Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

We started watching a Netflix series called Longmire, which is about a sheriff in Wyoming. You get to see a lot of beautiful, rugged Wyoming scenery. 

In the first episode, he is investigating the murder of a man out on a ranch. The man was shot in the back, and he had a rifle with him. The sheriff wanted to determine if the man had gotten a shot off. So, he swabbed his finger inside the barrel and smelled it. And then he said to his deputy, a young woman:

"He didn't get a shot off; that's oil."

She asked what he meant, and he said:

"This rifle hasn't been fired since the last time it was cleaned. And after it was cleaned, it was oiled, and you can smell the oil. If he'd fired it, you'd smell the burnt gunpowder."

I've heard people say that that's just hooie from the movies. No. It really is how you can tell if a gun was recently fired. 

Here is a discussion of it from Education Forum, and I'll put up the first post by Terry Adams.

DENIS MORISSETTE'S KENNEDY ASSASSINATION PAGE, Question to DPD Lt. Carl Day : Was Oswald's rifle tested as to whether or not it was fired on November 22, 1963?

DAY : The only examination of the rifle by the Dallas Police Department was the checking for prints that I did and this wasn't completed before the gun was released to the FBI. I am not sure what you mean by 'tested'. I am guessing that you are wondering if the gun was fired on November 22, 1963. Contrary to the movies, where they smell a gun to see if it has been fired, I know of no reliable test to accurately determine if a gun was fired today, yesterday or last month.

I had found this statement over a year ago, but had misplaced it. I cannot imagine "ANYONE", especially a police officer, saying that one cannot tell if a gun had been fired recently. This absolutely can be done by simply smelling the barrel. When I was young and would go rabbit/squirrel hunting here in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, I would always clean my gun after I got home. This included using a rod and an oiled swath of cloth to remove the gunpowder residue from the barrel, if I were lucky enough to shoot at one of these wary little critters. I can recall, clearly, that the smell of gunpowder was present in the barrel, sometimes many hours after having been fired. I personally believe that this is the elephant in the room" when it comes to the Warren Commission's theory on the assassination. The ear-splitting silence about there being no powder smell from the gun says it all, IMO.
Terry 

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13481

This is often discussed concerning the rifle, but it's much more pertinent in reference to the pistol because the pistol was found on Oswald. If the rifle had been fired, it could theoretically have been fired by someone else. 

I'll admit that if shortly after Tippit's murder, Oswald was found with a pistol that smelled of having been recently discharged, it would look awfully bad, and he would have a heck of a lot of "splainin'" to do. 

But, both weapons should have been checked that way, and it is inexcusable that they weren't.