latest Connelly's right hand is too far up and too far to the
>>	right for the wounds to line up. 

>Again...bullshit. There does not have to be an *exact* straight line
>between exit wound in the chest and the wrist and the the thigh.
>The chest exit wound was at least 5cm in diameter. The bullet could
>have been easily deflected by the 5th rib, and probably was. 

	The testimony I've seen from the HSCA forensics panel,
	Sturdivan --and even Shaw, I believe-- indicates that a bullet
	would be deflected very little from it's flight path. Even 
	if the bullet were deflected, it would still have to loop
	around Connelly's wrist to enter the volar portion of the limb
	from Connelly's chest.
	

>>>>	For the Govenor to have been hit at 238 requires the 
>>>>	bullet be a very accomplished gymnast. Being dumb as a chunk
>>>>	of lead, I doubt it.

>>>For JC to have been hit by the same *bullet* requires gymnastics by
>>>either JC and JFK while hidden behind the sign or by the bullet.
>>>Neither happened and they weren't hit by the same bullet.

>>	Why not? The trajectory analysis done by the HSCA shows that
>>	a single track through both Connelly and the president is
>>	quite feasible. 

>Dr Shaw's testimony is clear. John Connally was hit by a bullet on a
>downward trajectory. It was not tumbling. It had not hit anything
>before it hit JC. It certainly never hit JFK

	The HSCA forensics panel asked Dr Shaw about the appearence
	of the entry wound. Specifically, they asked if the wound 
	had a "tailed" abrasion collar with an indentation in the "tail."
	This feature is the indicator of a bullet that strikes
	obliquely. Shaw says that he observed no such feature.

	Shaw believed that Connelly wasn't struck by a tumbling bullet
	because he didn't think that a tumbling bullet would do enough
	damage. However, Shaw admitted to the HSCA that his expertise in
	such matters is very limited.
	

>>       Connelly was sitting forwards and a bit to the
>>	left of the President. The HSCA determined that the President
>>	is leaning forwards by 11-18 degrees at Z190 (as Wilber notes,
>>	after this time the President leans forwards more as he disappears
>>	behind the sign).

>11-18 degrees is not enough to compensate for the *upwards* bullet
>track if you connect the back wound and throat wound [which are
>probably not connected anyway]

	Actually, it does. Just read the HSCA. Also, I believe that 
	JFK/JBC was hit between Z215 and 220, when JFK was leaning
	further forward than he was at Z190, when the HSCA trajectory
	analysis was done.


>> As Wecht notes, JFK is turned a bit to his
>>	right from 193 to the time he disappears.

>Yes. His throat is facing the grassy knoll.

	So what?


>> The angle between
>>	the TSBD's sixth floor and level ground is [Atan (62/195)]
>>	17.6deg, and Elm slopes downwards at about 3 degrees away from
>>	the depository. The entry wound in JFK's back is about 1 3/8in to
>>	the right of his midline, while the throat wound is just to
>>	the right of the midline.

>There you go. It was a 38 degree angle from the TSBD to JFK.

>It is *impossible* for a bullet to enter the 1 3/8 inches to the right
>of JFK's spine and exit to the right of midline in his throat if it is
>going through his body right to left at an angle of 38 degrees!

	Every WC critics diagram of the SBT (you know, the one with
	JFK and JBC sitting forwards as if they were statues) has
	the bullet between JFK's throat and neck wounds being at
	a greater angle than the one with the TSBD. If anything,
	this diagram places the throat wound too far to the left,
	and doesn't account for JFK's rightward facing.


>>>As I have said before, if there was only 3 shots and the there was a
>>>shot a 160 and it missed, then it must be the shot that hit James T
>>>Tague near the triple underpass. Since such a shot requires Oswald to
>>>have missed high by at least 30 feet [probably more] and to the right
>>>by over 25 feet, it is impossible for there to be a missed shot at
>>>z-160. It is more than likely that there was a shot at z-189 which hit
>>>JFK, and for which there is a lot more proof, and a 4th shot that
>>>wounded Tague.

>>	To begin with, no one is really sure just what happened to 	
>>	james Tague, or when it happened. The first bullet could
>>	have hit the curb. 

>At 160 the downward angle is over 25 degrees from the TSBD down to the
>limousine. The bullet that wounded Tague hit a curb on a different
>street over 300 feet from the limousine. It is laughable to suggest
>someone shooting from the TSBD could have missed JFK by 300 feet.

>> A fragment from the first bullet could have
>>	hit Tague. 

>Nope. Impossible. Zero evidence.

	There's as much evidence for this as there is for any other
	shot, or for a shot from another location, or from something
	other than a bullet or bullet fragment.


>>a fragment from the third bullet could have hit Tague. 

>Nope. Impossible. Not enough energy. Angle all wrong.

	A fragment from a bullet that, say, hit a slab of concrete
	could have been thrown in almost any direction by the impact.
	As for the energy, that's tough to say. How much energy would
	it take for a fragment to travel 300 feet (assuming that 
	Oswald was "on target") hit a piece of curbing or Tague
	himself?


>There is even the possibility that Tague was wounded
>>	some other way.

>Really. Nice of you to explain how and offer a reasonable explanation.
>Ha ha ha.

	There is little eveidence that Tague was injured directly or
	indirectly by a bullet or bullet fragment. There is little
	evidence that Tague wasn't injured directly or indirectly
	by a bullet. There just isn't much evidence at all.


>>>You've *never* offered any proof that there was a shot at 160.

>>	As I've said before, Connelly testified that hye turned to his
>>	right just after hearing the first bullet. He does so after
>>	Z165 (according to the HSCA he suddenly turns his head right
>>	the left before turning right again). 

>So he turned right twice. Ahhhh. You picked the one unlikely to have
>occurred.
	
	I've watched the Z-film. Connelly only turns once, beginning
	at frame 167. He stays turned to his right until he disappears
	from behind the sign, and then he reappears as he is turning
	to face forwards. 


>>       This means that the bullet
>>	was fired previously to this. Also, according to the HSCA,
>>	from about Z155 to Z165, a large number of bystanders stop
>>	what they're doing and suddenly start to look around.

>Z 155 is the first shot now is it? Considering it takes people 5 or 6
>frames to react, that means the shot was at 150. Ha ha ha.

	I'm using 155-165 as a range, not necessarily as a specific
	indicator of when the reactions to a gunshot started. 


>1) The crowd starts to react *after* 189.

	Says who? You?


>2) Zapruder's camera starts to shake *after* 189, as if he heard a
>   rifle shot that startled him.

	Or, as if he felt he lost his balance. The "startle reaction"
	thoery was never well enough tested to be very convincing.



>>>>>Again, let's look at the testimony of ...Abraham Zapruder.

>>>>>"I was shooting through a telephoto lens....and as it [the
>>>>>Presidential car] reached about -- I imagine it was around here -- I
>>>>>heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab
>>>>>himself..."   [7H571]

>>>>>The meaning of Zapruders testimony is clear, JFK was shot before 205.

>>	Actually, we don't really know how Zapruder saw JFK get hit.

>He saw him get hit through the viewfinder of his camera. He said so.

	Reread the quote. Zapruder never said he saw JFK "get hit."
	He said he heard a shot and then saw JFK lean and "grab
	himself." Further Zapruder's testimony is certainly not
	very precise. If JFK was hit at 189, then he would have
	disappeared behind the sign before "grabbing himself." If
	JFK was hit at 220, he would be behind the sign as Zapruder
	heard the shot. Zapruder, however, never mentions the
	sign itself.


>>	Further, we don't know the amount of time Zapruder is talking
>>	about. The "lean over and grab himself" part could be the
>>	three os so seconds between 160-225. Since Zapruder said only 
>>	that he ehard a shot, and then he saw JFK react, he could be
>>	describing a shot while JFK was hidden behind the sign 

>If you read his testimony again, JFK 'leaned over and grabbed himself'
>*after* the first shot. Not after the second! Not after the third!

	So? Zapruder may not have recognized the first shot. For
	instance, many people at Dealy that day only remember hearing
	two shots. If you want to claim that four or more shots were
	fired, then *most* of the surveyed witnesses missed *at least*
	one shot.


>>>Connally is clearly hit when he involuntarily expells air from his
>>>lungs after being struck in the 5th rib.

>>	Is that involuntary? No one knows. Thompsen uses Shaw as
>>	a source, but Shaw is really only speculating; doctors 
>>	very rarely get to see film of people being shot. The
>> 	temporary cavity created by a bullet's passage creates
>>	a suction: air from Connelly's lungs would just as likely
>>	be sucked into the cavity as it would be pushed out of
>>	Connelly's mouth. Further, it would take a lot of air
>>	to open Connelly's jaw (it opens when his mouth opens on
>>	"the blow"), but most of the air would exit the Govenor's
>>	nose.

>Ahhhh.....Mitchell S Todd MD. Shaw's the Doctor. You aren't.
>If you have any proof people *never* expell air from their lungs when
>they get shot in the ribs -- post it.

	Shaw may be a doctor, but that doesn't mean that he is any
	sort of expert on this matter. How many people has Shaw 
	actually seen at the moment they were shot? How many films
	has Shaw seen that show people being shot in the chest?
	I seriously doubt he's seen any, especially given Baden's
	testimony to the HSCA ont the subject. Shaw is merely
	speculating.
	
	I never said that "people never expel air from their lungs"
	when hit in the chest. I did say that I seriously doubt 
	there would be enough to open their jaws and puff their
	cheeks, given that the nose passage and whatnot.


>>	Thompson also tried to use the downward dip of Connelly's
>>	shoulder to prove that Connelly was hit at 237. But consider
>>	the momentum. If the bullet loses 550ft/s through the
>>	Govenor's body, 

>Why 550 fps? 

	550fps is the upper limit that I gave for velocity loss through
	Connelly's chest. The Edgewood estimate is, I recall, 450fps.


>You ignore the massive destruction of the rib, and the explosion
>of rib pieces as they are blown out of Connally's body.

	The destruction of the rib is immaterial here. As for
	the ject effect, since the net direction of any possible
	rib fragments and any other exiting tissues is downwards
	and forwards, they would give the body an upward, backward
	momenta.	


>If you really think he could have sat perfectly still for *seconds*
>while after that had gone on, you are crazy. 

	If Connelly was hit at about 220, As I've proposed, he only
	"sits still" for a second between 220 and 238. As I've 
	noted, Connelly pulls his right arm against his chest
	into an awkward, uncomfortable, and otherwise needless
	position between Z222 and Z230. After 235, the Govenor
	begins to reach around with his left hand, either grabbing
	the handle on the door, or holding it to his chest (depending
	on who you want to believe)
		
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