The gun: A "biography" of the gun that killed John F. Kennedy

by Henry S. Bloomgarden

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670357634
• ISBN13: 9780670357635
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Grossman Publishers
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Lee Harvey Oswald's Rifle -- Stolen By Evil Conspirators? Or Was It In Oswald's Own Hands On 11/22/6

Once upon a time, a JFK conspiracy theorist asked the following question: >>> "If someone steals my rifle and then kills someone, my fingerprints are on it, but does that prove that I was the killer?" <<< <br /> <br />To which I now reply..... <br /> <br />If a rifle YOU own is used in a crime, the odds are certainly in favor of YOU, the owner of said weapon, being the killer. You're certainly the #1 prime suspect, that's for sure. Why wouldn't you be? <br /> <br />Mere ownership of a rifle doesn't prove you killed a person with said weapon, true. But nobody can possibly deny that the sheer ODDS are in favor of you (the weapon's rightful owner) being the actual killer. <br /> <br />And you'll need to do a lot more work to establish the FACT that your rifle was stolen. An accused killer saying to the cops (or to a jury) that he thinks his rifle was stolen by some unknown person or persons isn't gonna cut it. And I think the "Stolen Rifle" defense is even a tougher road to hoe in the JFK murder case than most conspiracy theorists seem to want to admit. <br /> <br />The known storage location of Lee Harvey Oswald's one and only rifle in the weeks leading up to President Kennedy's assassination on 11/22/63 was Ruth Paine's garage in Irving. There were no signs of any "theft" or "break in" at the Paine house at any time in the weeks prior to Nov. 22. <br /> <br />Now, I suppose it's true that some clever thief could have slipped in and out of Mrs. Paine's garage, totally undetected, and made off with the rifle. But there is absolutely no hard evidence at all to indicate that such a theft took place at the Paine house in late 1963. <br /> <br />The totality of circumstantial "rifle" evidence in the JFK case certainly does not indicate a "theft" carried out by conspirators wishing to frame Oswald -- but, instead, this evidence tells a reasonable person that Lee Oswald, himself, took that rifle from a rolled-up blanket in the Paine garage either on the night of Nov. 21 or the early morning of Nov. 22. <br /> <br />Oswald's OWN LIES that he told later about the "package" and his rifle-ownership status are telling a reasonable person that Oswald desired to distance himself from any "long, bulky package" and ANY "rifle" that he owned whenever he was questioned about those items by the authorities. <br /> <br />And why would Oswald NEED to "distance" himself from EITHER of those items if he merely was hauling innocent "curtain rods" to work on the morning of Nov. 22nd (as he twice told fellow Book Depository worker Wesley Frazier)? <br /> <br />The answer is, of course, quite an obvious one. <br /> <br />Heck, Oswald himself didn't even bother to use the "Somebody Stole My Rifle" alibi....which actually would have been a far better alibi for him to try to use instead of denying ownership of a weapon that he has got to KNOW will be traced to him very quickly. For Pete's sake, he knows he had the gun shipped to a P.O. Box where he received mail. <br /> <br />

The MUST read....

If you are a serious investigator into the JFK-assassination this is the book on the history of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. In my work with the rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald, I have used this book a lot. My advice; buy it...

History of John F. Kennedy assassination rifle, and far more

This book (once available as hardcover, 1975, and as paperback, 1976) sets out to explore the history of one specific old military rifle: the one Carcano short rifle, Fucile Modello 91/38, in 6,5 x 52 mms, serial number C 2766, that was (according to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations) used to assassinate US president John F. Kennedy in Dallas, in 1963. Such monographic studies of the history of a single firearms are already rare. But what makes this book unique and worthwhile reading, is that its author succeeds in presenting his (painstakingly collected) information in a much larger coherent framework. We not only learn about the maker back in 1940 (the Italian government state arsenal in Terni, north of Rome), but also about the use of Carcanos in World War II, about the colourful history surplus firearms trade back in the 1950s and 1960s, about trade customs and fraud. We get to know the name and life story of the Italian gunsmith, Luciano Riva, who reworked the Carcano rifles before they were exported, and how he was cheated by his US corporate partners, and went ill and bankrupt over this. Altogether, a gun packed full with historical information, of interest not only to the "JFK assassination buff" (who will learn a great deal about things otherwise not covered by pro- and anti-conspiracy authors), but for everybody interested in the lore and history of military firearms. The book is entertaining and far from dry.