It is now proven almost beyond the shadow of a doubt that Charlie Kirk was not wearing any body armor. The attending sheriff, Erika Kirk, dozens of photographs showing the outline of his pectoral muscles and nipples, and front row witness statements all concur that he was just wearing a t-shirt.
The idea that he was wearing body armor was based on a few frames of Charlie's t-shirt jerking up, and a good faith attempt to make the FBI story make sense. But the most credible proponent of that theory, Paramount Tactical, admitted (before statements from Erika Kirk etc) that there was already a "90% chance Charlie wasn't wearing body armor."
For their part, Turning Point USA's version of the story, and the FBI's, do not mention body armor at all. The official version of the story is that the bullet didn't exit and was trapped under the skin of Charlie's back.
So what are we left with? The officially blamed weapon is a Mauser 98 firing a 30-06 round over less than 200 yards. A typical 30-06 round has a muzzle energy of 2,500-3,000 ft-lbs. That's enough to shoot through solid buckets of ice, cow bones, steel plate, and bear skulls. Conclusion: there is no way that a 30-06 round shot Charlie in the neck and did not exit.
The official story is provably false. So what really happened?
edit: Paramount also threw cold water on the idea of a frangible 30-06 round.
Full Disclosure, I have not seen the video of the shooting, don't really care to. But bear in mind many of the things below could be rendered implausible by something in the video.
The first thing I thought was frangible, which I discounted because Robinson seemed to be going the easy to obtain route, which means probably walmart rounds or similar, not exotic stuff. Looks like you have another reason to discount frangible.
Second thing is the bullet skipped off something in the vicinity and hit him tumbling, a tent pole, microphone, etc. Could have even been hit by spall.
Third thing, already mentioned, is it hit something on his person first that wasn't normal to the bullet path, like body armor or a tieclip, lapel mic, sunglasses, steel necklace or id tag, wire, swallowed ice, etc.
Forth thing, unlikely on a common round, mismatched rifling caused the bullet to lose stability in air and tumble part way(can happen with too little rifling twist, and rarely too much), or ripped off the copper jacket(can happen with too much twist). ( If that really is a Mauser 98(which there was some doubt of when people saw it) it is a bubbaed frankengun of unknown properties, which makes this more likely than on the surface)
Fifth thing, probably the most likely, the stories are jumbled up and really did exit.
As for the lack of bullet, the ripped jacket could account, as could spall, or since he was hit in throat upright, it could have gone down, or fell out. Not sure if they did an x-ray looking for it.
I do not see Israel or other third gunman as an explanation in and of itself. You would still have to explain the weirdness, almost any slug would be expected to pass through a human neck.
If they were to arrange a patsy, just use the same ammo and similar barrel instead some weird Agent Q from James Bond shit. Like some weird exotic frangible or round that melts into liquid metal at body temperature shot from an airgun.
A few responses: I don't rate a tieclip or an ice chip as significant interference.
I'm not familiar with unstable flight paths but does the projectile retain roughly the same kinetic energy? What is the accuracy when your rifling is screwed up?
The ballistics is just one of many ridiculous factors in this case. Apparently people here aren't following it as closely as I assumed.
Absolutely not. The listed "maximum effective range" on most supersonic rounds is usually when it hits the sound barrier and the
center of gravity(edit: center of pressure/drag) shifts while going through turbulence, this usually causes most bullets to tumble and lose energy very, very rapidly. If it is from mismatched rifling it could start tumbling immediately or quite far from the muzzle though.(Notable exception is .45-70, and very early, discontinued before WWI, versions of .30-06)
Ripping the jacket off means you probably end up with multiple pieces.(or one incredibly jankey piece of lead dragging the jacket like a parachute). One or more lightweight jacket pieces of a very unaerodynamic shape and a probably one very soft lead piece that is lighter than normal.
If it is screwed up enough to cause the bullet to tumble or the jacket to rip off, the accuracy is terrible, like skipping off a pole, it requires Charlie to have been unlucky.
OK, that's about what I thought. Interesting 1/10,000 possibility
If the fragment/ricochet stories are true then where did the bullet actually hit? He was surrounded by people so there should have been a lot more collateral damage.