Sunday, February 14, 2010

Mass Murder in Alabama - Female Shooter

Yahoo News reports on the background of the Alabama Professor who shot up the workplace in the latest mass shooting, Prof. Amy Bishop.


Bishop, a rare woman suspected of a workplace shooting, had just months left teaching at the University of Alabama in Huntsville because she was denied tenure.

The article is almost entirely dedicated to an incident in her past. It seems when the professor was 19 years, old she shot and killed her 18-year-old brother. The incident in was ruled an accident but now some folks are not too sure. One thing is certain, what she did yesterday was no accident.

From the Al.com site:

According to police, three people were killed and three were wounded when the shooter opened fire during a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology. The three injured people are being treated at Huntsville Hospital.

In June 2006, The Times published a story involving Bishop, biology professor and her husband, Jim Anderson, chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville.

Bishop is quoted in the story as co-inventor of "InQ," a new cell growth incubator which promised to cut the costs, size and maintenance involved in the mechanics of cell generation.

So, she was a Harvard-graduated genius inventor on the forefront of genetic sciences, yet when disgruntled enough she cracked like so many others. What makes her story different, of course, is that she's a woman.

Why do you think there are so few female shooters in these tragic incidents? Pro-gun men get absolutely defensive if you try to say it's a man's world. The numbers of women shooters are growing, they tell me. At ranges all over the nation you now see, what, 20% or 30% women? This is what I've been told anyway.

Well, my question is what's wrong with the male gun owners, then? Why do they have an almost exclusive ownership of these mass shootings, and all other shootings for that matter? It seems to me either the people who claim women make up a significant portion of gun owners are wrong, or something is wrong with the men accounting for a disproportionate percentage of these shootings. Which do you think it is?

Please leave a comment.

23 comments:

  1. Mikeb says:

    It seems to me either the people who claim women make up a significant portion of gun owners are wrong, or something is wrong with the men accounting for a disproportionate percentage of these shootings.

    Yes, Mikeb--something is very wrong with those men--the ones who do the murdering (a point, I would have thought, that goes without saying). What that doesn't do, is reflect in the slightest on the vast majority of male gun owners who don't shoot anyone. I know that doesn't fit in with your "shared responsibility" theme (which seems, to me, to simply put a less ugly veneer over a guilt by association fallacy), but it's the truth.

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  2. Sorry, Zorro, this is another place we disagree. Those guys who misuse their guns have everything to do with you, if by "you" you mean lawful gun owners. The reason is simple, they often come from among you.

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  3. Mikeb says:

    Those guys who misuse their guns have everything to do with you, if by "you" you mean lawful gun owners. The reason is simple, they often come from among you.

    And terrorists often come from among adherents of Islam. Does that mean that terrorists "have everything to do" with every Muslim? Street criminals in the U.S. often come from the black and Hispanic demographics--does that mean that gangbanger thugs "have everything to do with" all blacks and Hispanics? I could go on, but hopefully I don't need to.

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  4. She was compensating for the size of her penis.

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  5. Hey--speaking of the alleged shooter, and your . . . novel theories on shared responsibility, have you dug this about her "accidental" killing of her brother?

    Braintree officers who remember the 1986 shooting said that former police Chief John Polio dismissed detectives from the case and ordered the department to release Amy Bishop after a telephone conversation with former district attorney William Delahunt, who is currently a U.S. congressman from Massachusetts...

    Have you dug also the fact that the day after the Huntsville rampage, Congressman Delahunt announced the possibility of his retirement? Have you also dug the fact that Delahunt is a Brady Campaign favorite? Seems to me that if Bishop does turn out to have been the Huntsville killer (and can there be much doubt?), Delahunt would deserve a fair amount of blame, under the Mikeb "shared responsibility" theory--but he can probably dump some of that blame on the Brady Campaign, doncha think?

    Finally, it turns out that the alleged shooter (and possible letter bomber?) didn't have a carry license for the pistol she allegedly used.

    The Violence Policy Center has taken to tabulating a trickle of anecdotes about shootings by concealed carry licensees, but I'm sure you'll agree that the vast majority of killers have never had a concealed carry permit (by your definition of "vast majority"--70%--"vast majority" would have to be quite an understatement).

    Now let's look at your new theory--that a large group, of which some (albeit vanishingly small) subset is often to blame for some evil--shares responsibility for that tiny subset's evil. I refer to your "theory" that "guys who misuse their guns have everything to do with" the rest of us male gun owners, because such guys often come from among the vastly larger group of male gun owners in general.

    From that, it's obvious that people who don't have concealed carry licenses "have everything to do with" the vast majority of murders, since murderers "often come from among" people who have never had a concealed carry license.

    Wouldn't you agree?

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  6. Mikeb30200:

    I just know there's a silver lining here. I got it! Zorro and all of the other Type 2A's are for having gays in the military! AWRIGHT!!

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  7. The more important story is how the story of her killing her brother got buried and why the university where she worked at had no record of the shooting.
    As a lawful gun owner, I take offense of being labeled as this woman coming from the same group as me. that logic can be applied to you living in Italy and any crime committed by an italian mafia member in another country. Guess we can argue that if you cared more for the crackdown of the mafia in italy, than it wouldn't have been exported to another country.

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  8. Il Principe said, "As a lawful gun owner, I take offense of being labeled as this woman coming from the same group as me."

    I should clarify my shared responsibility idea. In its original rendering, which has since been simplified and repeated in a possibly misleading way, I made it clear that I blame the lawful gun owners who ACTIVELY RESIST GUN CONTROL." As we all know, many perhaps most gun owners are in agreement with gun control initiatives. My beef is with those hardliners who resist any and all gun control laws. They make it easier for criminals to get guns.

    I hope that helps.

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  9. Mikeb says:


    I should clarify my shared responsibility idea. In its original rendering, which has since been simplified and repeated in a possibly misleading way, I made it clear that I blame the lawful gun owners who ACTIVELY RESIST GUN CONTROL.


    I gotta say, Mikeb, that looks a whole lot less like a clarification of a vague and misleadingly oversimplified position, than like an all-out, headlong retreat from a position you quickly found untenable. The entire premise of the blog post, as best I can surmise, was to point out that men are vastly more likely to shoot up a bunch of innocent folks than women are.

    If this is really about gun rights advocacy, what does the gender disparity have to do with it at all? There are, after all, some very powerful and effective female voices in the gun rights advocacy world.

    You very clearly stated that mass shooters "have everything to do" with lawful gun owners, "because they often come from among" lawful gun owners. I don't think you can claim that the mass shooters "often come from among" people known to be outspoken gun rights advocates--I doubt you could name more than a couple.

    Oh--and as to "ACTIVELY RESIST[ing] GUN CONTROL," if you think this is active resistance, try your idea of confiscating 10 million guns per year. You'll soon learn--to your sorrow--the profound difference between political advocacy and active resistance. The whole soap box, ballot box, jury box vs. cartridge box thing.

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  10. "Oh--and as to "ACTIVELY RESIST[ing] GUN CONTROL," if you think this is active resistance, try your idea of confiscating 10 million guns per year. You'll soon learn--to your sorrow--the profound difference between political advocacy and active resistance. The whole soap box, ballot box, jury box vs. cartridge box thing."

    So, it's okay if the laws on your side, but if it's not then you'll be shooting at the people who come for your gunz?

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  11. So, it's okay if the laws on your side, but if it's not then you'll be shooting at the people who come for your gunz?

    Someone kicking in my door to steal my property will be treated accordingly.

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  12. Democommie says:

    So, it's okay if the laws [sic] on your side, but if it's not then you'll be shooting at the people who come for your gunz [sic]?

    Give the man a cigar! Very good, Democommie--I obey just laws, and disobey unjust laws. Perhaps you've heard of Henry David Thoreau?

    Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them

    Or, if perhaps Mr. Thoreau lived too long ago to be of interest to you, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have more impact:

    One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

    Granted, Mr. Thoreau and Dr. King were willing to suffer imprisonment for their "crimes," and would not have dreamed of killing their oppressors--I, on the other hand, ain't in the turn-the-other-cheek business.

    Does that make me less noble? Perhaps, but I'll gladly sacrifice some nobility, in exchange for some good old fashioned retributive justice.

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  13. Zorro's charge: "I gotta say, Mikeb, that looks a whole lot less like a clarification of a vague and misleadingly oversimplified position, than like an all-out, headlong retreat from a position you quickly found untenable."

    My plea: Not Guilty.

    Before you joined us and elevated the level of discussion around here, and I mean that, I had occasion to several times explain why I blame gun owners. It mainly has to do with your preventing the simple gun laws that would make for improvement.

    I admit to allowing the vague, blanket interpretation of my opinion to reign because I like breaking balls.

    But in the end of the day, isn't it obvious what I mean by sharing in this responsibility. Even if you don't accept it, isn't it clear. Another way I've said it is since all the guns in criminal hands started out legally owned, you legal gun owners have to be partly to blame, at least some of you. Now we get down to percentages. And I follow all those discussions by asking, if you're sure you belong among the truly responsible and careful, why do you sweat it so much and get so defensive? Would that be because you see yourself as part of a whole, as part of that group called "gun owners?" If so, you're back to sharing the responsibility of what that group does.

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  14. Mikeb says:

    And I follow all those discussions by asking, if you're sure you belong among the truly responsible and careful, why do you sweat it so much and get so defensive?

    I can't for the life of me figure out why this is so difficult for you to comprehend: the reason we object so strenuously to your blanket statements about rampant wrongdoing among gun owners, even when you do accompany it with some half-assed qualification along the lines of "I'm just referring to the bad ones (which constitute at least 10%, maybe 20%, or even 30% of all gun owners," is that the restrictions you want imposed would apply to all of us--not just the "guilty" ones.

    Say all you want that it's not punishment, but merely an "inconvenience," which we should all be willing to endure for the good of society, but there's no getting around the fact that this "inconvenience" will inevitably be fatal to some people who are denied lifesaving firepower under the even more draconian set of gun laws you would like to see imposed.

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  15. Zorro: "Say all you want that it's not punishment, but merely an "inconvenience," which we should all be willing to endure for the good of society,..."

    Me: "it's not punishment, but merely an "inconvenience," which we should all be willing to endure for the good of society"

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  16. Zorro:

    Thanks for clearing that up. So, in other words, if you don't LIKE the law, it's unjust. That makes life so much simpler for the guy with the gun.

    Please do not compare yourself with Dr. King. You and he, other than your humanity, probably have not a great deal in common. The unjust laws (and societal customs) that he fought were used to selectively oppress amerioans of African descent. In a number of cases those people were killed--by the KKK folks who HAD the guns.

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  17. Democommie says:

    So, in other words, if you don't LIKE the law, it's unjust.

    Whether or not I "LIKE" a law has nothing to do with whether or not the law is just. When laws violate fundamental human rights--rights, indeed, that are Constitutionally protected, and explicitly designated by the Constitution as being beyond infringement, those laws are clearly unjust.

    Please do not compare yourself with Dr. King.

    Oh good--so you have heard of him, or at least took the time to do a quick Wikipedia search on him. Good for you--that makes this much simpler. Perhaps it's time for you to educate yourself (don't be scared--it doesn't hurt!) about the Deacons for Defense and Justice. A very good book on the subject is "The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement," by Professor Lance Hill--although that book might have a few too many big words for this stage of your development.

    Good (and less lengthy) reading can be found in "How the right to arms saved the non-violent civil rights protesters."

    Also, read about racist efforts to keep blacks disarmed--efforts cheered on by the very KKK you mentioned. Also, download and watch "No Guns for Negroes", by Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership.

    You could learn a lot, and that would be good for you, Democommie.

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  18. Zorro:

    You know that when you get pedantic it really just comes out that you're being a penis?

    I assure that I know a little more about Dr. King than his name.

    People like you that compare yourself with him are really stretching. When you are being watched, night and day by local, state and federal authorities, because you keep some guns in your house then we can talk about your being kept down by the man. Until then, your comparing yourself with someone who gave their life for what they believed in is inappropriate. When gunnutz are being hounded with false prosecutions, beaten with clubs, attacked with fire hoses and police dogs and lynched--simply because they believe in their right to have firearms--then you might be able to compare yourself to Dr. King, not before.

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  19. Demcocommie says:

    When gunnutz [sic] are being hounded with false prosecutions . . .

    Sounds as if you haven't heard of David Olofson.

    . . . beaten with clubs, attacked with fire hoses and police dogs and lynched--simply because they believe in their right to have firearms . . .

    That would be awful--just when I'm trying to build up my ammo supplies, I'd have to start using them up.

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  20. Oh--almost forgot. Democommie says:

    You know that when you get pedantic it really just comes out that you're being a penis?

    A tiny, flaccid penis, undoubtedly--c'mon--if you're going to go the restrictive gun law advocate's standard route of tossing childish attempts at insults at gun rights advocates, you'd might as well go all the way.

    Anyway, I'm pleased that it "comes out that [I'm} being a penis"--better than coming out that I'm being a vagina.

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  21. Zorro:

    Why isn't there a set of crosshairs on your latest gravatar?
    James Earl Ray was, after all, only exercising HIS second amendment rights; well, that and his blind unreasoning hatred of those he disagreed with.

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  22. Democommie, there is no right to commit murder--not in the Second Amendment, nor anywhere else in the Constitution, nor as some natural, but unenumerated, right.

    If I ever do any more killing--and I fervently hope I never do--it will be in defense of my family, my liberty, my life, or my home.

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  23. I never said that James Earl Ray had a right to kill. I just said that he was practicing his right to carry a gun and, well, it prolly went off by accident and anybody can have an accident.

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