Mr. Rankin. The hunting club that he belonged to, did it have an instructor in shooting the rifle?
Mrs. Oswald. I don't know but there should have been one.
Mr. Rankin. Now, he had to have a permit to purchase the rifle in Russia.
Mrs. Oswald. Yes; you can't possess a rifle without a—permission in the Soviet Union.
Mr. Rankin. Did he purchase the rifle from a government agency?
Mrs. Oswald. You buy these rifles in special stores, but to buy them you have to have a paper from the hunting club stating that you have the right to buy a rifle.
Mr. Rankin. And the authorized government official gave him authority to buy the gun through the hunting club?
Mrs. Oswald. The hunting club issues this permit. He used to clean the rifle but he never used it. It always hung on the wall.
Mr. Rankin. Mrs. Oswald, will you describe what you were saying off the record in regard to his going out to use the rifle in the country as distinguished from using it in the club?
Mrs. Oswald. We all went out together in a group of boys and girls in order to get—to swim a little and to get a suntan. It was a lake which is just on the edge of town not far from Minsk, and the men had guns, and they all went out to try to shoot some kind of rabbit or bird or something like that, and the men went off together and I heard several shots and they came back and they hadn't caught anything so we laughed at it.