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Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle was the firearm believed to have been used in the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Although the United States government later established that it had belonged to Oswald, (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) accounts varied as to its origin with one stating that the kill shot was instead carried out by James Stevens' rifle. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
The rifle was Italian-made. According to one account, it was Francis Cleary, a former UNIT soldier who had been brainwashed by the Master, who brought the weapon to 1963 through the use of a Time Ring. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) According to another account, it was given to Oswald by the Time Lord Renegade Berenyi, who had designed the assassination as well as Oswald's entire biography. (PROSE: Untitled)
In the account featuring Cleary, Oswald, an innocent employee of the Texas School Book Depository, found Cleary with the rifle and fought him for control of it. Eventually, Oswald staggered back in shock after ripping Cleary's shirt to reveal a Soviet uniform which allowed Cleary to swing the butt of the rifle through the air into Oswald's head, rendering him unconscious. James Stevens, a journalist who had arrived in 1963 to prevent the Master changing history, then chased after Cleary. After attempting to tell him to stop only to be ignored, Stevens used a piece of broken pipe to knock Cleary unconscious. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
According to one account, Oswald loaded the weapon as the motorcade approached in preperation. He fired three shots at Kennedy, killing him. (PROSE: Untitled) According to another account, Stevens used the telescopic sight on the rifle as the motorcade approached to scan the crowds for the Master. After the Master purposely atangonised him, Stevens chose to use the rifle to shoot him instead of preserving history by shooting Kennedy. The bullet smashed into the pavement and up into the air harmlessly, the sights having become misaligned when Cleary dropped it. However, Kennedy still died and Stevens swiveled the sight to the tall wooden fence behind the grassy knoll in time to see that the true assassin was an older version of himself. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
In the immediate aftermath, Oswald simply put the gun down before fleeing from the Depository (PROSE: Untitled) while Stevens hid the rifle behind some boxes before also leaving, according to another account. The Warren Commission eventually found that Oswald had acted alone in the assassination and that he would have had to adjust his aim to account for the factor of the misaligned sights. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)