Police say the 15-year-old shooter killed a teacher and another student in the school’s final week before Christmas break.
According to David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, school shootings committed by teenage females have been exceptionally scarce in U.S. history. The vast majority of such incidents have been carried out by males in their teens and 20s. This rarity was underscored by Monday’s tragic shooting at a Wisconsin school.
In a blog post last year, he pointed to a handful of school shootings that involved perpetrators who identified as female, including a 16-year-old girl who shot and killed two and injured several others at a San Diego elementary school in 1979.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit group that advocates for stronger gun laws, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that out of 544 school shootings over an 11-year period, less than 5% of the shooters were female. The group noted to the outlet that the perpetrator’s gender isn’t always available, so the data is incomplete.
When it comes to mass shootings in general, the perpetrators have been women 2% of the time, according to research from the Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Who was the Wisconsin school shooter and what was her motive?
Authorities identified the suspected shooter as 15-year-old female student Natalie Rupnow, who went by the name Samantha. She was pronounced dead while being transported to a hospital after opening fire in a study hall at her private Christian school Monday morning in Wisconsin, killing a teacher and another student in the final week before Christmas break.
Police are still trying to determine what led to the shooting. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said officers were talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who were cooperating, and searching the shooter’s home.
Barnes said officials don’t yet know if the victims were targeted.
