Let’s talk about whether a rifle of Oswald’s was being stored in Ruth Paine’s garage. This is a hypothetical discussion because Oswald didn’t even own a rifle. He said he didn’t. And if you read this brilliant analysis by the great researcher John Armstrong, you’ll realize that the whole mail-order story was a concoction by the FBI.
https://harveyandlee.net/Guns/Guns.html
So, even though John settled the matter, once and for all, I still want to discuss the claim that Oswald had a rifle in Ruth Paine’s garage because it introduces a whole new level of absurdity, and one that most people have not considered.
So, the story goes that Oswald took his rifle with him to New Orleans, but there is a problem with that. Ruth Paine drove Oswald to the bus station to go to New Orleans, and Marina and June went along too to see him off. Therefore, if he had a rifle with him, it would have been noticed. But, neither Marina nor Ruth said that Oswald had a rifle. And Ruth Paine detailed his belongings that she saw, and it did not include a rifle.
That was in April 1963. And during the 5 months between April and September, there are no claims or reports of Oswald ever having used his supposed rifle. But then, after he lost his job, Ruth Paine drove all the way to New Orleans from Dallas- and dragged her kids along- just to turn around right away and come back with Marina and June.
Now, both Oswald and Marina knew that Ruth was a Quaker, a pacifist, that she did not believe in guns and did not allow them in her house or in her presence. And Marina herself was not into guns. And Oswald wasn’t going along. So, imagine Oswald telling his wife:
OSWALD: Now listen, Marina: I am going to wrap my rifle in a blanket, and when we’re loading her station wagon with your stuff, I am going to sneak it in there. Then, when you get to Irving, you need to sneak it into her garage, without telling her, and hide it somewhere, so that she doesn’t know about it.
MARINA: I will not do that. She is offering to house me and June, and feed us, and help me when I give birth in October, and I am not going to repay her by sneaking a rifle into her garage. And, it’s a stupid idea anyway. You’ve got your buddies down here, your Guy Bannister boys. You can leave your rifle with him or with one of them. Or, you can just sell it. You don’t use it. You never used it once the whole time we’ve been in New Orleans. Just get rid of the damn thing. You don’t need it. Do whatever you want with it, but I am not going to sabotage my relationship with Ruth by sneaking a rifle into her garage. Forget it, Lee.
That’s about how that exchange would have went- but in Russian. And don’t tell me I am exaggerating. We know that Marina stood up to Lee, and that they fought often. And we know that she had no interest in guns. The chance that she would have consented to Oswald’s scheme is zero.
So, what happened after that? Did Oswald sneak the rifle into the station wagon anyway and take his chances that it would wind up snugly placed in Ruth’s garage? It seems awfully stupid to me.
But, let’s fast-forward to Dallas, where we have to talk about Michael Paine. The story goes that Michael Paine, who was divorcing Ruth, was still quite the nifty house husband. First, it seems rather unlikely that a man who had to support his estranged wife and his children would agree to also start supporting a separated, pregnant woman and her daughter. But, the story goes that he put the rifle in the garage without knowing what it was. And then, at various times, over the next two months, he was doing stuff in the garage, and he would come across the rifle again and again. And each time he came across it, he would put it somewhere else. He would move it. And each time, he moved it, he would wonder what it was. First, he thought it was tent poles, as if the Oswalds were into camping. Another time, he wondered if it was a military shovel. And he said he knew about military shovels because he served in the Military. But, he never looked inside the blanket to see what it was, as curious as he was. And it also never occurred to him to ask Marina what it was. But tell me: if you were handling a rifle wrapped in a blanket, is there any chance you would think it was a shovel? Doesn’t a shovel have a spade? And don’t rifles not have spades? And remember that a blanket is not a box. A box can hide the geometry of an object, but not a blanket.
Now, let’s fast-forward to early October when Oswald returns to the Dallas area, since his family is there. He never gives any thought to living in Irving. Right away, he thinks Dallas. He eventually winds up getting a job at the TSBD and moving into a boarding house in Oak Cliff. He reportedly went out to Irving most, if not all, weekends, and stayed at Ruth Paine’s house.
And that was the entirety of his life: working at the TSBD and spending weekends with his family in Irving. But, what about his supposed rifle? Did he do anything about it? No, according to the story. There are no reports that he and Marina even talked about their deep, dark secret. Did he consider retrieving it and keeping it in his boarding room? There are no reports of that.
Now, let’s fast-forward to November 21 when Oswald rode with Frazier out to Irving on that Thursday night. Why did Oswald go out there? Was it to get his rifle so that he could kill Kennedy? If you’ve been reading this, I hope you realize there was no rifle in Ruth Paine’s Quaker garage. So, why else would he have gone there? Well, he had $168 in cash that he left with Marina. This is what AI said about the value of that money: AI Overview
$168 in 1963 had the buying power of approximately
$1,736 to $1,790 in 2025,
Let’s just call it $1750. How many people today walk around with $1750 in cash on them? I bet you Jeff Bezos doesn’t. Elon Musk? Not him either. Warren Buffet? Certainly not. So, that was a lot of cash. And where did Oswald get it? He was fired on July 19, and this was November. He had been working about a month at the TSBD, but for $1.11/hour. And on that pay, he had to support himself and give money to Marina for her and two kids.
SO, WHERE DID OSWALD GET THE MONEY? Well, he didn’t rob a bank. Somebody must have given it to him. And whoever gave it to him may have urged him not to leave it at that flaky boarding house, but to take it out to his pretty little wife in Irving.
And that’s why I think he went to Irving. But, it was also to implore her to reunite their family and move back into an apartment with him, that he would get for them in Dallas. And that’s in the record. Marina admitted that he asked her to do that. And she said she politely turned him down, saying that she wasn’t ready. But, they still slept together that night. So, let’s talk about that. So, they ate dinner, and they watched tv, and then they went to bed. I’ll assume Oswald took a shower. Supposedly, in the middle of the night, Oswald got up out of bed and went out to the garage. It was cheap little two bedroom house. Did I mention it was small?
Do you think Oswald got up in the middle of the night in that house and starting doing stuff in the garage without others in the house hearing him? I have house guests sometimes, and when I do, I have to be very careful at night not to make noise that will disturb them. I like to play the piano at night because it relaxes me. I have an electronic piano that I can put on mute and listen through headphones. I used to think I could play it that way at night, but just pressing the keys would disturb my guests. Just the pressing of the keys with no musical sound would wake them up.So, you think Oswald got up and went into that filthy, cluttered garage (I’ve seen pictures) and starting milling around for that blanket with the rifle (having no idea where it was) and then upon finding it, he had to turn the brown paper he brought with him from the TSBD into a paper bag and then load the rifle parts into the makeshift bag, and then put it somewhere so that he could leave with it the next morning undetected. And then after all that, you think he slipped into bed with Marina? But, nobody is that sound a sleeper. And assuming he showered before going to bed with her, he had to smell different after doing all that. He’d have been sweaty and musty and even dirty, because it was a dirty garage. But supposedly, Marina didn’t know a thing until she woke up in the morning and saw that he was gone, leaving the cash and his wedding ring. Did he really leave his ring? I don’t know because she didn’t state that until she testified to the Warren Commission in February 1964, and she said all kinds of things then that never happened.
But, the point is that every last thing about the rifle story is implausible, from him ordering it from Chicago, to him using it shoot at General Walker, to him taking it to New Orleans, to it being brought back to Irving and stored in Ruth Paine’s garage, and to him retrieving it the night before the assassination.
Oswald did not own a rifle. He said he didn’t, and he really didn’t. It means it was physically impossible for him to have shot JFK. And of course, he was standing in the doorway of the Book Depository during the shooting, and he identified someone who was there in the doorway: Bill Shelley. How could Oswald have known that Shelley was there? It’s because he, Oswald, was there, in the doorway.




