knowingowl

The problem with the unhinged is that they're also incompetent, generally. Abe was only susceptible to an unhinged assassin because its Japan and violence/guns are so rare, security is/was so lax. Getting close to Abe, even when he as the PM, was incredibly easy. Hopefully the lesson has been learned there, as it already has been in most other countries.

I'm sure the secret services have come up with creative things. The Russians sometimes use poison when abroad, but even that is usually discovered now due to sophisticated hospitals.

The old tricks of discrediting, bribing, and blackmailing are probably still just as effective as ever. Maybe more so.

It was not an "award for marksmanship" by any definition and it requires far less effort than learning to drive a car or ride a bicycle. What's the point in being obtuse here?

Of course actual unhinged will try to assassinate people. That's to be expected in a world with so many people.

What has changed is that covert political assassinations by the secret services of nation states is no longer a viable strategy the way it was when JFK and RFK were killed.

Not even the Mossad is good enough to pull it off these days, and they're probably the best in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Ma...

Just read "doesn't matter" as "I'm not very interested in history" to get a more clear picture of who you're talking to.

It's true that it doesn't have a huge impact on modern life but it matters a lot to anyone who is interested in having an accurate view of history.

The "why" (motive) is the most clear part: JFK was not willing to invade Cuba and depose Castro. To say this this really pissed off the DoD, CIA, Mafia, and Cuban rebels is putting it extremely mildly. They hated JFK with a murderous passion.

"Nobody is going to be arguing in good faith about it."

Saying that "nobody" is willing to discuss this in good faith is going way too far. Just because I don't expect anyone to be able to convince me that it wasn't a conspiracy doesn't mean I'm not open to the possibility.

All good faith means, in this context, is that one is willing to maintain intellectual honesty. That may be hard for many but far from all.

For the record, a "marine sharpshooter" is an almost meaningless term. Virtually any physically healthy person is capable of meeting this bar with an hour or two of practice. It sounds way more impressive than it is. Oswald was in no way a highly skilled shooter. In fact, he had extremely basic firearms skills.

If the JFK and RFK assassinations were done by secret services it seems to make a lot of sense (psychologically) that they'd use people that were the "opposite" of themselves as patsies.

So some right-wing CIA people (and their Mafia/Anti-Castro helpers) used a left-wing communist Oswald as the patsy for JFK. There was a lot of motive for these people to kill JFK

And then some Jewish Israel Mossad people copycatted for the RFK assassination, using a Muslim Palestinian as their patsy. There was a lot of motive for these people to kill RFK. (And I shouldn't have to say this, but I'm Jewish, so this isn't an antisemitic thing.)

But I agree with the point that it mostly doesn't have much impact on the modern world. Whoever was involved in these assassinations doesn't hold power any more. They're dead.

No kind of reconciliation process is truly required to prevent this kind of thing in the future. The world has changed and that's why these kind of political assassinations aren't used in the west today.

Not because there aren't people that wouldn't love to have this tool. It's just not as viable as it was in the time before mass surveillance and uncontrollable information flows.

Try to imagine pulling off the RFK or JFK assassinations with a large number of uncontrolled smartphones posting and even live streaming to the internet.