There is still some question as to whether that rifle was used to assassinate Kennedy. That Mannlicher-Carcano is one of the worst rifles ever built, most were damaged by sabotage during WWII and no one was ever able to replicate the assassination with that particular long gun.

Henry Derringer’s surname was actually spelled Deringer. His imitators who later cashed in on his fame merely changed the spelling to Derringer to evade the weak copyright laws then in place. Deringer did indeed conceive the “derringer” and produced the first model, but his imitators quickly overwhelmed him and it is their imitations - and altered trade name - that are remembered today.

However, although the FBI purportedly examined the weapon and bullet in 1997, the bullet was determined to be too corroded for any reasonable ballistics testing, so it “probably” was a .44 caliber lead ball. You can check these facts @: http://wesclark.com/jw/booth_pistol.html

The derringer WAS a .44 caliber, BUT Booth had loaded a .41 caliber ball, which is the part I remembered. Seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to baffle scholars.

This info may be found on the FBI’s website, where modern day tests on the Booth derringer were conducted to learn more about the actual assassination.

Last time I checked, Sarajevo, Italy, and Sadaam’s spider hole are all well outside the US. There is nothing wrong with privately owned guns; in fact they are valuable tools to protect people’s freedoms both from oppressive governments and from forces without.

You mention you are from the UK. I’m assume that you are too young to know much about the many thousands of civilian Brits (including many women and old men) who made up the British Home Guard (Local Defence Volunteers) during the Second World War. There was an extremely real threat that the British Isles would be invaded (read about Operation Sea Lion — the Nazi plan to do just that). Whilst that never came to be, the Home Guard was ready with their own weapons (read GUNS!) to slow the Germans down and impede their progress wherever possible. This wasn’t “busywork”, but the real deal — government owned weapons were in very short supply (lots left on the beach at Dunkirk unfortunately), so those privately owned rifles, shotguns, and pistols were one of the big things ensuring your nation’s freedom. Read about how dire Winston Churchill considered the situation in his 6 volume history of the Second World War. Private gun ownership was there to protect your freedom. Fortunately, the RAF stopped the Luftwaffe first, but that was a monumental upset — far from a “given” at the time.

Straight talk from Sid.

I must admit I don’t know anything about guns, but I’ve double checked the Oswald rifle details on the post against the hard copy. Here’s some more info about the infamous rifle.

Rober and Sid Morrison, I’ll defer to your expertise in identifying flintlock vs. caplock. I can barely tell the difference between flintlock and the flintstones, but that is what’s on my hard copy. I’ll let the article stand, but people will be able tell from your comments.

Tim Mosley, regarding the caliber of the Booth gun, wikipedia had it listed as .44 (as did the hardcopy of this article). Now, I’m not sure either was right, but I’ll let the article stand - with your caveat in the comment.

Oswald’s rifle was not a .38 caliber, but was actually a .30 caliber, and even this is wrong since the actual cartridge was a metric cartridge of 7.65 mm.

And it seems to me that Booth’s pistol was actually a .41 caliber, not .44, as .41 was a very common derringer caliber of that era.

The gun shown is not a flintlock, rather it is a caplock.

“The gun that Lee Harvey Oswald [wiki] allegedly used to assassinate President John F. Kennedy…”

Good grief. “Allegedly?” The commie shot JFK, get over it.

Many people are alive today with bullets in their brain.

Man … that paragraph makes me freaking sick to my stomach. So he pretty much just stole the gun then huh? I cannot wait untill this guy is out of office. He’s no better than a poacher, showing off is trophy. What a sneaky thief.