Reply #81

He had the rifle already, having probably used it to take a potshot at General Edwin Walker, a right wing anti Communist, in April 1963. So we know he wasn't afraid to shoot at people he disagreed with politically. Maybe he knew that the Textbook building was on a common parade route and/or maybe he just happened to get a job there through a neighbor in Irving who worked there and then only decided to kill Kennedy when the parade route was published on Nov. 19th in both Dallas newspapers. There is some evidence of that actually. Oswald asked for a ride back to Irving with his neighbor on Thursday the 21st to "pick up some curtain rods." Usually he stayed in Dallas and only visited his wife in Irving on weekends. In other words, Oswald was looking for an opportunity to make a big splash by shooting someone famous and Kennedy certainly fit the bill as well as being no friend of Cuba, a country Oswald admired. So how much of it was luck and how much actually planned? It is impossible to know but as assassinations often go, there almost always is some opportunism involved. What I think actually happened is that Oswald was prepared to shoot somebody, and likely took the job at the textbook bldg with the idea that it would be a good place to shoot someone from, given the layout of the Dallas streets around there. Someone thinking like a sniper would have noticed that. The fact that the first opportunity was Kennedy was probably a lucky break for Oswald but I don't think we can rule out that the thought had crossed Oswald's mind that a presidential motorcade could pass by that building. Oswald clearly was politically astute - he was likely following the political situation in the country closely and he probably knew that Kennedy might visit Dallas. The Textbook Bldg is just off of Main Street and the route unto Elm was a likely parade route. Oswald had lived/worked in Dallas as early as July, 1962, so he likely was pretty familiar with the area.

This is mostly speculation of course but something along these lines makes way more sense than many of the conspiracy theories - talk about tortured.

And I notice that you still want to focus on Oswald's luck rather than your own mistaken claims about altered parade routes. Move goal posts much? Clearly Oswald had public information, motives, and the time to plan an attack on Kennedy without the knowing help of anyone else. Doesn't mean he did for sure but it is the most parsimonious explanation to date. Still.