“Ninety-five percent of mass shootings are committed by men,” says James Alan Fox, referring to a shooting by a 15-year-old woman that cost two lives.
A 15 year old woman shot and killed two people – a fellow student and a teacher – Monday at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. Six other people were injured, including two students who are in critical condition.
Such cases involving female mass shooters are extremely rare, according to James Alan Foxa criminologist from Northeastern University who has studied mass killings for more than 40 years.
“Ninety-five percent of mass shootings are committed by men,” says Fox, a research professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern. “The vast majority of violent crimes – particularly homicides and gun homicides – are committed by men. »
Police were investigating the motive of the shooter, identified as Natalie Rupnow, who was found dead when police arrived on campus Monday morning.
Fox’s research into mass killings provides perspective on the rarity of violence perpetrated by women.
“Since 2006, there have been 589 mass shootings that have killed at least four victims,” said Fox, who chairs The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University. Massacre Databasethe most comprehensive source of data on the subject. “Among these shooters, 33 were women.”
Fox adds: “Most cases perpetrated by women involved family. »
Fox says his research found that men and women take different approaches to violence.
“Women tend to use violence as a self-defense mechanism to deal with threats they feel against them,” says Fox. “Men often use violence as an offensive weapon – to establish control. »
A Washington Post analysis found that Rupnow appears to be the ninth student to commit a school shooting since the 1999 killings at Columbine High School. Four percent of school shooters are women, according to the Publication databasewhich only tracks shootings that occur during the school day on K-12 campuses where students are present.
This distinction is crucial, Fox says.
“The media is talking about numbers that there have been 83 school shootings this year,” Fox says. “But most of these shootings do not involve students and do not take place inside the school. Many of these school grounds shootings involve non-students as perpetrators and victims. These include shootings in the evenings and weekends, when school is not in session, as well as accidental shootings of firearms.
Fox says it’s important for students and parents to recognize that shootings like the Madison tragedy — an event targeting students during school hours — are tragic but rare.
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“This year, five students were shot and killed by an attacker while at school, and that represents a total of 50 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools,” Fox says. “Shootings in school parking lots and on sports fields, regardless of the time of day, should not be overlooked, but they have nothing to do with measures such as lockdown drills and staff armed school.
“I’m not trying to minimize the horror of the fact that two students were killed and others were seriously injured in the latest incident,” Fox said. “The average number of K-12 students killed at school by an armed attacker is between six and seven per year. This is obviously too much.
Fox says the problems are caused by active shooter drills in schools.
“When we overemphasize the risk of school shootings and ask kids to participate in active shooter drills, we increase the fear kids feel because we send the message: ‘You have a target in the back.’ We wouldn’t do this if you weren’t in danger,” Fox said.
“We’re also normalizing all school shootings, so that a child who is angry at their teacher or their peers understands that’s what everyone else is doing: taking a gun to school and shooting them. above. By continually obsessing about school shootings and doing training repeatedly, we keep the idea alive in kids’ minds.
Overall, violent crime in the United States declined in 2024, according to Fox.
“Rates of homicides and mass shootings are down this year,” he said. “But the media in general didn’t take this into account.”