Oswald’s Gun and the Decline of American Politics
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March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Next week marks a much-overlookedanniversary: It will be 50 years since Lee Harvey Oswald, underthe name A. Hidell, purchased the Italian surplus Carcano M91/38rifle with which he would eight months later assassinate U.S.President John F. Kennedy.
Don’t worry: This isn’t another screed about gun control.In any event, the bolt-action rifle Oswald used wouldn’t betouched by any serious legislative proposal of the moment. Mysubject is the 1960s -- a decade, it is often said, that beganwith the Kennedy assassination and ended with Watergate. Thusthe purchase of the gun seems as good a place as any to mark,let us say, the decade’s prologue.