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Originally Posted by Lapidator
You keep talking about target range. This is a secondary factor for the ranges involved.
Certainly it is a factor (even if, as you try to claim, it is 'secondary').
Anyone who has either fired a weapon at a a target or is in possession of common sense, knows it is easier to hit a given target if it is closer than if it is farther away.
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Shooting from behind the fence on the GK would be a poor choice for a sniper. The access and cover provided is really not suitable.
By access do you mean ability to get to the place? How hard do you think it is to walk up to a fence?
You think a fence affords less cover than standing in an open window?
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Why is cover important?
Because the shooter needs a considerable amount of time to make the shot happen.
Yes, this would make problems if Oswald was the shooter, since he was working up until a few minutes before the assassination.
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--He has to arrive, with the rifle (or place the rifle in advance) undetected or at least without suspicion.
-- He has to take time to setup (perhaps assemble) his rifle/firearm.
-- He needs a suitable rest location to properly shoot from. This rest may need some adjustment (in real time) or otherwise the shooter may need time to figure out how to suitably use it. This means putting the rifle up in the shooting position for some period of time, risking discovery.
-- He needs to be relatively sure he will not be discovered while he prepares to take the shot. He cannot be looking over his shoulder while he's trying to setup. A spotter can help here, certainly, but this also means more people who risk discovery.
-- His timing needs to be coordinated with the parade procession. Otherwise, he risks arriving too early and being discovered.
All good reasons not to try and conduct a sniper operation in a busy work space.
The TSBD would, on your own reasoning, be one of the worst places for a sniper to shoot from.
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-- His shooting needs to be obscured from observers and bystanders. This is a detail that GK proponents always try to (must?) minimize, and yet it is a critical part. The few dozen people in the photo in post #209 in this thread would have made no mistake at all if a shot was actually fired from the GK area. They would have been able to see the shooter, and the rifle, using the fence as a rest, immediately and clearly. (And, no, a "silencer" would not have helped in this case.)
That might be true, if not for a Presidential motorcade distracting everyone's attention. How many seconds would it take to duck behind cover? Certainly only a few seconds if more than one, meanwhile onlookers might take several seconds to orient themselves to look in an entirely new direction.
The problem with would-be debunkers (aside for being ill-informed) is that they don't apply any critical thinking before declaring their 'theories' to be the one and only truth.
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-- He now needs time to encase or otherwise conceal the rifle and begin to egress the location. Remember though that he just fired, and many observers heads would have snapped around to look in the direction of the shot they heard. So he'd be trying to do this with many eyes directly on him.
If there were a fence -as there was - that would tend to interfere with visual observation from all the people on the other side.
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Conspiracy theories generally ignore the considerable requirement of time that a shooter needs to get set for a shot like this.
Yes, a very good reason not to try and assemble your rifle, construct a 'sniper nest' and all the other stuff you mention on your lunch break where anyone could walk in on you at any time.
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Access is much too open to bystanders and potential interferers. Yes, the shooter needs access for himself. But he also needs that access to be denied to others. Simply having a spotter there with a badge to tell people to scram wouldn't cut it, and in fact, this would have drawn attention to the shooter instead of the desired concealment.
As has been demonstrated, even by your own reasoning the 'Grassy Knoll' would provide ample access, cover, and ease of escape.
Aside from this, since a sniper demands so much time, much more likely someone who wasn't working until the last minute to have done the shooting.