Other Research
Vincent Bugliosi puts forward the hypothesis that Oswald fired the Carcano over open sights, which reduced the time necessary to take the three shots postulated by the Warren Commission. He notes that with the downward slope on Dealey Plaza, President Kennedy's head would have appeared to Oswald to be a stationary target as the vehicle moved down and away at a slow speed. This suggestion also therefore makes any claim that the scope was defective to be meaningless with respect to Oswald's shooting ability. However, with the M91/38 open sights being factory set to be accurate at 200 metres, the final shot being well under 100 metres and the M91/38 not being a very flat shooting rifle to begin with (up to ten inches high at 100 metres), this rifle would have been shooting quite high and would have made hitting JFK extremely difficult. This would have been further exacerbated by the steep downward angle from the 6th floor of the TSBD to the limo which would have made the shot go even higher than what Oswald would have been aiming at.
In 2008, The Discovery Channel produced a documentary that played out several different versions of the Kennedy Assassination on a dummy that had been specifically designed for ballistics tests, recreating the elevation, wind speed and distance at a California shooting range. Their forensic analysis, backed by computer models, showed that it was most likely that the shot that killed President Kennedy came from the Texas School Book Depository. They also concluded that a shot from the grassy knoll would have completely obliterated Kennedy's skull, contrary to what is seen in the Zapruder Film. However, in this conclusion they assumed that an assassin on the grassy knoll would have used hollow point ammunition, which expands on impact to maximize damage. Thereafter, they attempted a second shot from the grassy knoll position, using a solid round. Analysis revealed that this bullet would have passed through Kennedy's skull from right-to-left, causing an exit wound on the left-hand side of the skull that did not match any postmortem reports. They also suggested that the bullet trajectory from this shot would have struck and likely killed Mrs. Kennedy.
Read more about this topic: John F. Kennedy Assassination Rifle
Famous quotes containing the word research:
“Men talk, but rarely about anything personal. Recent research on friendship ... has shown that male relationships are based on shared activities: men tend to do things together rather than simply be together.... Female friendships, particularly close friendships, are usually based on self-disclosure, or on talking about intimate aspects of their lives.”
—Bettina Arndt (20th century)
“After all, the ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth.”
—Helene Deutsch (1884–1982)