Those mysterious frontal gunmen

[Lance Payette]

Now let’s consider the matter of frontal gunmen in our quest for sane conspiracy thinking …

Ever ponder how much conspiracy thinking – and particularly wild conspiracy thinking – revolves around the existence of frontal gunmen? You know, the Assassin Cops on the triple overpass, Ed Hoffman's Suit Man with a smoky rifle behind the picket fence (or James Files with his Buck Rogers pistol, as the case may be), Badge Man, Black Dog Man, Oatmeal-Faced Alien Man (OK, I just invented him for fun), the Storm Drain Shooter, assorted three-man teams of snipers, spotters and cheerleaders. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s a wonder 30 innocent bystanders weren’t shot in the flurry of hypothesized bullets.

Think how much flows from one or more frontal gunmen and the conspirators’ need to hide the fact that JFK was shot from the front: Alterations to the Z film and other photographic evidence! Body alterations! Fake autopsy photos and X-rays! CIA-issued dissolving ice bullets for the throat wound! Lying doctors! Witness intimidation! Umpteen Mysterious Deaths! False FBI reports! Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man making frantic signals like assassination traffic cops!

What percentage of really wild conspiracy thinking is necessitated solely by frontal gunmen? I don’t know – maybe 75%? Much of it flows backwards – e.g., the Z film was altered to disguise a frontal headshot and, ispo facto, there was a frontal gunman and, ipso facto, James Files was telling the truth.

Let’s step back and ask ourselves what possible sense a frontal gunman would make in a rational conspiracy. What thinking could possibly have led to the use of one or more frontal gunmen?

JFK coming down Houston or going down Elm was a piece-of-cake shot for a competent sniper with a sniper-quality weapon in the Dal-Tex Building or possibly the County Records Building (or the TSBD, of course, but we’ve already decided it makes no sense for anyone other than LHO to be shooting from there). For LHO to be a plausible patsy, our sniper could have been equipped with any 6.5 mm ammunition, possibly even 6.5 Carcano so long as he was sure the gun and scope were accurate. A shot from the Dal-Tex Building could plausibly be attributed to the 6th floor of the TSBD – far more plausibly, certainly, than a shot from the front.

The reality is, the assassination of JFK required, at most, a plausible patsy in the TSBD and a competent sniper in roughly the same vicinity. Absolutely a piece of cake. Clean, tidy, no serious issues, no need for much if anything in terms of a cover-up. (If LHO were wholly innocent, as many CTers speculate, him being a plausible patsy is no simple matter, but we’ll overlook this pesky issue for our purposes here.)

Why, then, MASSIVELY increase the risk and complexity with a frontal gunman at any of the posited locations, thereby necessitating a MASSIVE and almost comically complex cover-up? Does this make any sense at all? Of course, it doesn’t.

The typical justification is that a frontal gunman was some sort of insurance in case the rear gunman (be he LHO or a sniper) failed. The problem being, any shot from the front would tell the world that this was a conspiracy and LHO was not a lone gunman. My first thought was, “Perhaps they hoped the investigators would just assume the frontal gunman was a pro-Castroite like LHO.” This logic works to an extent, but it still precludes Oswald as the lone assassin, opens to the door to a much wider investigation with all the risks this would entail, and fails to account for the MASSIVE efforts at cover-up that most CTers think actually occurred (i.e., if the frontal gunman were a pro-Castroite like LHO, there would be no need to cover up a frontal shot at all).

If the conspirators were concerned about the competence of LHO in the TSBD or their sniper in the Dal-Tex Building, then simply put a second sniper at the rear to be used only if needed. (Does the Mafia use back-up hitmen? Probably not, I would guess.) No sane conspirators – be they CIA, Army Intelligence, Mafia or trained anti-Castro Cubans – would incur the MASSIVE risk and complexity a frontal gunman (or gunmen) would entail. It simply makes no sense at all – does it? And neither does all the wild conspiracy theorizing associated with it – does it?

At an early stage of the Prayer Man brouhaha at the Ed Forum, I was gobsmacked by the whole thing and asked how LHO standing in full view on the steps of the TSBD at the time of the assassination could possibly make sense under any conspiracy scenario. I got precisely one attempt at an explanation. A guy named Sandy explained that the conspirators were “sending a message.” I'm paraphrasing, but the supposed message was basically: “We're so completely in control that we don’t even CARE if our supposed patsy is photographed in full view on the TSBD steps when he is supposed to be on the 6th floor shooting JFK. Don’t mess with people as bad as us, fools.”

This actually made sense to Sandy, hopefully not to you. It was then that the scales fell from my eyes and I realized that those caught up in the Conspiracy Game really don’t even care if what they say makes sense. The trick is to maintain your own common sense, logic and rationality when assessing what they say. I don't feel the need (for example) to agonize over Ed Hoffman and his tale of Suit Man with a smoky rifle (a black powder blunderbuss, perhaps?) because it simply makes no rational sense.

[Royell Storing]

    You will shortly begin to rethink your Frontal Shooter conclusion. The Frontal Shooter murder scene has been altered. And this murder scene alteration was done shortly after the assassination. It is impossible to accurately evaluate a possible frontal shooter(s) when the position of possible shooter(s) with respect to land marks has been erroneous. Over the course of the last year, my research has found that the Gordon Arnold, Black Dog Man, Badge Man, etc murder scene was ALTERED. Much More Later.     

[Tom Graves]

You will shortly begin to rethink your Frontal Shooter conclusion. The Frontal Shooter murder scene has been altered. And this murder scene alteration was done shortly after the assassination. It is impossible to accurately evaluate a possible frontal shooter(s) when the position of possible shooter(s) with respect to land marks has been erroneous. Over the course of the last year, my research has found that the Gordon Arnold, Black Dog Man, Badge Man, etc murder scene was ALTERED. Much More Later.     

LOL!

Good one!

[John Mytton]

There is also some simple logic that can be used.
Over 95% of eyewitnesses say that the shots came from only 1 direction meaning no crossfire.
The echo chamber of Dealey Plaza made some people have difficulty with the precise location but as just explained if shots were coming from either end then that would be immediately obvious but I digress, since the shots came from only 1 direction and since we know that both Connally and Kennedy were shot from behind therefore all shots came from behind!



JohnM

[Lance Payette]

    You will shortly begin to rethink your Frontal Shooter conclusion. The Frontal Shooter murder scene has been altered. And this murder scene alteration was done shortly after the assassination. It is impossible to accurately evaluate a possible frontal shooter(s) when the position of possible shooter(s) with respect to land marks has been erroneous. Over the course of the last year, my research has found that the Gordon Arnold, Black Dog Man, Badge Man, etc murder scene was ALTERED. Much More Later.     

You keep teasing us with your Impending Bombshell. Out with it, my good fellow! Unless the Murder Scene Alteration involved placing everything west of the TSBD somewhere to the east of it via a manipulation of the Space-Time Continuum, I'm guessing the Impending Bombshell won't cause me to rethink my position. But go for it! David Lifton once made sense to me, so you never know what incipient wackiness might be lurking in my genes.

Don't forget that your Bombshell will also need to address how, given a patsy in the TSBD, the Altered Frontal Stuff meshes with common sense, logic and rationality. Even if Black Dog Man was actually standing in the middle of Elm, you'll still need to address the points in my original post.

[Tom Graves]

You will shortly begin to rethink your Frontal Shooter conclusion. The Frontal Shooter murder scene has been altered. And this murder scene alteration was done shortly after the assassination. It is impossible to accurately evaluate a possible frontal shooter(s) when the position of possible shooter(s) with respect to land marks has been erroneous. Over the course of the last year, my research has found that the Gordon Arnold, Black Dog Man, Badge Man, etc murder scene was ALTERED. Much More Later.     

How many bad guys and bad gals do you figure were involved in the wholescale altering, Storing?

Oodles and gobs?

[Lance Payette]

There is also some simple logic that can be used.
Over 95% of eyewitnesses say that the shots came from only 1 direction meaning no crossfire.
The echo chamber of Dealey Plaza made some people have difficulty with the precise location but as just explained if shots were coming from either end then that would be immediately obvious but I digress, since the shots came from only 1 direction and since we know that both Connally and Kennedy were shot from behind therefore all shots came from behind!



JohnM

Right, and this is consistent with what Lee Bowers said - i.e., from his tower, loud noises at the TSBD sounded as though they were emanating either from the TSBD or the triple overpass. I've experienced this phenomenon myself, where you would absolutely swear that loud noises were coming from down the street to your right when they were actually coming from your left - but they didn't sound like they were coming from both directions. The problem is surely exacerbated with high-velocity rifle shots.

[Royell Storing]

  The problem with claiming that ALL shots were fired from the Sniper's Nest is that TSBD employees were streaming back inside that building following the Kill Shot. The vast majority of these employees were watching the motorcade from the Stemmons Sign back up to the steps in front of the TSBD. ALL of these people had no issue with going straight back into this alleged hornet's nest. There is No getting around that. With respect to Lee Bowers, never forget that Bowers gave WC Testimony of seeing a White Shirted Man standing (S) of the E-W section of picket fencing, "in line" with the Triple Underpass. The NIX FILM clearly shows a White Shirted Man running up The Steps immediately following the Kill Shot. None of the 3 Men standing at the bottom of The Steps was wearing a White Shirt. NONE!