Wisconsin teen Natalie Rupnow joins a rare subset of school shooters: women
Less than five percent of recent school shootings in recent decades were committed by females, data suggests
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Following her attack on the Abundant Life Christian School in Wisconsin, Natalie Rupnow has joined a rare subset of school shooters: women.
The 15-year-old, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday morning, is one of the few female perpetrators of school shootings in recent decades after a teacher and student were gunned down in the attack on the Madison school.
Gunmen commit the overwhelming majority of such attacks and, including the Madison shooting, just nine female students have carried out a school shooting since 1999, according to a Washington Post database.
Data from advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety finds that women constitute less than five percent of assailants across 544 school shooting incidents over the past 11 years.
Of the 197 shooting incidents in the Violence Prevention Project database of mass shootings since 1966, 192 of the shooters were male, four were female, and one was transgender. White men made up the majority of perpetrators, according to the database.
Police responded to reports of an active shooting at the school just before 11 a.m. on Monday morning after a second-grader called 911. Police entered the building minutes after the call was made, according to authorities.
Two victims – a student and teacher – died while six others were injured, including two who remain in critical condition in hospital.
Detectives continue to investigate the shooting while Rupnow’s motive remains unclear. A candlelight vigil will take place in Madison Tuesday evening.
In the wake of the attack, right-wing commentators quickly spread unverified claims the shooter was transgender, often alongside wider attacks on transgender people overall.
Madison police quickly dispelled the rumors and called on the public to disregard the comments.
“I dont think that whatever happened today has anything to do with how she, or he, or they may have wanted to identify,” Chief Shon Barnes said during a Monday evening press conference.
“I wish people would kind of leave their own personal biases out of this. We have people who have yet another school shooting in Madison. That’s where my focus will be for the very near future.”
Police also described the shooter in the 2023 Nashville shooting at a Christian school as transgender, though the shooter’s social media profile suggested they had identified as male in the months before the incident.
Critics argued that the narrative around gender identity gives scope to those with anti-LGBTQ+ views to politicize mass shootings to spread their underlying prejudices.
“When hundreds of white men commit mass shootings, it’s a ‘societal problem,’ but when one trans person commits a mass shooting, it’s a ‘trans problem,’” Alejandra Caraballo, a trans activist and clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s Cyberlaw Clinic, wrote after the Nashville shooting.
“The actual problem is that this country is unable to do anything at all to stop gun violence.”