[Ben Holmes]

Dale Hayes Wrote:Connally's back wound was oblong in shape, indicating the bullet was tumbling, after hitting another object first - what object could that be? What would make the bullet tumble?

This is another common factoid rather consistently upheld by believers - yet has no evidential support. One of the best treatments of this factoid was done by Millicent Cranor.

Briefly, the back wound on Connally only measured 1.5 x .8cm, and you should contrast this size with the one in JFK's head, which was 1.5 x .6cm. No-one has ever claimed that the bullet striking JFK's head was tumbling - yet according to these measurements, (and believer's claims) it must have been.

How silly!

Indeed, Dr. Shaw makes it clear in his testimony:

Dr. Shaw Wrote:The wound entrance was an elliptical wound. In other words, it had a long diameter and a short diameter. It didn't have the appearance of a wound caused by a high velocity bullet that had not struck anything else; in other words, a puncture wound. Now, you have to also take into consideration, however, whether the bullet enters at a right angle or at a tangent. If it enters at a tangent there will be some length to the wound of entrance.

That it was a tangential wound comports more closely with the facts... since Dr. Shaw also noted "the neat way in which it stripped the rib out without doing much damage to the muscles that lay on either side of it"... as well as the fact that the bullet "followed the line of declination of the fifth rib"

Even the Warren Commission believed that the bullet must have struck tangential to the body... since the claim was that the angle of the trajectory started at the 6th floor sniper's nest.

So it's time for WCR Supporters to drop this factoid, and stop trying to claim that a tumbling bullet struck Connally...

The evidence simply isn't there.

Or, to be consistent, supporters must assert that JFK was also hit with a tumbling bullet.