EDWARD BAUER SAID:
DVP, your web sites are the best and most accurate on the planet. However, LHO did not fire "three bullets at President Kennedy." He used the first shot for the indispensable requirement of zeroing his reassembled rifle. That's why the first shot missed; it wasn't aimed at the limo. That's also why the first shot was fired much earlier than Z160. It was fired exactly where the FBI spliced those seven frames from the Tina Towner film to hide her camera jiggle reaction to that early first shot.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You know you can't possibly PROVE what you just said, Ed. Any more than I can "prove" beyond all doubt that you are wrong.
You could be 100% right, yes. But you could also be 100% wrong.
I'm wondering, though, Ed, if Oswald would have wanted to deliberately waste (in a sense) his very first shot for merely "zeroing-in" purposes?
Why couldn't that first shot have served double duty -- i.e., a shot aimed AT the President AND also serving (if need be) a "zeroing-in" purpose as well? Why isn't that scenario possible?
That way, LHO would have the best of both worlds. He could have done some zeroing-in while at the same time possibly hitting (and maybe killing) the President with his first shot when everyone in the Plaza was taken by complete surprise -- as opposed to waiting for the 2nd shot to aim at JFK, when potentially more people would be alerted to the fact that a gunman was on the sixth floor.
Your theory is intriguing. No doubt about it. But I have a hard time accepting the notion that Mr. Oswald would have had a desire to draw attention to himself and his shooting perch by firing a shot that served only the function of zeroing-in his weapon.
BTW....
Have you heard about the "Only 2 Shots Were Fired" theory (as proposed by Mike Majerus in his book "Phantom Shot")? That's discussed a little bit here.
ED BAUER SAID:
David, thank you for your reply.
You say "merely," I say "indispensable requirement." See my blog post where 17 gun manufacturers and firearms experts weigh in on the need to re-zero a reassembled firearm.
The first shot could not have served double duty, David, because it was imperative that Oswald see exactly where it hit relative to the crosshairs... where it would kick up some dust... where nobody was watching... say, the south curb of Main Street near the triple underpass.
Also, to have the time to adjust the windage and elevation screws before the second shot, that first shot had to be fired very early.
Oswald assumed that no one would react for ten brief seconds. He was correct. In fact, as you well know, David, SA Clint Hill did not react until after the second shot. That was 9.5 seconds later.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Thanks, Ed.
But all of that "zeroing-in" would be unnecessary if Oswald had possessed the following mindset on November 22, 1963:
I'll use the 4-power telescope for my first shot to be fired at President Kennedy (even though I should probably zero-in the scope first), but if that shot misses the target, I'll quickly switch to the iron sights for my remaining shots.
And as Jim Hess (at Facebook) pointed out recently (via the photo below), switching quickly from using the telescopic sight to the iron sights while firing a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle is not a difficult or cumbersome task at all:
David Von Pein
March 22-24, 2016
