posted on Jan, 15 2011 @ 08:44 AM
I'm not going to outright discount the possibility of this being a conspiracy or perhaps simply a cover up (I'll explain that in a moment). But
first off, I'll point out that I believe that the official version is the most likely version of events.
As for my cover-up comment; basically this is a scenario that it seems none of you covered. You all seem to be taking the angle that this was directly
linked to the tightening of firearm legislation. But you're discounting the possibility that this was an unintended / irrelevant conseqeuence of some
other 'conspiracy'. Perhaps what happened was some other form of crime, an assassination gone wrong or the like or some form of espionage operation
that ended with a requirement to kill witnesses in a hurry. This has happened before, and perhaps this was just that ... not saying that I have any
evidence for this but there is not always a direct link between a governments reaction and an event. Sometimes, its just that you have an especially
pragmatic politician around at the time of an event who seizes on an opportunity eg. John Howard.
But back to why I believe the official version of events; basically no one here has offered any evidence that is not circumstantial and much of the
supposed evidence that it wasn't Bryant at the cafe is more or less based on incorrect or exaggerated assumptions.
For example I've seen it often repeated that because he fired from the hip and with his right hand and killed many people with headshots that he
must've been a marksman. He was firing at point blank range a lot of the time, in fact 2 people he killed after he started firing were still sitting
down facing away from him and the barrel was mere inches from them. They had thought the early shots were just a prank and even said something to this
effect just before being shot.
A lot of people in the cafe were either not shot or injured, including some by bullet fragments. Many others were wounded and not shot in the head.
More still were not shot by headshots. It was actually about half that were shot in the head, predominantly at point blank range, after either
freezing up or not having a chance to try to run.
Afterwards, even as he exited the cafe, he missed frequently at short ranges comparatively for a military marksman. An entire group of people just
across the road were missed, some people running to some trees were missed. Many of the people he shot afterwards were actually sitting in cars he'd
approached and again, only shot in the head at point blank range.
It actually sounds to me you guys have gotten a lot of your information from fringe NRA groups after the shooting, many of whom actually reported the
events entirely erroniously. Sure, he was rather accurate in the cafe, and sure, there were a lot of headshots but there are a lot of headshots in
massacres generally; think about lining up a bunch of people and executing them.
Now for some dot point stuff:
* I have seen no source that describes him as left handed that I can trust
* It is not strange to fire a weapon with your left hand when it ejects shells to the right
* This is because the hot shells would hit you
* Shooting from the hip is NOT the way professional shooters do it
* It is the way gunmen in movies do it, particularly dodgy American action movies
* This indicates a non-professional
* The contention that he knew how much ammunition he needed is false, he had far more then he needed
* He left ammunition and a shotgun in his car, not a mistake I imagine a professional making
* When he fired at passing cars he failed to kill the passengers
* Doubling back is not evidence of planning unless there is evidence he intended to evade police in this manner
* Police being called to an accident is not evidence of manipulation, but evidence of an accident occuring
* A coroner having a truck doesn't mean they expect murders, it means they have a truck
* Said truck was around for 4 years, about as long as government in Australia maintains a vehicle
* A truck being replaced by an ex-army truck temporarily indicates only that a second hand vehicle was purchased
* Saying he was in the kitchen making a sandwich does not mean he was in the kitchen making a sandwich
* He was on a cordless phone, which police only realised later, maybe it was a ruse
* Being of low IQ does not equate to poor performance in all areas of intelligence
* It can mean you're just bad at IQ tests and in particular say short term memory or grammar
* The claim has been made here that only 2 witnesses from the cafe were allowed to speak and did not identify Bryant but I've read multiple media
testimonies, from injured people who saw him shoot people across a table at point blank range that did not question his guilt but were close enough to
comment on his emotion; enjoyment
* No one has actually provided a source to show how many shots he actually did fire ... that is still hosted somewhere ... eg. is reliable and still
online.
* Considering he brought a sports bag full of ammunition, I'm going to assume he fired a lot
Counter-points that haven't been raised:
* His g/f had no knowledge of his ownership of firearms
* He actually did not have a firearms licence, yet still purchased weapons
* This was possible, but I'm not sure if it was legal
* He did not purchase left handed weapons, assuming he was actually left handed
* could just re-affirm his lack of practical firearm knowledge / idiocy