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The X-rays Showed That the Bullet Particles Were From Exploding Ammunition
It was originally researcher Harold Weisberg who proved something very important: The actual X-rays showed the bullet particles fragmented extensively in the President’s head, which means the Mannlicher-Carcano couldn’t have fired the bullet, as a Mannlicher only shoots a full metal jacketed bullet. All military weapons by NATO and the Geneva Convention—like the Mannlicher—are not allowed to shoot fragmented bullets from them. So the bullet out of the weapon would have to be a full metal jacket bullet, which does not break into pieces. So with Kennedy’s actual X-rays showing particles of bullets, that tells you that the bullet was not from that gun!
The conclusion to reach from that is very simple: The bullet that hit President Kennedy in the head could not have come from the crime scene rifle that they said they linked to Oswald.
Other scientific studies substantiate the fragmentation. First of all, listen to the exact words of one of JFK’s morticians, Tom Robinson, when testifying to Congress about that fatal bullet:
[Robinson said] that ‘It exited in many pieces,’ and then explained, ‘They were literally picked out, little pieces of this bullet from all over his head.’ In further support, moreover, we can go back to the statements of autopsy assistant James Curtis Jenkins and recall that in the exact spot where he claimed the doctors discovered a gray discoloration of the skull, Dr. Davis saw metallic fragments, which he assumed were in the scalp. A gray discoloration of the skull of course suggests the presence of lead. Lead is of course a metal. Two plus two equals four.
When one realizes that the largest fragments of an exploding bullet travel the furthest, and that the two largest fragments discussed at the autopsy were on the opposite ends of Kennedy’s skull and equidistant from our proposed entrance, and adds this to the fact that, defying expectation, there were no small fragments surrounding the supposed in-shoot in the cowlick, then one should rightly conclude that the lateral x-ray demonstrates convincingly that a bullet broke up near the site of the supposed out-shoot, above the right ear.339
Fragmenting bullets that explode on impact—also known as “frangible” bullets or “hot loads”—are not consistent with the rifle alleged to be used in the assassination. “Oswald’s rifle”—as the authorities liked to call it—was not of the type that handled frangible ammo.
But numerous bullet fragments were found inside the President’s limo; some that were standard ammo, others that were apparently from frangible bullets.
Another factor—the measure of velocity of the shots—also shows that they are two different weapons.
Professor Jim Fetzer proved all of this in a scientific study of the weapons and the ammo. Here were his findings:
•The weapon that Oswald is alleged to have used could not have fired the bullets that killed JFK: the carbine was not a high-velocity weapon.
•Everyone, including [Gerald] Posner, agrees that the muzzle velocity of the Mannlicher-Carcano was 2,000 fps (feet per second). The death certificates, autopsy report, and Warren Commission declared he was killed by the impact of high-velocity bullets. High velocity would be 2,600 fps and up.
•The shot striking the right forehead was from a frangible or ‘exploding’ bullet, as evidenced by the extensive shockwaves of damage through the brain; Oswald’s bullets were standard copper-jacketed military ammunition which could not have inflicted frangible damage.340
So “Oswald’s rifle” could not have inflicted the specific type of damage present in the President’s wounds, and “Oswald’s bullets” could not have caused that specific type of damage or have left the type of bullet fragmentation that was found in that car.
339 Patrick J. Speer, A New Perspective on the John F. Kennedy Assassination (PatSpeer.com: 2007): patspeer.com/chapter18%3Ax-rayspecs
340 Belzer & Wayne, Hit List, 109, citing James H. Fetzer Ph.D., Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn’t Know Then (Open Court: 2000); James H. Fetzer Ph.D., “JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t,” June 17, 2010, retrieved 10 May 2013: lewrockwell.com/spl2/jfk-rfk-plots.html