10 Facts About Lee Oswald That 70% of Americans Must Not Understand

[Berlin Expat]

16. Stephen King once wrote

in "Danse Macabre" that the reason we like to believe in some grand conspiracy theory to assassinate President Kennedy is because that's easier to accept than it is for us to imagine that a loser, eating greasy, cold fried chicken, a man who'd never accomplished much of anything in his life, could assassinate the most powerful man in the world with a cheap, mail-order rifle.

If a deranged loony with a cheap firearm (under $60 in 2013 dollars) could blow away the President of the United States, what possible chance do any of us regular folks have?

It's a horrifying thought, and we find it far more comforting to suspect a massive, overarching conspiracy rather than imagine that some disturbed individual could shoot us dead with a .25 Raven - or even a crude homemade zip gun - one morning on our way to work. The assassination of President Kennedy remains the defining act of random (political) violence.