A CONSPIRACY THEORIST SAID:
Explain how they [Klein's Sporting Goods] could ship something they did NOT have in stock. .... So they were out of stock of the 36" Carbines, huh? Where is your evidence/proof for this claim?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I see the conspiracy-loving kooks are busy as beavers once again today, as those kooks try every way they can to take Rifle C2766 out of the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald.
There seems to be no limits to a kook's willingness to avoid the obvious (and to avoid utilizing even the smallest granule of common sense when it comes to anything having to do with JFK's assassination).
My original post in this thread regarding this "36-inch vs. 40-inch" controversy speaks for itself (and that post is loaded with common sense and logic, things that CTers can never seem to exhibit). Here's that original post again.
As an addendum to what I wrote in the above post, I'll copy and paste an e-mail I received on September 18, 2009, from Gary Mack of the Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza. His remarks to me in this e-mail correspond nicely with the very similar comments I made in my Internet post linked above, with Mr. Mack adding one important detail--the fact that Klein's did not place an advertisement in the March 1963 edition of "American Rifleman" magazine, but did put one in the April 1963 edition, with the April ad showing a 40-inch rifle for sale, replacing the 36-inch variety from its MOST RECENT ad from just two months earlier:
Date: 9/18/2009 11:43:24 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Gary Mack
To: David Von Pein
--------------------------
Dave,
The rifle answer is even simpler than that. The Sixth Floor Museum has a complete set of American Rifleman magazines for 1963. Klein’s advertised the 36” Carcano in January and February, the month from which Oswald ordered, but they had no ad for March.
Beginning in April, Klein’s monthly ads featured the 40” Carcano. So what must have happened is that the company was out of stock at the time it received Oswald’s 36” rifle order and also failed to get their updated ad to American Rifleman in time for publication. Then, to save the sale, Klein’s would likely have substituted the 40” gun they stocked and added the scope per Oswald’s request.
Gary Mack
[End E-Mail Quote From Gary Mack.]
Gary Mack's remarks to me on 9/18/09 are, indeed, almost identical to these comments that I made earlier the same day here on the Internet:
"The common-sense answer to this discrepancy is a simple one: Since Lee Harvey Oswald DID, in fact, order a "36-inch" rifle, but Klein's shipped Oswald/"Hidell" a 40-inch model, and since Oswald's order specified that he wanted the scope to be included as part of his order as well, and since it was Klein's policy to mount scopes for customers who ordered both the 36-inch rifle and the scope as a "package" deal....then Klein's simply mounted the scope for Oswald's "package" order as if it were the 36-inch model of the Italian carbine.
After all, it certainly wasn't Oswald's fault that Klein's was out of stock of the 36-inch rifle that he ordered. So why should he be penalized in this instance by NOT having the scope mounted?
[...]
Oswald ordered a 36-incher, and his "Rifle With Scope" package order was treated exactly the same as any other "36-inch" order. Thus, the scope was mounted on the 40-incher they mailed to him. The very same thing probably happened to several other Klein's customers who found themselves also receiving 40-inch Carcano rifles in the mail (instead of the 36-inch varieties they had actually ordered).
[...]
And the most-likely reason that Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago shipped Oswald a forty-inch weapon is pretty obvious too -- Klein's simply ran out of 36-inch Italian carbines and had to substitute a very similar rifle that was four inches longer.
[...]
And we know for a fact that Klein's advertised BOTH the "36-inch Italian carbine" AND the "40-inch Italian carbine" during the same calendar year of 1963 in various magazine advertisements (with the 36-inch version being advertised in February, and the 40-incher showing up in some of Klein's ads nine months later, in November) [AND GARY MACK HAS CONFIRMED, VIA HIS 9/18/09 E-MAIL TO DVP, THAT KLEIN'S ACTUALLY BEGAN ADVERTISING THE 40-INCH RIFLE MUCH EARLIER THAN NOVEMBER, WITH KLEIN'S ADS FOR THE 40-INCH MODEL OF THE ITALIAN CARBINE SHOWING UP IN MAGAZINE ADS IN APRIL 1963].
So it doesn't seem unusual or particularly odd to me that a customer (in this case, Lee Oswald) could have possibly received a 40-inch weapon even though he actually ordered a 36-inch model." -- DVP; September 18, 2009
David Von Pein
September 19, 2009
