what is the hole called to see if the bullet is chambered

U.s. President John F. Kennedy suffered ii gunshot wounds during his assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The fatal bullet struck Kennedy in the top of his caput and, literally, blew out his brains. Virtually people have seen frame 313 of the Zapruder Film that shows the president's head exploding and in that location's little dispute in the timing, nor placement, of this shot. The other bullet—the one that got Kennedy in the dorsum, at the base of operations of his neck—is far more controversial.

Officially, this bullet is known as Warren Commission Showroom 399 and was said to strike JFK approximately 4.92 seconds earlier. This bullet allegedly cut make clean through his neck, exited beneath his Adam's Apple, and carried on to severely wound Texas Governor John Connally who was seated ahead of the President in the limousine. It was subsequently recovered intact on a hospital stretcher in what's been described equally " pristine " condition and became the cornerstone of the Warren Commission's Single Bullet Theory that postulates one bullet did tremendous damage to ii men and came out looking like new.

This " perfect " bullet has been held equally proof of conspiracy in the JFK Assassination for over 50 years. To this day, iii-quarters of Americans believe information technology'south impossible for one missile to perform incredible feats of altering trajectory, piercing seventeen layers of clothing, four layers of skin, 15 inches of flesh, smash a rib and a wrist os earlier coming to rest entirely intact in a thigh, and so exist suspiciously establish and conclusively matched to the alleged assassinator's rifle. It had to be planted , conspiracy theorists tell you—gear up to frame Lee Harvey Oswald— or else the bullet had to be magic .

Merely was information technology? Here's what the investigation, ballistic pattern, and forensic scientific discipline tell us about CE399—the " magic " bullet.

Dealey Plaza

At 12:30 pm the Kennedy motorcade rounded a tight left turn from Houston Street and headed west onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, correct beneath the southeast, sixth-floor window of the Texas Schoolhouse Book Depository where Lee Oswald was concealed with his six.5 X 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano military surplus rifle.

Oswald fired his first shot from a altitude of about 77 anxiety and missed. The best guess is that it striking a traffic light and deflected. Oswald's 2nd shot was fired approximately 6.57 seconds later from a 21-caste downwardly angle, at 189 feet, and is purported to have wounded both Kennedy and Connally. Oswald's 3rd shot was from 265 feet and it killed Kennedy. An estimated 11.49 seconds elapsed from the kickoff trigger pull and allowed Oswald plenty of time to reload the bolt-action rifle twice. Oswald fled, leaving his rifle and 3 expended cartridges behind.

Parkland Infirmary

The motorcade rushed to Parkland Infirmary, five minutes away. Connally remained conscious and was partly able to stand up. He was put onto a stretcher and wheeled into the Emergency Room, and so transferred to an operating theater and surgically treated for wounds to his breast, wrist, and thigh. Kennedy was unconscious with a massive head wound, a punctured neck, and in the concluding gasps of life. He was laid on a different stretcher, taken to another part of the ER where, despite a gallant resuscitation effort, President Kennedy was alleged expressionless at 1:00 pm.

Nigh of the medical staff who treated JFK observed a tiny pigsty in his throat that they causeless was a bullet's entrance wound. The perforation was partly obliterated during an emergency tracheostomy and the president's torso was not rolled to inspect for a dorsum wound.

Around 2:00 pm a Parkland infirmary worker found an intact bullet between the pad and metallic side flange on one of the Kennedy entourage stretchers. The bullet had evidently been fired every bit information technology displayed the engraved striations from the lands and grooves of a rifle barrel. Evidence put before the Warren Committee could not positively institute if the bullet was constitute on Kennedy's stretcher or Connally'due south and the bullet's concatenation of custody was not conspicuously recorded. It passed between at least 5 people earlier coming into possession of the FBI firearms examiner who forensically matched it with Oswald's sixth-floor rifle to " the exclusion of all other firearms ". This bullet weighed 158.60 grains and was entered into the Warren Commission's evidence equally Exhibit 399 and is at present stored in the National Archives in Washington.

Kennedy'due south Autopsy

President Kennedy'south body was shipped to Bethesda Naval Infirmary in Washington where a postmortem test was performed that evening. As history would come up to regret, the examining pathologists were hospitalists and non trained in forensic methods , although one doctor was somewhat experienced with World War II battleground gunshot wounds.

There were serious errors made in interpreting and recording JFK's neck/dorsum wound during the autopsy.

The pathologists failed to notice the throat hole due to the tracheostomy incision and they failed to dissect this wound's path from rear to front . They were right in interpreting the defect in Kennedy'south back every bit a down entrance wound due to the elliptical shape and the inward fold of the skin as well every bit the presence of round bruising known as an chafe collar. The pathologists attempted to probe the wound path with a metal rod just were blocked by rigor mortis of the scapular muscles. They speculated the bullet may have entered JFK's dorsum, then stopped and was worked out during the chest compressions during Parkland CPR.

The Bethesda pathologists used two anatomical reference points to record the back wound location—the acromion process which is the tip of the right shoulder and the mastoid process which is the bony protuberance below the right ear. They also anatomically referenced the entrance point to the right of the first thoracic vertebrae which is located at the top of the shoulder at the base of the neck.

The pathologists seemed to overlook that the mastoid and acromion process points are valueless in fixing another anatomical location every bit both the acromion and mastoid are flexible parts of the body and tin can be moved with the twist of the head or rotation of the shoulder. To compound the location reference errors, Kennedy'due south personal doc mistakenly signed the expiry certificate with the dorsum wound identified at the 3rd thoracic vertebrae—some three inches lower . This incorrect entrance location made the geometry of the suspected trajectory from the sixth-floor window appear impossible, thereby adding to conspiracy theories.

Kennedy's Wear

The FBI examined JFK'due south adapt jacket, his shirt, and his tie. The jacket displayed a defect in the rear which was also ovoid, indicating a downwardly bending of affect , and the fibers were bent inward. Traces of metallic contamination corroborated that information technology was a bullet pigsty. The shirt likewise showed a similar hole in the back and another in the front end of the neckband with outwardly pushed fibers. A respective nick in the tie knot also supported a back-to-front bullet travel merely more confusion arose when the perforation in the suit jacket failed to line upward with the pigsty in the shirt back .

This added more fuel to the conspiracy comprehend-upwards theories until years later when a photograph was discovered taken moments before the shooting that showed JFK's jacket being ridden or "bunched-up" his back. Taking this natural tendency for a jacket to rising up while the wearer is in a sitting position, the holes matched perfectly .

Connally's Surgery

Governor Connally was treated for 3 separate injuries . He'd been shot from the rear with a similar caliber bullet every bit Kennedy with it striking below his right armpit, also in a downward bending but with a more elongated, ovoid archway hole. This bullet traversed his breast and smashed five inches of his fifth rib before blowing out a two-inch diameter exit pigsty below his correct nipple.

Connally suffered a secondary elongated archway wound to the back of his right wrist with the bullet smashing through his radius os and exiting with a about round hole. Four fragments of atomic number 82 weighing 0.59 grains were recovered from the wrist and became Commission Showroom 842 .

The tertiary wound was to Connally'due south left thigh. It, too, was round and consistent with a 6.five mm missile, however this void was shallow and contained only traces of lead too small-scale to recover.

Connally's Clothing

Another mistake in the JFK investigation was a failure to seize Connally's suit jacket, shirt, undershirt, and pants at the hospital. Past the time investigator's realized their importance, Connally's staff had them laundered and whatever trace of forensic gunshot evidence was erased. The holes were still obvious, though, and hadn't been mended. Noteworthy was the shape of the perforations and the later on-known, important fact that the exit hole in the front end of Connally's jacket was in the lapel .

The Warren Commission

The Warren Commission Members

The Single Bullet Theory— the SBT in JFK Assassination terminology —was crucial to supporting the Commission's explanation of how Oswald pulled off the shots that first wounded, then killed President Kennedy, and did the collateral damage to Governor Connally. Transcripts of the hearings show the Commissioners struggled more with CE399 equally a piece of evidence than annihilation else and they were not in unanimous understanding that the first shot missed and the 2nd striking both men, although they had no doubt three rounds were fired and the last shot was the fatal impact to the President's head.

So, according to the inquiry headed past the Chief Judge of the United States Supreme Court, it appeared the same bullet that blasted through President John Kennedy did the aforementioned to Governor John Connally —then disappeared—somehow to turn upwards on a random hospital stretcher—perfectly intact and in pristine condition with beautiful rifling marks that conclusively matched to a rifle proven to be endemic past Lee Harvey Oswald.

"Bullshit!" say the conspiracy buffs. "CE399'south an obvious imitation. Planted to set up a patsy."

"How could this be?" ask those without tinfoil hats. "To exercise all that damage and notwithstanding appear perfect? It seems like magic!"

But the SBT has officially stood the exam of time and survived a reinvestigation of the assassination in 1978 as well every bit a modern computer-animated reconstruction of what went downward in Dealey.

Live 6.five 10 52 mm Full Metal Jacket Mannlicher-Carcano Cartridge From My Personal Firearm Drove

Well, I have to admit that I doubted 399's authenticity until one day—when I was already an experienced homicide investigator with a court-recognized expertise in the operation and identification of firearms—I was at the Firearms Section of the RCMP's forensic laboratory and got a " JFK Ballistics 101 " lesson from an examiner from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms. He explained the construction of a 6.5 mm Carcano bullet and how information technology behaved in the JFK case.

20 years later, when I was researching a book on the JFK Assassination, I was further tutored on the Single Bullet Theory ballistics by Larry Sturdivan, a firearms skilful who testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that revisited the JFK murder in 1978.

Understanding how CE399 behaved scientifically is the key to unlocking the SBT and ultimately leading to the truth in knowing how President Kennedy was murdered.

Bullet Construction

CE399 is a typical vi.five-millimeter diameter, 161 grain , round nosed, full metal jacket, military bullet that was one of four million fabricated by the United states Western Cartridge Company in the 1950's and destined for the Korean war. Thousands were released to the civilian sporting market with many vi.5'south chambered to World War II Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. Oswald bought his burglarize through mail lodge in 1963, complete with a scope, for twenty bucks.

Full Metallic Jacket (FMJ) bullets were mandated by the Geneva Conventions at the turn of the nineteenth century every bit a means of minimizing battlefield casualties. Upwards to and then, mostly lead and partially metal-clad bullets were used that created massive damage to soldiers who were ripped apart by fragmenting projectiles. FMJ bullets were designed to minimize suspension-upwardly . They were fabricated to remain intact and pass through a body—effectively taking the soldier out of combat and tying up other resource in treating an injury, rather than having grotesque carnage on the battlefield.

FMJ bullets are built like an egg with a difficult, outer shell composed of copper-zinc and an inner core of lead, usually mixed with zinc, silver, and antimony for hardness. But despite how sturdy bullets are congenital, they all have a indicate of fracture known equally yield threshold . Information technology's based on a bullet's density (hardness), its mass (weight), velocity (speed), and resistance (the medium of force interim against it like air, flesh, or os).

CE399 was designed to be fired from Oswald'southward Carcano at a cage velocity of ii,160 feet per second—far nether the threshold where air resistance could cause its suspension-up. With diminishing velocity , the bullet became far less susceptible to the forces of distortion that could make it elastic (bending but recovering shape), plastic (permanently altering shape), or destruct (fragmenting or coming apart).

Another factor in bullet pattern is its gyroscopic stability —the spin prepare upon it by the lands and grooves of butt riflings—much like a child'due south top or quarterback Tom Brady'due south football laissez passer. One time a bullet is in-flight, it'south governed past gravity, the mediums of resistance, and a peculiarity called ballistic coefficient or its power to overcome medium drag.

The vi.5 mm Carcano bullet has an exceptionally loftier ballistic coefficient based on its heavy mass ( an average of 161 grains ) relative to its small diameter. It's a long, lean missile with an intentionally designed power to overcome its suspension-up yield threshold and pass through mediums like air, cloth, skin, muscle tissue, ribs, wrists, and thighs while remaining intact.

Bullet Terms

Knowing about yield threshold and diminishing velocity are not enough to sympathize how CE399 behaved in the JFK Assassination. Factors like tipping (deflecting from a direct line and altering course), tumbling (going cease-over-finish), y aw  (changing angle in flight), and presentation (going from nose-first to sideways equally presented to a bespeak of contact) all came into play in how CE399 ended up in it'south spent condition.

Victim Alignment

Much has been fabricated of the "Magic Bullet" having to zig-zag in flying to marshal with the wounds evident in Kennedy and Connally. The Oliver Stone moving picture "JFK" was a terrible offender in perpetuating misinformation most how the trajectories were impossible based on the limousine layout.

Stone and other conspiracy theorists failed to written report the seating arrangements where Connally was not straight in front of JFK, rather he was in a jump seat beneath and inward of the President. Taking the true picture, the trajectory in the limo accounts perfectly for the properly recorded wounds.

Sniper's Nest Alignment

Dale Myers is the Emmy-Laurels winning producer of Secrets Of A Homicide where he developed a computer-generated 3D recreation for the 40^thursday anniversary of the JFK Bump-off. Myers took precise measurements of Dealey Plaza and combined them with known photographs and films taken of the murder to recreate exactly what happened.

Myers conclusively demonstrated how all the shots came from the sniper's nest in the Depository, and how the second shot accounted for CE399 's trajectory, diminishing velocity, and how the SBT matches exactly with the frames of the famous 8-millimeter home movie of the assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder.

Zapruder Film

Bated from the ballistic and wound evidence of the Single Bullet Theory, the Zapruder picture show stands equally a timeless witness  every bit to how JFK and Connally were both shot at the aforementioned time.

Zapruder stood on a concrete pedestal most the nefarious Grassy Knoll and activated his camera once the Kennedy motorcade was well into Dealey Plaza on Elm Street, approaching him. With all due respect to Dale Myers, who thought Zapruder defenseless bear witness of the first missed shot on motion picture, this does not appear to exist true and Oswald'southward shot that probably hit the traffic light happened before Zapruder started rolling.

But what Zapruder did capture was conclusive evidence of the simultaneous strike that photographically corroborates the SBT.

It'due south of import to know there are many frames in the "Z" film and that it was shot at 18.3 frames per 2d . There was no sound. Frame 313 is the most sensational—by far—and it show the tertiary 6.five mm Carcano FMJ bullet exceeding its yield threshold by fragmenting and bravado pinkish gray matter into the air. In frame 313, the bullet did exactly what it was constructed to do.

Just, backing-up to frames 223—224, there's a clear picture of ane bullet striking 2 men at the same time.

In Z-223 the limo is seen emerging from backside the Stemmons Expressway sign. Everything's fine, but Connally seems to be looking over his right shoulder to identify the location of the offset gunshot as he said in his Warren Commission testimony.

Z-224 is captured 0.0546 of a second later. Connally's jacket lapel has "flipped" or bulged every bit the bullet passes through him and is exposed as a dark image covering over his white shirt, right where the get out wound on his chest was. His right shoulder is clearly forced forward from the bullet's impact .

By Z-225, the lapel is back to its original shape but Connally'south expression is irresolute and you can just see the commencement image of JFK emerging from the sign with his fists and elbows ascent. The President had already been shot in the dorsum.

Larry Sturdivan's Reconstruction

At that place comes a point in whatever criminal investigation where testify is put before a jury that requires an practiced stance to interpret it. The Kennedy case is no dissimilar. While I have a express amount of recognized expertise in firearms and ballistics, also as far more knowledge about John Kennedy'southward murder than the vast majority of people, I'g going to defer to Larry Sturdivan who truly knows what he's speaking of.

This paraphrases Larry's explanation for how CE399 acted.

"Oswald fired his second shot—a 161 grain, vi.five mm, FMJ Carcano bullet—when the limo was moving directly away from his sight motion-picture show at a combined downward incline of over 21 degrees.

The bullet discharged at 2160 fps and traveled 189 feet through the air, losing 135 fps and hitting Kennedy'due south suit glaze at 2015 fps—staying intact. It entered the soft mediums of cloth and mankind well below the 2400 fps velocity these mediums would need to pause the bullet into pieces. Inside Kennedy's neck, the bullet's strength created a pressure level vacuum chosen a "temporary cavity" which altered its flight form by about 5 degrees upward.

The intact and unaltered bullet cutting through the front of Kennedy'south neck, stretching the peel and—shored by the neckband and necktie—returned to appear as a tiny pigsty, much smaller than its 6.5 mm diameter. It now slowed to effectually 1840 fps and was beginning to tumble, altering its nose from a direct gyroscopic flight path to a sideways presentation.

The bullet hitting Connally'due south armpit in a seventy-degree yaw and left the elongated pigsty in his apparel and skin. Now moving at 1450 fps, right beneath the yield threshold of being broken by os, the bullet presented itself sideways to his rib and permanently deformed into a plastic state, neither pristine nor fragmented, merely the bent and crushed base you come across in CE399'due south photos.

It blew out below Connally's correct nipple in a almost backward position and entered his right wrist at + or – 500 fps with enough free energy left to fracture the radius bone and eolith some pb fragments from the bullet's open up base of operations. It was like squeezing toothpaste from a tube.

With almost no energy remaining—still near total weight and going but 135 fps—information technology cut the Governor's pants and pushed a bit into his left thigh. No wonder information technology fell out, intact."

By now you might buy into the Single Bullet Theory and that CE399 was capable of performing the "magical" feats information technology's accused of. Merely I know you're asking " How practice you show 399—reportedly plant on whatsoever stretcher at Parkland—was the same bullet Oswald fired and did the impairment ?" The proof is in 399'due south molecular composition and what it left behind in John Connally'southward wrist.

Neutron Activation Analysis

NAA is the Deoxyribonucleic acid of the JFK investigation. Unfortunately, Dna was unheard of in 1963 when the stretcher bullet was found. Despite 399's multi-handling, today's Deoxyribonucleic acid sophistication would likely be able to identify Kennedy and Connally genetics on this footling missile if it, in fact, passed through both. That would be the terminate of it—the Single Bullet Theory would be a fact and we could all become domicile.

But wait— genetics isn't the only molecular forensic science available and there's a lot of proof about CE399's validity that turned up in the molecules of metallurgy.

In 1964, the FBI turned to a so-new science of non-destructive testing chosen Neutron Activation Analysis where they took the stretcher bullet,CE399, and Connally's CE842 wrist fragments, and did a chemical signature much the same as today's Dna assay checks for biological signatures.

It was inconclusive.

Merely by 1978, NAA science had advanced and the bullet testify was re-evaluated in the HSCA investigation of the JFK Assassination. The chemical ratio of antimony in CE399's pb core was establish to be so consistent with the antimony in Connally's wrist fragments that the statistical probability of them coming from two dissimilar sources is virtually incommunicable.

In my opinion, the Single Bullet Theory is the single bullet fact and if CE399 behaved in any other way than in what it was designed to practise—and then it really would exist a magic bullet.

*   *   *

Here are links to credible sites with data on the Single Bullet Theory:

Dale Myers – Secrets Of A Homicide Computerized Reconstruction Website Click Here

Dale Myers – Reconstruction Video Click Here

Zapruder Film – Enhanced & Stabilized Click Here

Warren Written report – Affiliate Three –Shots From The Texas School Book Depository Click Here

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Source: https://dyingwords.net/the-magic-bullet-in-the-jfk-assassination/

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