Gunning for Bobbie Clark
I was a bit disappointed in Bobbie Clarks response to my "Bowling for Bobbie"
letter to the editor. At any rate here is the reply. To make this easier and for
continuity, I am reprinting his article as a reference, with my follow up in
italics/bold/blue.
Reprinted for reference only:
Bowling for the NRA - by Bobbie J. Clark (credit: Jennings Daily News - February 1, 2004)
Let's talk about one of my favorite movies, "Bowling for Columbine". Director
Michael Moore won a Best Documentary Academy Award for the Movie in 2003.
The motion picture academy placed his movie in the
"Documentary" category, in spite of the misleading production. It was a
fictional documentary! It's award does not give it credibility no more than the Oliver
Stone movie JFK, in 1991 gave factual credibility to the conspiracy theory of the JFK
assasination. It too won an academy award, .
It poignantly discusses the obsession America has with guns. In
the movie, Moore is seen visiting with victims of the Columbine tragedy and with the
National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston. It
also has an obsession with drugs, sex, rock and roll, violence just to name a few. America
receives a daily dose of violence from Hollywood (Michael Moore types) who's central theme
is "be paranoid", "get even with them", "death is a trivial
thing", "get them before they get you"!
The movie is a stirring tribute to how guns have had an effect on our society. "How about a stirring movie on how movies/music/news have
an effect on our society."
I have come under fire of late because I used facts from this movie to portray a point.
One person even said the movie was a propogating lie. Facts
don't come from movies. The editing was obvious. Can't believe you didn't see it! In one
speech by Charlton Heston we were to believe it was all one speech yet in mid speech he
changed cloth's?
If Moore was fabricating the information in the movie, then why hasn't the NRA sued him? "First Amendment, same reason people don't sue your newspaper more often!"
As far as the NRA and KKK connection, so what if Union soldiers founded the NRA. ( Okay...using your deductive reasoning skills, then so what if there is an NRA / KKK connection. It doesn't prove anything either, but there is no proven connection between the NRA and KKK anyway. My explanation makes it less plausible than YOUR reasoning does.") On it's own that fact doesn't discredit a connection between the two entities. Neither does your statement GIVE IT credibility! For liberal thinkers, one could infer since the Emancipation Proclomation freed slaves, many white slave owners, or non-slave owners, would be afraid that the harsh treatment of slaves would give them reason to retaliate. (This was a poor analogy, if that is what it was supposed to do. I have read it several times and still don't understand it!)
It's not far fetched by any means. (Yes it is! It is far fetched to believe that Confederates and Union soldiers shortly after the war got together to go after the black man. You see....during the civil war it was the south that resisted the changes to slavery among other things.) It is a theory, and like evolution, you can choose to believe or not. (I choose not to believe either. If there were supportable facts on either, I might change my mind though. So far you haven't done it) So please allow me this opportunity to rehash some more NRA history with our readership.
In the early 1900's the NRA started it campaign against gun control, even going as far as saying the automobile was the cause of crime because of the ability for criminals to get away faster. (OH MY GOD! Your kidding right? It was the death statistics they were using. Read your own next sentence...better yet! Comprehend it!)
In 1934, in front of Congress, NRA President Karl Frederick said
"automobile owners are...as a class, a much more criminal body, from the standpoint
of percentage, than pistol licensee's. ( In other
words statistically speaking automobiles, at the time, accounted for more deaths than
handguns).
Those 1934 hearings were in response to the wave of violence that accompanied Prohibition,
as well as the interstate bank robbery spree's of such criminals as John Dillinger. This,
coupled with an assasination attempt on President-elect Franlin Roosevelt in Miami the
year before, increased pressure for federal gun controls. Despite their ludicrous defense,
the NRA still won a small victory for gun owners when handguns were stripped from the
original bill. "The crimes you mentioned were
perpetrated by violent individuals for whatever sorted reason, wouldn't it be more
plausible to have stricter controls on violent individuals?"
Gun Control kept quiet for over three decades, until the assasination of president John F. Kennedy on 11/22/63. Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assasin, had purchased the gun used to kill Kennedy through an ad placed in the NRA's American Rifleman Magazine. (Okay...here is your parallel between the NRA and the JFK assassination. I knew you would get around to it. So the NRA shares responsibility? So does that mean when a person runs an ad in the Jennings Daily News and that ad is fraudulent or if someone sells a gun and it is used in a crime that the Jennings Daily News is responsible?)
The ad read: Late Issue! 6.5 Italian Carbine. Only 36"
overall, weighs only 5 1/2 lbs. Shows only slight use, lightly oiled, test fired and head
spaced, ready for shooting. Turned down bolt, thumb safety, 6-shot, clip fed, Rear down
sight. Fast loading and Fast firing.
Here is Chapter IV of the Official Warren
report. Read this and come back to continue!
As you have just read from the Official Warren Report. Lee Harvey Oswald odered the rifle through an ad in a magazine. He did not buy the gun from the NRA but rather from Klein's Sporting Goods Co., of Chicago, Ill. It was shipped to the Post Office who by the way did not verify his name. That's how Oswald was able to use the name of Dr. A. Hidell. Look at the Warren report and consider all the players. We have Cresent Firearms Inc., Klein's sporting Goods, the Italian Armed Forces Intelligence Service, the NRA, the US Military that gave him training. He was a communist sympathizer, so maybe he received training in Russia and Cuba. , we also have the gunsmith at Klein's who mounted the scope and last but not least the US Postal Service who didn't even bother verifying the 36" Long package weighing 5 1/2 pounds, going to a person who's identity they did not verify. Out of all this you have deducted that the NRA is totally responsible, simply because of a Klein's sporting goods ad (coupon) in an NRA magazine. That is a brilliant opinion! This will make me look at advertisments in your newspaper in a whole new way!
In it's beginnings, the NRA championed itself as an organization for marksmen. And they got one in Oswald. (The NRA didn't train Oswald to become that marksman.....then why should the NRA get the credit for it. Was it because of the Klein ad that appeared in the magazine? Who trained him? Cuba, Russia, the US military? I don't buy into much of the conspiracy theories on the JFK assasination, but there are still alot of unanswered questions?)
The book "NRA: Money, Firepower and Fear", by Josh Sugarmann, reads, "According to journalist Rober Sherrill, in his 1973 book, "The Saturday Night Special", the NRA not only facilitated Oswald's gun purchase, but also aided in the development of the ammunition that would make this notoriously inaccurate gun more effective. So if a person sells a gun in the want ads in your newspaper and that gun is used in the commission of a crime, then the JDN has facilitated the crime? I didn't know that's how it worked!!!
During WWII, the US seized huge numbers of the rifles. When the
government later decided to give a quantity of the guns to Greek anti-Communists, it
worked with the NRA at Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Grounds to develop higher quality
ammunition that would improve the gun's accuracy. "After
the war ended, U.S. aid continued to upgrade the arms of the Greek Army. By 1950 159,990
American small arms including Garands, Thompsons, Carbines, Browning M1917A1, M1919A4 and
A6, BAR's and M1911A1 pistols had been supplied. In 1953 the M1 Garand became more common
and eventually was the standard rifle of the Regular Army for many years. The No.4 Enfield
remained in active service at least through the 1970's with the Army and Reserves, and
into the 1980's with Police. The Mannlicher Schonauers were withdrawn and sold off circa
1959 by which time all other types except the M1 and No.4 were out of service.M1 Garrands.
The rifle you are referring to was pulled from service, by the Greek's because
it was "undesireable" in 1948.
Click here to learn about Greek arms used - source: http://www.carbinesforcollectors.com/Greek.html
Please give this some thought. Why would the US, invite the NRA to it's military facility
to develop high quality ammunition that would improve the accuracy of a gun that was a
piece of junk for military purposes? This is a weapon that nobody wanted...specifically
the Greeks, who removed the firearm from service already in the late 1940's. They had the
cream of the crop using the M1 Garrand. Why would they want anything else. By the time JFK
was shot the Greeks were using the 7.62mm round not the 6.5 as you claim. When the US arms
countries to fight anti-communists, it does not do it with Greek firearms. It does
it with American Arms. If the NRA did meet with government officials at Aberdeen to work
on improving the accuracy of this gun, your source of information must have stumbled upon
a new element in the JFK assasination plot! They would have no other reason to do so!
"Some of the ammo eventually made it's way into the US
market and into Oswald's hands. The 6.5 round was
already in the US market and could be purchased.
When NRA executive VP Franklin Orth told this story to a Senate staffer in the 1960's, he
added, "Please don't tell anybody because we don't want to be hung with having been
involved in producing the ammunition that killed the President. "Hmmm".
Yeah, and I'm sure that can be substantiated by
recorded documents. The statement cannot be proven or disproved so it has to be taken at
face value. Oh! I'm sure the NRA EVP Franklin Orth was in the habit of making daming
comments against himself to a low ranking senate staffer. Maybe he told the cook & the
doorman, while he was blabbing! Unnamed sources are not credible!. You have nothing as
proof, so you should not regurgitate it! "In the 1960's? That covers a 10 year
span...maybe he said it in 1960 before JFK was assasinated. Point is you could have at
least made up a specific date to make it more believable.
Finally after the assasinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin
Luther King Jr., the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 became the first
firearms control bill to pass out of committe since 1938. And to think, it only took the
murders of two civil rights leaders. Millions
died in automobile accidents before legislation was passed that required people to wear
seatbelts....what's your point?
Now I could go into the massive lobbying campaigns and membership drives the NRA launched
in the 70's and 80's but then we wouldn't have room to run the "Bowling for Bobbie
Clark" Letter to the Editor. For what?
To prove how gullible you really are. I think that has been established!
It is painfully obvious that you have a liberal
political mindset. The liberal political agenda, supported by the Democratic party, is and
has been running the county even before you were just a fetus. It is the driving force
behind our culture. That is undisputeable. Forget about Supreme Court Justice's,
Republican presidents etc. etc. Focus for a minute on the Hollywood left, the
environmental movement, animal rights activism and all the "ism's" of our time.
This is what has been in place since the 60's. Take a look at how accountability has
changed and in the direction that it has gone. Gangs are allowed to exist because
"it's the only family they have", according to the liberal mindset. . In the
1980's, marijuana was sprayed with a defoliant "paraquat". The defoliant was
toxic when smoked. What was the liberal solution? Send in a sample of your marijuana for
testing without risk of arrest. Free needles! free condoms! Your not responsible for
your actions someone else is....That's a dangerous idea for young people. There is a
dangerous mindset being taught in our schools, our colleges and in every form of media
known to man. The way we have been living has been the liberal way.
The largest focus on the Columbine tragedy has been the weapons used, and not on the
individuals and what drove them to it. What created those monsters? Was it violent
television coupled with discord at home? Were they a product of being latch-key kids? Was
it a combination of things? According to the left.....it was the guns that caused that
tragedy....and that's it!
The right has it's extremists and so does the left and neither is healthy for the country. You should not pretend that only the right has it's extremists.
Let's not get too uptight about this....It's just a political discussion on one of the hot topics of our time.
Joe
Shortly after the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was found on the sixth floor of the Texas
School Book Depository Building, agents of the FBI learned from retail outlets in Dallas
that Crescent Firearms, Inc., of New York City, was a distributor of surplus Italian
6.5-millimeter military rifles. During the evening of November 22, 1963, a review of the
records of Crescent Firearms revealed that the firm had shipped an Italian carbine, serial
number C2766, to Klein's Sporting Goods Co., of Chicago, Ill. After searching their
records from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. the officers of Klein's discovered that a rifle bearing
serial number C2766 had been shipped to one A. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex.,
on March 20, 1963. (See Waldman Exhibit No. 7, p. 120.) According to its microfilm
records, Klein's received an order for a rifle on March 13, 1963, on a coupon clipped from
the February 1963 issue of the American Rifleman magazine. The order coupon was signed, in
hand printing, "A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas." (See Commission
Exhibit No. 773, p. 120.) It was sent in an envelope bearing the same name and return
address in handwriting. Document examiners for the Treasury Department and the FBI
testified unequivocally that the bold printing on the face of the mail-order coupon was in
the hand printing of Lee Harvey Oswald and that the writing on the envelope was also his.
Oswald's writing on these and other documents was identified by comparing the writing and
printing on the documents in question with that appearing on documents known to have been
written by Oswald, such as his letters, passport application, and endorsements of checks.
(See app. X, p. 568-569.) In addition to the order coupon the envelope contained a. U.S.
postal money order for $21.45, purchased as No. 2, 202, 130, 462 in Dallas, Tex., on March
12, 1963. The canceled money order was obtained from the Post Office Department. Opposite
the printed words "Pay To" were written the words "Kleins Sporting
Goods," and opposite the printed word "From" were written the words
"A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915 Dallas, Texas." These words were also in the
handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald.(See Commission Exhibit No. 788, p. 120.) From Klein's
records it was possible to trace the processing of the order after its receipt. A bank
deposit made on March 13, 1963, included an item of $21.45. Klein's shipping order form
shows an imprint made by the cash register which recorded the receipt of $21.45 on March
13, 1963. This price included $19.95 for the rifle and the scope, and $1 for postage and
handling. The rifle without the scope cost only $12.78.
According to the vice president of Klein's, William Waldman, the scope was mounted on the
rifle by a gunsmith employed by Klein's, and the rifle was shipped fully assembled in
accordance with customary company procedures. The specific rifle shipped against the order
had been received by Klein's from Crescent on February 21,1963. It bore the manufacturer's
serial number C2766. On that date, Klein's placed an internal control number VC836 on this
rifle.
According to Klein's shipping order form, one Italian carbine 6.5 X-4 x scope, control
number VC836, serial number C2766, was shipped parcel post to "A. Hidell, P.O. Box
2915, Dallas, Texas," on March 20, 1963. Information received from the Italian Armed
Forces Intelligence Service has established that this particular rifle was the only rifle
of its type bearing serial number C2766. (See app. X, p. 554.) The post office box to
which the rifle was shipped was rented to "Lee H. Oswald" from October 9, 1962,
to May 14, 1963. Experts on handwriting identification from 'the Treasury Department and
the FBI testified that the signature and other writing on the application for that box
were in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald, as was a change-of-address card dated May
12, 1963, by which Oswald requested that mail addressed to that box be forwarded to him in
New Orleans, where he had moved on April 24. Since the rifle was shipped from Chicago on
March 20, 1963, it was received in Dallas during the period when Oswald rented and used
the box. (See Commission Exhibit No. 791, p. 120.) It is not known whether the application
for post office box 2915 listed "A. Hidell" as a person entitled to receive mail
at this box. In accordance with postal regulations, the portion of the application which
lists names of persons, other than the applicant, entitled to receive mail was thrown away
after the box was closed on May 1963. Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes of the Dallas Post
Office testified, however, that when a package is received for a certain box, a notice is
placed in that box regardless of whether the name on the package is listed on the
application as a person entitled to receive mail through that box. The person having
access to the box then takes the notice to the window and is given the package.
Ordinarily, Inspector Holmes testified, identification is not requested because it is
assumed that the person with the notice is entitled to the package.
Oswald's use of the name "Hidell" to purchase the assassination weapon was one
of several instances in which he used this name as an alias. When arrested on the day of
the assassination, he had in his possession a Smith & Wesson 38 caliber revolver
purchased by mail-order coupon from Seaport-Traders, Inc., a mail-order division of George
Rose & Co., Los Angeles. The mail-order coupon listed the purchaser as "A. J.
Hidell Age 28" with the address of post office box 2915 in Dallas, handwriting
experts from the FBI and the Treasury Department testified that the writing on the
mail-order form was that of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Among other identification cards in Oswald's wallet at the time of his arrest were a
Selective Service notice of classification, a Selective Service registration certificate,
and a certificate of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, all three cards being in his own
name. Also in his wallet at that time were a Selective Service notice of classification
and a Marine certificate of service in the name of Alek James Hidell. On the Hidell
Selective Service card there appeared signature, "Alek J. Hidell," and the
photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald. Experts on questioned documents from the Treasury
Department and the FBI testified that the Hidell cards were counterfeit photographic
reproductions made by photographing the Oswald cards, retouching the resulting negatives,
and producing prints from the retouched negatives.
The Hidell signature on the notice of classification was in the handwriting of Oswald.
(See app. X, p. 572.) In Oswald's personal effects found in his room at 1026 North Beckley
Avenue in Dallas was a purported international certificate of vaccination signed by
"Dr. A. J. Hidell," Post Office Box 30016, New Orleans. It certified that Lee
Harvey Oswald had been vaccinated for smallpox on June 8, 1963. This, too, was a forgery.
The signature of "A. J. Hideel" was in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald.
There is no "Dr. Hideel" licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana.
There is no post office box 30016 in the New Orleans Post Office but Oswald had rented
post office box 30061 in New Orleans on June 3, 1963, listing Marina Oswald and A. J.
Hidell as additional persons entitled to receive mail in the box.
The New Orleans postal authorities had not discarded the portion of the application
listing the names of those, other than the owner of the box, entitled to receive mail
through the box. Expert testimony confirmed that the writing on this application was that
of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Hidell's name on the post office box application was part of Oswald's use of a nonexistent
Hidell to serve as president of the so-called New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for
Cuba Committee. (As discussed below in ch.VI, p. 292.) Marina Oswald testified that she
first learned of Oswald's use of the fictitious name "Hidell" in connection with
his pro-Castro activities in New Orleans. According to her testimony, he compelled her to
write the name "Hidell" on membership cards in the space designated for the
signature of the "Chapter President." The name "Hidell" was stamped on
some of the "Chapter's" printed literature and on the membership application
blanks. Marina Oswald testified, "I knew there was no such organization. And I know
Hidell is merely an altered Fidel, and I laughed at such foolishness." Hidell was a
fictitious president of an organization of which Oswald was the only member.
When seeking employment in New Orleans, Oswald listed a "Sgt. Robert. Hidell" as
a reference on one job application and "George Hidell" as a reference on
another. Both names were found to be fictitious. Moreover, the use of "Alek" as
a first name for Hidell is a further link to Oswald because "Alek" was Oswald's
nickname in Russia. Letters received by Marina Oswald from her husband signed
"Alek" were given to the Commission.