Amy Bishop’s Attorney Bryan Stevens – Can’t Read? Sure – just like Amy Bishop can’t shoot.

UAH mass murdering professor Amy Bishop’s attorney Bryan Stevens recently said, “It was an accident, no question about it,” when asked if then-Miss Bishop aged 19, accidentally discharged a PUMP shotgun THREE times – twice in the house – and once into the chest of her brother Seth, killing him – at their Braintree, MA residence in 1986.

The problem with the good Mr. Stevens’ assertion is that apparently, he didn’t or hasn’t read the part where the now-Harvard-PhD-educated biology professor used a PUMP shotgun while yet a 19-year-old young woman to kill her brother.

It’s been said a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’m not sure how many words a video is worth. But before proceeding further, here are two brief videos – for the benefit of readers whom may not be familiar with pump shotguns. Please watch them.

The FIRST is “How to Unload a Pump Action Shotgun” and is about a minute in length.

The SECOND is of a young White female – perhaps 19 years of age, or thereabouts – shooting a 12 gauge shotgun, and is about two and a half minutes in length.

Official reports indicate that then-Miss Bishop “accidentally” blasted THREE rounds – one into her bedroom wall, one into her brother Seth’s LEFT chest killing him, and one into the kitchen ceiling as she ran from the house.

Miss Bishop’s mother Judy, has claimed she did not hear the 12 gauge shotgun discharge in Amy’s upstairs bedroom.

As you watched the second video, did you hear the shotgun blast echo throughout the woods? Do you, or would any one REALLY believe that Mrs. Bishop did NOT hear that INSIDE a house?!?

While I am no armorer (handheld firearms expert), I have had the opportunity on more than one occasion to discharge a variety of firearms, all safely. Among them:
• .22 caliber Winchester semi-automatic rifle,
• .22 caliber competition-grade single-shot bolt-action rifle,
• .38 caliber Smith & Wesson snub-nosed “detectives special” revolver,
• 9mm semi-automatic pistol,
• 12-gauge pump-action shotgun,
• .410-gauge single-shot shotgun,
• 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun,
• M-16 (while in the Army),
• .45 caliber ACP (while in the Army),
• .50 caliber machine gun (while in the Army), and a variety of other firearms.

For the benefit of readers whom may NOT be aware of the differences between the types and calibers of firearms listed above – and the ONE that Amy Bishop used to kill her brother Seth, a PUMP shotgun – I’ll explain briefly. And since it was a shotgun that Amy Bishop used to kill her brother, I’ll confine my remarks in this entry to the specifics about shotguns.

While shotguns come in a variety of gauges (sizes of shells used), there are only three ways they are configured for action: single-shot, double-barreled, semi-automatic, and pump.

A single-shot, or single-action shotgun is capable of firing only one shot before it must be manually (by hand) emptied of the spent shell casing then reloaded. Typically, the breech is “broken open” to allow the spent shell casing to be removed. Also typically, the single-shot shotgun has a hammer, which must be cocked before the firearm can be discharged.

A double barreled shotgun is available in a side-by-side (the most prevalent, and commonly recognizable type), or “over-and-under” configuration. The “over-and-under” means the barrels are stacked one atop each other, instead of being side-by-side. Because a double-barreled shotgun has two barrels, it can effectively hold two shots, each one in its own barrel, with firing mechanism and trigger. As well, it is most often activated similarly to the single-shot shotgun – using hammer action – and because the shells must be loaded and unloaded by hand.

A semi-automatic shotgun differs from the others because, once a shell is fired, it reloads semi-automatically by redirecting the gases that accompany discharge. Semi-automatic and pump shotguns can hold more than two shells, and when used for hunting, frequently hold four or five, though they may have greater capacity. Only one shot is discharged when the trigger is pulled. Semi-automatic is NOT to be confused with fully-automatic. One trigger pull = one shot.

A pump shotgun, while it has some similarities, it has some decided differences.

A pump shotgun can hold many shells – most often, and typically four or five – which also must be loaded, by hand. But a primary difference is that while  the semi-automatic and pump shotgun the shells are placed into a holding cylinder which most often rests beneath the barrel, the pump shot gun must be manually activated, that is, unloaded and reloaded, or charged. Along that cylinder is a manual pump – which must be activated by deliberate action – to ready the firearm for use. Once shells are placed into the firearm – which sometimes can be, but rarely are placed into a cylinder by uncapping, by direct insertion into the firing chamber, or into the firearm in its breech position – it must be cocked by manually “racking” the shotgun, which is to say, it must first be PUMPED forward and back by hand – before it is ready to be fired.

Of course, with semi-automatic and pump shotguns, there is a safety mechanism located near the vicinity of the trigger, which effectively inactivates the ability of the firearm to be discharged accidentally.

When shells are inserted into a pump shotgun, and the decision is then made to NOT discharge the firearm, the shells can be, and are easily removed from the firearm. If a person is able to LOAD the shotgun, they are also able to UNLOAD it.

Depending upon the mechanism used to load the shotgun, it is unloaded the exact same way as it’s cocked… by pumping it.

Once the pump-action shotgun is discharged, it CANNOT be accidentally fired again, because the spent shell must be ejected by a DELIBERATE pump action. The pump is pulled back, thus ejecting the spent shell, and then pushed forward, loading a fresh, unspent shell, ready for firing.

A DELIBERATE action MUST be taken.

That DELIBERATE action is sometimes also called “racking” the shotgun. It has a most distinctive sound, and to an intruder or offender, hearing that noise justifiably inspires fear. Being shot with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot is very much like being shot NINE times with a .32 caliber pistol. And depending upon the distance of the barrel from the target (point-blank range for a 12 gauge shotgun would be under 20 feet) – it will create a massive hole in any object, effectively destroying or killing it.

[This is where I editorialize. (in a country twangy-hick-sounding voice) ‘Round here in Alabama, we may be dumb country, backwoods hicks, but by God, even our stupidest kids know how to operate a shotgun! They might not have the brainpower that an above-average intelligence 19-year-old Boston-area woman that lives in a suburb called “Braintree” has, so to tell us dumb country hicks that she couldn’t figure out how to load, unload and discharge a shotgun is even dumber than the woman that claims she killed her brother accidentally! Now, to be polite, it’s especially problematic. To be frank, it’s ludicrous; to be blunt, it’s crazy as Hell! While firearm ownership is not uncommon, many children are taught from a young age how to safely operate firearms. And some of those children may not graduate high school. You might be better off up in Boston where you know how to manipulate those brilliant people, because these stupid people down here won’t believe your lies. Honey, you done cut your throat in the wrong place. End editorializing.]