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For some perspective, I just heard a family story from my great uncle (my late paternal grandfather's identical twin) that I hadn't heard before.

He saw Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas with his rifle the morning of November 22, 1963.

My great uncle worked at the Federal building in downtown Dallas and was in a carpool with a few other guys who also worked there. They exited the freeway and were the front vehicle stopped at the stoplight on Commerce pointing towards downtown. They saw a man get off of the bus with a rifle case (everybody back then knew exactly what it was) and cross the crosswalk right in front of them. They even commented about, "can you believe that man with the rifle, right there in downtown Dallas, on the day the President is coming to town."

They said the crowd was already gathering, the street was full of cars, and there had to be hundreds of people who noticed him. They went on to work and put it out of their mind - for a few hours. They did walk down and see the President as he drove by - they were on the block just before he was shot. In fact, my great uncle estimates they saw the motorcade and probably didn't make it any farther than the lobby of the Federal building by the time Kennedy was shot. They didn't hear the shots, but it had happened before they made it back to their offices. As soon as they heard the reports, they thought of the man with the rifle they'd seen.

So, it's fair to say that a rifle (in a case) in downtown Dallas at the time was rare enough to for people to notice but not enough to cause people to panic, call the police, or faint on sight - even with the President visiting. It was somewhere in between. They figured Oswald was just a "country boy". One of them thought he could be part of the security detail, but riding on the bus didn't seem to fit that narrative.

It's a shame it took me so long to value the stories and family history while I still have firsthand access to them. When I get together with my great uncle nowadays, I ask a few open ended questions to get him started and soak it all in.