I have read only one Stephen King book – 11/22/63. It’s not his usual horror story, but a time travel about a man who goes back to try to stop the assassination of JFK. It is a good synopsis of the literature surrounding the assassination – kind of a revamp of the Warren Commission – with all the known characters.

In his book, Lee Harvey Oswald is the lone killer. It makes for a good story, and it completely held my attention, although I disagree that LHO was the only shooter, if in fact, he was one at all.

My reason for doubting this is my experience shooting a scoped rifle. When you fire a scoped rifle, the recoil takes you off target, and you have to reacquire the target for your next shot, and you have to action the bolt to load the next round. According to the Warren Commission, LHO fired three shots in six seconds, at a 45 degree down angle (which changes the ballistics), at a moving target partially obscured by trees, up to 80 yards away.

The Commission asked the Army’s and the Marine’s best riflemen to recreate that feat, and they could not do it. In addition, it was discovered that his rifle had a misaligned scope.

The conclusion from the Commission: the proof that LHO could do it was that he did it.

The purpose of the Warren Commission was to reassure the American people that the assassination was the work of a lone gunman, and not a conspiracy. They succeeded.

I read one of Stephen King’s books, Night Shift, which is a collection of short stories. King’s stories so creeped me out that I decided then and there not to bother. That book kept me a wake at night.

There is a game called “JFK Reloaded” which invites you to try to duplicate Oswald’s alleged shots.

You are at an upper floor window at the South end of the Texas Book Depository building facing East. The Presidential limousine will come South on North Record Street (a block away to the East) and then turn onto Elm Street and drive slowly East to West, directly towards you. When it reaches your street corner (Elm & Houston), it will turn South on Houston, speed up and drive away from you.

Obviously, it would be much easy to shoot accurately as the limo come toward you slowly. Once it turns and speeds up, it is practically impossible to make the three historic shots.

The one detail I forgot to mention in my above post was that of the three shots, two were hits – on a target about the size of, say, a gallon milk jug.