Patterico's Pontifications

2/15/2010

Amy Bishop’s Gun

Filed under: Crime — DRJ @ 8:48 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Amy Bishop, the professor indicted for capital murder in the deaths of 3 UAH colleagues, recently went to a shooting range with her husband:

“The husband of an Alabama professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues said Monday that the couple went to a shooting range recently, but that he didn’t know where she got the gun she used for practice that day.
***
[Husband James] Anderson said he knew his wife had a gun, but didn’t know when or how she got it.

“I really don’t know how she got it, or where she got it from,” he said in an interview at his home.

Police have previously said Bishop had no permit for the gun they believe she used in the shooting, and investigators said they didn’t know where she got it. It’s not clear if that was the same gun that her husband knew about.

Bishop’s husband said nothing unusual happened on their trip to the shooting range, and that she didn’t reveal why she took an interest in target practice. Nothing in her behavior before the shooting foreshadowed the violence last week, either, he said.

“She was just a normal professor,” he said.”

This doesn’t sound credible, although I can’t tell if it’s due to the reporter’s presentation or the husband’s attitude. Was this couple in the habit of going to a shooting range together or was this something new? And why didn’t he question his wife about her gun?

— DRJ

39 Responses to “Amy Bishop’s Gun”

  1. What’s this nonsense about a permit? Alabama does not require a permit to purchase or possess according to this summary.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. It certainly doesn’t sound credible: I would think with four children in the house, anything and everything about a gun would be completely out in the open. From where it was purchased, how it was gotten and paid for, including amount, whether the permit was in place, and most importantly, where it was secured in the home.

    Dana (1e5ad4)

  3. If my wife suddenly had a new gun, you can bet your ASS I would want to know the details of where she got the thing…

    If only because I’m probably the type of guy to invoke thoughts of homicide in my bride…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  4. “And why didn’t he question his wife about her gun?”

    He probably didn’t want to get shot. I get the impression she wore the pants in the family.

    Dusty (7bba43)

  5. #1 SPQR: Presumably she concealed the weapon about or near her person prior to entering the staff meeting. Thus she would have been carrying concealed without a permit, which is required in Alabama.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  6. SPQR, that is my question too. I read that and just seems to me to be a red herring. A lefty attack on guns.

    LYNNDH (8d8b19)

  7. by permit, i’m guessing they mean CCW…… anything else is a red herring.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  8. “He probably didn’t want to get shot. I get the impression she wore the pants in the family.”

    Dusty – Heh! Absolutely. He doesn’t want to get her angry. If you get in her doghouse, you don’t get the sofa. Just look what happened to her brother, ker-blam, blam, blam.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  9. Alabama does not require a permit to purchase or possess in one’s residence or place of business but a permit is required to carry concealed or to transport in a car in most circumstances (concealed or not).

    Permit or not, possession on a school campus is verboten for all but LEOs and, once again, the wisdom of that logic is on display for all to see.

    Apparently the murdering Professor worked hard at discrediting her “insanity” defense before she could give it a try (it rarely works in Alabama anyway)which breaks my cold, black heart.

    ’twill be the needle for her, no doubt…just not quick enough.

    MJN1957 (6e1275)

  10. More to the point, didn’t he find it strange that someone who had “accidentally” killed her own brother with a gun would want a gun in the house? I couldn’t even look at a gun if I had accidentally killed a sibling with one.

    Calfed (c9fe79)

  11. Calfed: you think that way because sociopaths are different from most people on the internet, except trolls.

    %-)

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  12. Mr Jacobs wrote:

    If only because I’m probably the type of guy to invoke thoughts of homicide in my bride…

    And you wanted to marry whom?

    The Army daddy Dana (3e4784)

  13. Hey, if I’m gonna get shot for forgetting one too many anniversaries, I want to be shot by a professional

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  14. This isn’t New York, Washington or Chicago. Guns are not unusual.

    Here in Alabama, just about everyone shoots. Chains such as BassPro, Dick’s and Academy have everything from .22 to .44 caliber. If you’re over 18 and a state resident, it’s easy to get a handgun and no permit is required to own one. Background checks take five minutes. If you want to carry a concealed weapon you buy a permit from the sheriff for $20 and several weeks later it arrives by mail.

    Within 60 miles of here there are about a dozen public ranges. Every week, I go to either the Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area range, the Vick range east of Centerville or the South Sandy range south of Duncanville. People at these uncontrolled venues seem to be fairly conscious of firearm safety and respectful of range rules.

    Apparently, Massachusetts dropped the ball by not prosecuting this woman when she shot her brother. If she accidentally discharged her 12 gauge when her brother was killed, it’s not common to do it 3 times and have to be disarmed at gunpoint by the police.

    Looking at her climbing into the squad car, if Bishop had shot up her hairdresser’s salon it might have been justifiable.

    arch (24f4f2)

  15. The facts that she shot her brother, even though it was ruled an accident, and was suspected in a bombing, makes this guy just a bit less than credible.

    And where is the system that should have prevented her from buying a gun?

    JEA (0ccd61)

  16. JEA – She wasn’t a prosecuted for any crimes thanks to Rep. Delahunt. What would have prevented her from owning a gun?

    daleyrocks (718861)

  17. I think the possibilities in this are nigh unto endless. The husband could be 100% in on it, or he could be 100% clueless. Who is the one with the most psychopathology? A psychiatrist friend once told me that both in a couple usually have about the same level of “issues”, but the combinations and what is more apparent is what is different.

    Was the brother’s killing thought to be a “justifiable homicide” that was just hushed up?

    Hopefully time will tell what we need to know, and spare us any more than that.

    MD in Philly (d4668b)

  18. Hey, Boston Herald has an article showing this nutcase to be a HUGE OBAMA SUPPORTER!

    On another blog, a huge Obama supporter stated he wished Obama had followed through on his promise to conficate all guns.

    Maybe Obama ought to start with his supporters and the new Black Panthers!

    PCD (1d8b6d)

  19. Just anecdotal but I’ve seen what appears to be a sharp increase in gun-related mass murders, all tracing back to a failure to implement the system we already have in place. From my perspective, it isn’t the gun that’s the problem; it isn’t the gun-owner that’s the problem; it isn’t our system that’s flawed. It’s the people who fail to use the system already in place that is the problem.

    John Hitchcock (365e79)

  20. #17 MD in Philly:

    Who is the one with the most psychopathology?

    According to one account (that I cannot relocate), he was her boyfriend at the time she shot her brother. If so, it would indicate a high level of “issues” on his part as well.

    And sorry, I just don’t buy “I didn’t know” on the husband’s part. The joke around our house was that my wife has more guns than I do, but I have more ammunition.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  21. EW1(SG)

    Thanks for the additional info.

    I agree with you on the husband’s not knowing, unless he is functionally compromised by his own stuff, whether he is pathologically bonded to his wife or just prone to deluional thinking on his own.

    I guess another possibility lurking is a “mutual protection pact”, that he actually killed her brother, she covered for him, etc., etc.

    Realize I am only raising possible scenarios based on very limited information. My main point is “who knows what was going on” with these people for many years.

    Do they have children? I sort of hope not.

    MD in Philly (d4668b)

  22. And sorry, I just don’t buy “I didn’t know” on the husband’s part.

    Actually, I can buy that story. There are enablers in every crowd. They tend to be the weak sort who choose not to “know” and who “go along to get along”. They tend to hit “negative information” overload rather quickly and shut down before they “learn” bad things about the person they’re busily enabling. But that’s enough psychobabble from someone who’s only taken 3 psych courses.

    John Hitchcock (365e79)

  23. Huff Po and CNN are advocating that the Prez should stop being nice and use “gangsta” and “kneecapping” against those who oppose him. This “true believer” was just following orders – hummmm maybe that could be a defense strategy.

    TeaTime (5164df)

  24. “JEA – She wasn’t a prosecuted for any crimes thanks to Rep. Delahunt. What would have prevented her from owning a gun?”

    Unfortunately, daleyrocks, nothing. And three people are dead. I’m all for 2nd amendment rights – own anything you want – but there has to be some way to weed out kooks like this before people get killed.

    JEA (0ccd61)

  25. Bishop killed her brother with one of three shots from a 12 gauge, then she fled the scene and held up an auto dealer, stealing a car. Before she could escape, the police had stopped her at gunpoint, handcuffed her and were in the process of booking her when the democrat DA (Delahunt) stopped it. Now no one can find the police records.

    Had she been arrested, booked and prosecuted for murder and armed robbery, there might have been a record that would have come up on a background check. I don’t know the criteria used by the FBI.

    arch (24f4f2)

  26. He knew about it! Please, this guy was dating her when she killed her brother.

    He knew about it, and about her. He was a full partner in a very sick relationship.

    Patricia (e1047e)

  27. She would only be denied permission to buy if she had been convicted of a felony or was currently under indictment for same, and/or involuntarily committed to a mental-health facility as a danger to herself or others, or had been adjudicated as having a chemical dependency, or for answering (truthfully) with a “Yes” any of questions 11-b through 11-l on Form 4473.

    And, since she now has four notches on her belt (so to speak), she seems to be a “professional”.

    As to where she got the gun, and when, that will come out after the ATF conducts a records check starting with the Manufacturer/Importer, proceeding to the Distributor, and then to the Dealer.
    Unless the pistol has changed hands repeatedly in the Private Party Sale market in states that do not require such sales to be conducted through FFL’s, the trail left by the gun should be relatively transparent.

    AD - RtR/OS! (c781de)

  28. Mr Jacobs wrote:

    Hey, if I’m gonna get shot for forgetting one too many anniversaries, I want to be shot by a professional…

    You do realize that forgetting one anniversary normally counts as one too many?

    The Dana who has been married for 30 years, 8 months and 28 days (3e4784)

  29. . . . she didn’t reveal why she took an interest in target practice.

    If you read the reports of the day she killed her brother, she also took a sudden interest in a shotgun her father kept. A shotgun she had never taken interest in before.

    The husband’s story indicates her interest in target shooting was out of the ordinary. If this had been an ongoing activity, that didn’t suddenly pop up during her outrage over not getting tenure, then certainly her husband would have known why. He could have at least said that she often visited the range, instead of being unable to speculate about her one and only recent trip to the range “that day.”

    It sure looks to me that both crimes were premeditated. If someone takes an interest in guns only a short while before shooting someone, then undoubtedly that person is honing up the skills needed for the job at hand.

    Steve (f79f95)

  30. You do realize that forgetting one anniversary normally counts as one too many?

    I like living on the edge. It would provide incentive to never, ever forget…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  31. – He was dating her when she shot her brother.

    – He was a suspect, along with her, when firebombs were sent to her professor’s house.

    – He was shooting with her just days before these latest killings.

    Sure, he never knew anything about the trail of bodies and attempted murders, or where the weapons and explosives came from.

    Nomenklatura (a724f7)

  32. I just heard on FOX News Radio that the missing police reports were found and they said there was probable cause to charge Amy Bishop in 1986.

    John Hitchcock (03b4ac)

  33. The Boston Globe has a copy of the police report.

    John Hitchcock (03b4ac)

  34. Apparently Ms. Bishop has been unhinged for quite some time:

    In March, 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another mother.

    Bishop, according to a police report, strode over to the other woman, demanded the seat and launched into a profanity-laced rant.

    When the woman would not give the seat up, Bishop punched her in the head, all the while yelling “I am Dr. Amy Bishop.”

    Bishop received probation and prosecutors recommended that she be sent to anger management classes, though it is unclear from court documents whether a judge ever sent her there.
    The woman, identified in court documents as Michelle Gjika, declined to comment, saying only “It’s not something I want to relive.”

    “…walked into an IHOP in Peabody with her family” – Assuming her husband was with her, wouldn’t this level of volatility and anger have been a serious red flag; and given that, if a gun showed up a few years later in their home, wouldn’t you expect the husband to know everything about the gun – and then lock it up so she didn’t have access?

    Dana (1e5ad4)

  35. […] } I’m sure by now, you’ve heard about that far-left woman who shot up an Alabama college campus because she was denied tenure. And you heard about how she killed her brother back in 1986. […]

    Amy Bishop Is A Bad Person « Truth Before Dishonor (ae46d6)

  36. Insane people tend to make insane decisions and take insane actions. The availability of weapons may diminish insane choices, but it rarely precludes the ultimate outcome. Scale and definition may vary.

    Charles Whitman killed 14 with a gun. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 with fertilizer. KSM and OBL killed 2,973 with airplanes.

    Ag80 (f67beb)

  37. all the while yelling “I am Dr. Amy Bishop.

    Assault for not getting a booster seat that she felt entitled to without logical rationale. Murder for not getting the professional recognition and job security she “was entitled to”.

    MD in Philly (d4668b)

  38. […] sure by now, you’ve heard about that far-left woman who shot up an Alabama college campus because she was denied tenure. And you heard about how she killed her brother back in 1986. […]

    Common Sense Political Thought » Blog Archive » Amy Bishop Is A Bad Person (73d96f)

  39. Another Amy Bishop wannabee …

    Durham, N.C. — Durham police arrested Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Gale Mangum, 33, late Wednesday after she allegedly assaulted her boyfriend, set his clothes on fire in a bathtub and threatened to stab him.

    Authorities charged her with attempted first-degree murder, five counts of arson, assault and battery, communicating threats, three counts of misdemeanor child abuse, injury to personal property, identity theft and resisting a public officer.

    Let me guess, she was also a supporter of Barack Obama.

    Neo (7830e6)


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