the mannlicher carcano

[Bernice Moore]

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/gtds.html

It is well-known that the rifle allegedly used as the murder weapon was identified as a 6.5 millimeter caliber, Italian-made, bolt-action, military rifle called a Mannlicher-Carcano, after its two inventors. It is largely unknown that during WWII, it was one of only two military-use rifles in the world that fed a cartridge into the chamber from a clip. The other was the M-1 Garand. The difference between the two is that the clip on the M-1 Garand ejects when the last round is fired, while on the Carcano the clip ejects when the last round is chambered. "In the clip system, the clip remains attached to the rounds on loading and forms an essential part of the magazine system, a follower forcing the rounds out of the clip and presenting them in turn to the bolt for loading."8 According to the Warren Report, when the weapon allegedly used to kill the President was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), one cartridge remained, and it was in the chamber.9 Therefore, if operating properly, the rifle had automatically ejected the clip. The Warren Commission reported, however, that when the rifle was found, it contained a clip.10 Firearms experts for the HSCA explained the discrepancy. On September 8, 1978, Monty C. Lutz of the Committee's firearms panel, was asked about this by Pennsylvania Representative Robert W. Edgar.

Mr. Edgar. The cartridge clip was removed from CE-139 by Lieutenant Day of the Dallas Police Department on November 22, 1963 at the crime laboratory for the police department. Shouldn't a clip automatically fall out once the last cartridge has fed into the chamber? Mr. Lutz. This rifle is designed to incorporate that feature so that the last cartridge is stripped out of the clip, then that allows the clip itself to fall or to drop from the opening that you see in the bottom of the box magazine. However, in many cases, and in this particular case, where we functioned the rifle, fed cartridges through it, we found this clip to stay in the rifle after the last round had been stripped and fed into the chamber. Because the lips or the edges of the clip many times will open up, they will spring against the walls on the inside of the box magazine and it will hang up in that areaa [sic], and even though it is supposed to drop out, many times it will hang up in the box area.11

That explanation seems reasonable enough. But it is not. It is true that the clip must be deformed to have any chance of getting as stuck as this one. But once bent, it stays bent. Commission Exhibits (CEs) 574 and 575 are photographs of the alleged clip in its normal, unbent condition. And five years after the HSCA reported the clip deformed, Life magazine photographer Michael O'Neill photographed it in normal condition for Life's November 1983 issue.12 According to assassination researcher and author J.W. Hughes, who has tested this deformation over fifty times on each of his seven Mannlicher-Carcanos, "When deformed, it will not hold the rounds because the locking ridge is spread too wide to hold the round and the weapon jams."13 The Warren Commission was apparently silent about whether expert riflemen from the U.S. Army and FBI had such difficulty firing the alleged murder weapon in 1964, and whether it was fired with its alleged clip. Whether or not those marksmen used the original clip, they were required to use any test clip in the original's apparent "found" condition, i.e., deformed. Anyone could have tested the clip by duplicating its required abnormal behavior, and can still. But CBS News, which claimed to "duplicate the conditions of the actual assassination" in its filmed rifle test in 1967, did not. According to reporter Dan Rather, "Eleven volunteer marksmen took turns firing clips of three bullets each at the moving target." They fired a total of thirty-seven three-round series, seventeen of which resulted in unfired bullets due to "trouble with the rifle." Clip problems or not, all data from those seventeen troubled series was disregarded by CBS analysts. It was the other series of shots, however, with properly emptied and ejected clips, deemed worthy of analysis by CBS, that should have been disqualified. In the CBS film, clips can be seen flying out of the gun so fast as to be a blur.14 If a test clip is not bent, or ejects, or moves at all, Oswald's alleged feat is not duplicated, invalidating the test. The HSCA firearms panel seemed not to be interested in this phenomenon, since it did not test the clip under firing conditions. Congressman Edgar learned about the defect from Mr. Lutz when he asked for details about their firing test:

Mr. Lutz. This was a single cartridge being inserted into the chamber and firing into a cotton waste recovery box...backing away from the box, a foot or two, and pointing the muzzle into the box and then firing into it, in order to recover the projectile. Mr. Edgar. But you weren't firing with clip -- using the clip, were you? Mr. Lutz. No sir; I did not. Mr. Edgar. Did anyone on the panel fire with the clip in? Mr. Lutz. I do not believe so; no, sir. Mr. Edgar. What was the reason for that? Mr. Lutz. There were no particular markings that we were able to identify as having come from the clip, nor were we checking for time firing or sequential firing in any way in that respect.15

Under the heading "Findings and Conclusions of the Firearms Panel Concerning the Kennedy Assassination," we learn that, "Two bullets were test-fired into a horizontal water recovery tank. Further tests were conducted by loading four cartridges into the CE 375 [sic] cartridge clip and inserting it into the magazine of the rifle. The cartridges were worked through the rifle's mechanism and ejected without being fired. When the last cartridge was chambered, the cartridge clip remained in the magazine instead of falling out as it is designed to do."16 Given Mr. Lutz's "the clip many times will open up" statement, this result demands further explanation. "Many times will" also means "many times won't." Metal expands when heated and can alter its shape. But during the HSCA tests of the loading mechanism, the rifle should have been cool. In addition, CE 541 (3), a photograph of the clip stuck in the magazine reproduced on page 83 of the Warren Report, shows it in a cool rifle. Surely the rifle had not been fired for some time before that photography session. Is Lutz suggesting that the clip's sides spring out when cool and then return to a normal shape in the heat of firing? If such a violation of the laws of physics occurs with this rifle and clip, how then could the rifle have "contained a clip" when found? Also, the HSCA's explanation does not explain what happened after the rifle was found. Over at least the next twenty-four hours, the Dallas Police Department reported, and left uncorrected, descriptions that remain a paradox to this day. Early news reports seemed to identify the murder weapon as anything but a 6.5 mm. Mannlicher-Carcano. NBC and WBAP radio identified it as a British Enfield .303. KLIF radio said it was a 7.65 German Mauser. KRLD radio announced that the rifle was "presumed to be a .25 caliber high powered Army or Japanese rifle." Radio station KBOX reported a German Mauser or a Japanese rifle. Dallas television station WFAA described it as three different kinds of Mauser: a "German Mauser," a 6.5 "Argentine Mauser" with a four-power scope, and a 7.65 "Mauser." Dallas NBC-affiliate television station WBAP's continuous coverage between 12:56 p.m. and 5:26 p.m. Central Standard Time (C.S.T.) reveals that the "conflicting reports" of the rifle's make evolved from the first (British .303) to the last (7.65 Mauser) in a very short time frame between 2:14 and 2:24.17 Despite the fact that the alleged murder weapon that allegedly belonged to Oswald reportedly was clearly stamped "Made Italy" and "Cal. 6.5," local authorities and the media seemed to finally agree that it was a 7.65 German-made Mauser. Had as few as two different descriptions continued to dominate news reports the rest of the day, one of them being an Italian, or a clip-fed weapon, an argument could be made for confusion. But that is not what happened. The supposed murder weapon was not "called...most everything," as Captain Will Fritz testified.18 Initial descriptions quickly gave way to a short-lived consensus for a 7.65 German Mauser, not further confusion. Probably due to the earlier conflicting reports, reporters remained skeptical. But they asked if it was a Mauser, and were told, tacitly at least, that it was. As different as these early descriptions seemed from each other and from the weapon the Warren Commission finally chose, there is one difference they all have in common. It is the one difference from the Mannlicher-Carcano they all share. It is the key to the conspiracy. None of them can use an ammunition clip. The early critics of the Warren Commission who dealt directly with the rifle descriptions and clip problems, including Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg and Sylvia Meagher, missed this particular paradox. Since the mid-seventies, most of the clip and rifle problems have been recognized by gun experts and many researchers, including Gary Shaw, Mary Ferrell, Jack White and George Michael Evica. But the fact that there is only one other clip system with which the Mannlicher-Carcano's can be confused (the significance of which is explained below), and the absolute impossibility of confusing a Mannlicher-Carcano for any rifle but that one, seem to have been completely overlooked. In the case of Meagher, it was a near miss. She was aware of a lack of direct evidence that a clip was found at the crime scene. The Texas Department of Public Safety official "Evidence Sheet" lists the incriminating evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald in detail. The number of spent shells found at the crime scene even changed from "(2)" to an obviously distorted "(3)" by the time the Warren Commission published the list, but no clip was ever accounted for.19 The FBI Laboratory Report from J. Edgar Hoover to Police Chief Jesse Curry the day after the assassination itemizes and numbers everything from metal fragments to a belatedly identified rifle. But the clip is not listed or numbered. It is mentioned only in passing as part of a group of things without fingerprints.20 Meagher even wrote, referring to testimony about confusion over the clip, "It is another coincidence, one supposes, that someone has mistaken a six-shot clip for a clip suitable to a Mauser, just as the Carcano was taken for a Mauser."21 This unfortunate statement may have ended further questions before they could be asked. Mausers are loaded from a "charger" (a.k.a. "stripper clip") which must be discarded after loading. While it is sometimes called a "clip," a charger has a completely different function. Meagher fell for FBI weapons expert Robert Frazier's subtle testimony. The question asked of Frazier was, "Is there any reason that you can think of why someone might call that a five-shot clip?" Frazier answered, "No, sir, unless they were unfamiliar with it. There is an area of confusion in that a different type of rifle shooting larger ammunition, such as a 30.06 or a German Mauser rifle, uses five-shot clips, and the five-shot clip is the common style or size of clip, whereas this one actually holds six."22 Frazier limited his answer to unfamiliarity with the clip itself. The full answer reveals the deception. The confusion is over the term, not the function. How could weapons expert Frazier not know this? Confusing a charger with a clip is only possible through complete and total ignorance of the way rifles are loaded. And that irrefutable fact leads, as the reader will see, to conclusive proof of conspiracy in the JFK assassination.23 Many questions about other rifles at the crime scene have been raised, and some of them answered conclusively, by JFK assassination researchers over the years.24 Oswald and his fellow employees had even seen a Mauser at the TSBD in the possession of their supervisor, Roy Truly, just two days before the assassination.25 But had the critics known about the charger-clip discrepancy, they might have asked, along with questions about other rifles, slightly different questions: Why would a description of a superficially similar but non-clip-fed rifle prevail for at least twenty-four hours (and at most three days) after a clip-fed rifle became the most important piece of evidence? Was it because it prevented questions from being asked about ammunition clips? Why avoid such questions? Was it because no clip was found with the gun? Did the crime scene investigators replace the clip? Why would the crime-scene investigators lie and fabricate evidence to hide a rifle's normal firing condition? Did they confuse the Mannlicher-Carcano's feeding system with that of the more familiar M-1 Garand, thinking it needed a clip if a round was in the chamber? Did they know, therefore, that the rifle was planted? And if they knew that, did they knowingly help frame Lee Harvey Oswald? Things might have been very different had Mark Lane known to ask these questions when he brought the Mauser description to the Commission's attention on March 4, 1964. This analysis does not exculpate Lee Harvey Oswald. Nor does it conclusively indict other individuals. But if this analysis is correct, it does conclusively prove conspiracy. And it serves to remind us that, in this time of new evidence produced through technology and file declassification, nothing is wrong with the old evidence. A hard question we must ask -- and answer for our children -- is why it took us so long. That delay caused great damage they will have to undo. In our search for a smoking gun, we missed the real prima facie evidence -- the gun that didn't smoke. Let us begin again. * * *"NO MORE SHELLS IN THE MAGAZINE"
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important." This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.
-- William James, 1897 As trial jurors are reminded daily, evidence tampering can be inferred from an absence of evidence which is reasonably expected to exist, and, conversely, from the existence of evidence which is reasonably expected to be absent. Inference is the essence of circumstantial evidence, one of three major classifications of evidence. The other two major classifications are direct evidence and real evidence. The essence of direct evidence is that it directly establishes a main fact or element of the crime. It may be an actual object or an immediate experience on the part of a witness. Items of real evidence, the focus of our discussion here, are tangible objects which prove or disprove the facts at issue. Real evidence is self-explanatory. It may be either direct (e.g., an actual gun seen and collected) or circumstantial (e.g., a gun not seen or collected but inferred from established facts such as its visual and auditory effects). But real evidence needs only to be identified in court, not explained. Fingerprints and blood stains are other examples of real evidence. The most important real evidence is corpus delicti evidence. It consists of objects and substances which are an essential part of the body of a crime, such as a gun used to commit a murder. Investigators at a crime scene are therefore chiefly responsible for the discovery and preservation of corpus delicti evidence.