JFK RFK MLK Assasination Forum - Archive

GIF Animations of the Zapruder filmSee that JFK never grabs his throat. This is just a myth. His arms fly upward and forward from the impact of the shot is his back. This makes his upper arms fly inwards. His hands never actually reach his throat.See the head snaps forward first (shot from the rear), then is blown back and to the left (shot from the front)

I'm glad to see that there is something we agree upon. Yes, JFK's hands never clutched at his throat, and his arms flew up in response to the shot in the back.However, this begs the question, is this not a very large reaction for a bullet that barely got past the surface of JFK's back?

Not at all, a bullet that only penetrates a few inches, stil causes an enormous slam. It would alo give his spinal column a good drumming, possibly causing a neurologic reflex reaction resulting is his arm movements.

I hunt a lot, and have hunted my entire life. Perhaps you could explain to me how a 162 grain FMJ bullet, with a muzzle velocity of roughly 2200 feet per second, could only cause a shallow wound in JFK's back.P.S.Entering "a few inches" into JFK's back would have put the bullet into the top of JFK's right lung.

Perhaps you could first explain with whom I have the pleasure? What is your last name?

My last name is Prudhomme, or Prud'Homme, as my father spelled it before he left the farm in 1946. I live in western Canada, on the north coast of British Columbia.

I am usually called Bob by my friends, although Robert is the name I was given. You might have seen my posts on some of the other forums.

Although the shallow JFK back wound seems to be an accepted fact amongst JFK researchers, a serious examination of this wound is essential to understanding the assassination, and to understanding JFK's head wound.How do we know JFK had a shallow back wound? We have only one clue. The autopsist Commander Humes attempted to probe the back wound with his little finger, and could not get his finger into the wound even an inch. Sounds perfectly plausible, right? Not really.A 6.5mm Carcano bullet has a diameter of 6.8 mm, or .268 inches. This is just slightly larger than 1/4 inch. A standard pencil is 5/16 inch, or .313 inches, in diameter. In other words, a Carcano bullet is smaller in diameter than a standard yellow pencil.I measured the diameter of my little finger, at the first knuckle, and found it to be almost 3/4 inch in diameter, or almost three times the diameter of a Carcano bullet. Seriously, did Humes really think he was going to get his little finger into the wound right up to the third knuckle? Unless Humes had hands like a four year old girl, I hardly think so.Now, a shallow back wound was a great thing for denying the Single Bullet Theory, as it was easy to dismiss the SBT as impossible if the bullet barely broke the skin. However, in our zeal to deny the SBT, we have blinded ourselves to the true nature of the back wound in the process. Strangely enough, the WC apologists have allowed us this one point, simply for the fact it serves their purposes to do so, and keeps us from digging to deeply into the back wound and revealing its true nature.Here are what I consider to be the important clues thus far, regarding the back wound.1. An overwhelming number of witnesses reported seeing the back entrance wound 5-6 inches below the collar line, at about the level of thoracic vertebra T3, and about 1.5-2 inches to the right of the spinal midline. Coincidentally, this would place the entrance wound directly at the level of the top section of the right lung. This is very important, and will be discussed later.2. Contusion (bruising) of the top of JFK's right lung was reported during the autopsy. Considering the bullet did not penetrate more than an inch, and the C7/T1 vertebral juncture (the site chosen by the WC as the entrance site) is quite far above the apex of the right lung, this in itself is unusual.3. According to ARRB testimony given by Jerrol Custer, the x-ray technician on duty at Bethesda the night of the autopsy, JFK's thoracic organs (heart, lungs) were removed prior to him taking x-rays of JFK's chest AND removed with the majority of staff excluded from the room.4. In his WC testimony, Dr. Marion T. Jenkins gives evidence indicating JFK had something a great deal more serious than a shallow back wound."About this time Drs. Kemp Clark and Paul Peters came in, and Dr. Peters, because of the appearance of the right chest, the obvious physical characteristics of a pneumothorax, put in a closed chest drainage chest tube. Because I felt no peripheral pulse and was not aware of any pulse, I reported this to Dr. Clark and he started closed chest cardiac massage."Once again, I am more than eager to learn how a round nosed FMJ bullet weighing 162 grains, and with a muzzle velocity of roughly 2200 fps, caused only a shallow back wound.

The Mannlicher Carcano fired bullets at 1800 ft per second, not 2200 per second. Fact is that the wound was shallow and caused by a bullet. It is anybody's guess why it did not penetrate deeper. Maybe its velocity was too weak or it hit a rib. Who knows.

dankbaar wrote:The Mannlicher Carcano fired bullets at 1800 ft per second, not 2200 per second. Fact is that the wound was shallow and caused by a bullet. It is anybody's guess why it did not penetrate deeper. Maybe its velocity was too weak or it hit a rib. Who knows.Sorry, I do not know where you get your ballistic information from but, the Carcano bullet is much faster than 1800 fps. When fired from the M91 long rifle, the muzzle velocities approach 2400 fps. The lowest velocities are found, naturally, with the Carcano carbines, at 2000 fps. The rifle found on the 6th floor, an M91/38 short rifle, was test fired by the FBI, and was found to have an average muzzle velocity of 2165 fps; quite what you would expect of this rifle in the condition it was in.However, 1800 fps is still a respectable muzzle velocity, and as the ribs are not particularly thick bones, an FMJ travelling at this velocity should have easily gone through a rib at the back plus a rib at the front, and possibly even through Connally.You have no evidence whatsoever to back up a claim the wound was shallow. There is evidence, though, to support a claim that JFK had a serious lung injury that, in itself, may have proven fatal.P.S.There is no such rifle as a "Mannlicher Carcano". It is properly referred to as a Carcano.