The Myth of the Magic Bullet

The “magic bullet” lie is arguably the most successful fabrication in the JFK Conspiracy Theorist arsenal. It is also a great way to understand how conspiracy theorists manufacture the evidence to fit their predetermined conclusions, and once you understand this, there are no good reasons to continue listening to them. If you have seen Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), you probably remember Kevin Costner’s dramatic presentation of the bullet’s alleged path, zig-zagging through President Kennedy and Governor Connally. 

You may also have come across diagrams, like the ones behind Costner, in many books and on countless websites, that make it seem like there is no possible way that one bullet fired from Oswald’s position could have passed through these two men.

These phony graphics and demonstrations make it seem as if they are simply referencing the findings of The Warren Commission, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Warren Report found that a single bullet passed through these two men in a straight line.

Mark Lane, one of the first and most dishonest of all JFK Conspiracy Theorists, is the person who coined the term, “magic bullet,” in the 1960s, which was then refined by other CTer as if it were a fact. Their argument is basically this: A bullet coming from behind Kennedy and to his right would need to change directions more than once to make all the wounds in Kennedy and Connally. 

There are many problems with this mischaracterization, starting with the fact that if we place the car at its approximate location it actually occupied during the time of the shot, and use the CTer’s distorted graphic above, then the shooter would have been someplace other than the sniper’s nest, and the sniper’s nest is the only place that witnesses saw a shooter that day.

Now, if we correctly place the occupants of the car as they were at the time of the shot, and trace the path of the bullet back to the sniper’s nest, where Oswald actually shot from, we can see that there is nothing magical about this bullet.

I have previously presented this in a YouTube video I made about a few of the many problems with Oliver Stone’s JFK, and again in my feature documentary, Conspiracy Theorists Lie, so I will not get too bogged down in the other problems with this lie here.

What you should ask yourself is this: Why do CTers need to make up and perpetuate this lie, along with so many others? Clearly, it is not a dedication to the truth that drives them. Altering the facts, taking them out of context, or simply making them up, is the standard operating procedure for conspiracy pushers, because it is the only way they can make a case when the facts are not on their side. Once you realize this is all they have to offer, there is no need to keep listening to lie after lie after lie.