We’re all too familiar with this tragic scene, a male mass shooter emerging to take lives in an instant of pure terror. The statistics bear this out: Of the 145 mass shootings that have occurred since, only four have been committed by females.
The mass shooter who took two lives at Abundant Life Christian School, who turned the gun on herself, has become the fifth female shooter to add to these statistics. Women and teen girls rarely carry out such violence, so I have to wonder what troubled this young person so much that she went out and allegedly committed such a horrible act.
But the scene unfolded right before 11 a.m. Monday morning as Madison police converged on the shooting at the private school, surrounding it as multiple emergency vehicles arrived, The Associated Press reports.
According to police, the two people killed in the shooting were a teen student and a teacher. Madison Police Chief Shon F. Barnes, in an earlier press conference, said four people had died, but he later clarified that there were two victims.
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Six other people were injured, and two, Barnes said, remain in critical condition with life-threatening injuries. Four students suffered minor injuries.
Shootings by women and teen girls are exceedingly rare, noted David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, in a blog post last year. He highlighted one instance in 1979 when a 16-year-old girl shot and killed two and injured several others at a San Diego elementary school.
USA Today reports there have been 101 incidents where a woman or teen girl was the shooter out of a total of 4,025 shootings, according to Mark Bryant, executive director of the Gun Violence Archive. This includes a mass shooting where a female suspect opened fire in San Bernardino in 2015. This resulted in the deaths of 12 people. Nearly two dozen were wounded.
What triggered this young person to do this? We don’t know right now, but it’s another example of someone troubled in a troubled culture because American culture is troubled.
Featured image via screengrab
