Amy Bishop was denied tenure because her academic record was judged to be short of the standards at her university. Although the tenure vote was confidential, she managed to learn how everybody voted. (In academia, nothing is confidential. Either somebody told her how the vote went, or somebody broke into the offices and found out -- I have seen cases where each happened.) Knowing who voted against her, Amy practiced her shooting and later went to a faculty meeting. After about half an hour, Amy Bishop stood up, pulled out an unregistered gun, and methodically shot five professors and a staff person aiming for the head. When the first professor she shot spurted blood, fell over, and died, she moved on to next professor, aimed her gun for his head, and fired away.
Today we have three dead professors, three wounded professors, grieving widows, and grieving children. I don't know how many of the parents of the dead are still alive and how many brothers and sisters are alive.
On Psychology Today blogs, misguided sympathy has been expressed for Amy. Some have speculated she was guilty about having shot her brother years ago, others that she is the victim of stereotypes, and several bloggers expressed sympathy over her humiliation at not being promoted. So far I haven't seen anyone blog some sympathy for the victims families.
Enough psychobabble! The evidence suggests that Bishop is a cold blooded killer. Imagine the scene: Blood, people screaming in pain, and horror. How does Bishop react? She points the gun at yet another professor and pulls the trigger.
Vengeance is one of the universal motives of human nature, but vengeance motivates different people in different ways. Bishop is clearly an extremely vengeful person who wants to kill people who offend her. She probably thinks the people she killed got was coming to them. Getting even is more important to her than her children and the families of the deceased. She may have a mental illness , or maybe not. Undeniably, she is a vengeful person with little or no moral inhibition.
Being denied tenure is not an excuse to shoot the professors who voted against you in the head. Sympathy for a cold blooded murderer is inappropriate and irresponsibly insults the families of the victims.
I have no sympathy for Amy Bishop.
