Mass shootings are almost always a male problem. That is the common wisdom, right? If you look at the news on any given day after a tragedy, the face on the screen is usually a young man. But the reality of mass shootings by women is a lot more complicated than a simple "men do this, women don't" binary. It's rare. It's statistically an anomaly. But it happens. And when it does, the public and the media usually have no idea how to talk about it because it breaks every script we've written about violence in America.
Honestly, the numbers are jarring. According to data from the The Violence Project, a nonpartisan research center funded by the National Institute of Justice, about 98% of mass shootings are committed by men. That leaves a tiny, tiny sliver—less than 2%—where a woman is the perpetrator. We are talking about a handful of cases over several decades. Because it’s so rare, we tend to treat these women like unicorns or total outliers, but if you look at the history, there are patterns. They just aren't the patterns we expect.
Why mass shootings by women challenge our perception of public safety
When a woman opens fire in a public place, the first question everyone asks is "Why?" That’s a normal human reaction. But with men, we often jump to "radicalization" or "incel culture" or "bullying." With women, the conversation almost immediately pivots to mental health or domestic issues. It’s a bit of a double standard.
🔗 Read more: Jackson County Missouri personal property declaration: Why Most People Mess This Up
Take the 2023 Nashville school shooting at The Covenant School. The shooter was Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old former student. That case sparked an absolute firestorm of debate because of the shooter’s gender identity and the sheer calculated nature of the attack. It wasn't a "crime of passion" in the heat of the moment. It was planned. It had maps. It had a manifesto. It showed that the "planning and preparation" phase of a mass shooting—what experts like Dr. Jillian Peterson and Dr. James Densley call the "pathway to violence"—looks remarkably similar regardless of gender.
The outliers and the history
You can’t talk about this topic without mentioning Brenda Spencer. Back in 1979, she opened fire on an elementary school in San Diego from her window across the street. She was 16. When asked why she did it, she famously said, "I don't like Mondays." It’s a chilling, almost flippant response that became the title of a Boomtown Rats song. She wasn't the "typical" shooter. But then again, is there really a typical shooter?
Then you have the 2015 San Bernardino attack. Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, killed 14 people. This was a different beast entirely. It was terrorism. Malik wasn't just a participant; she was radicalized alongside her husband. This destroys the myth that women only participate in these events as "followers" or because they are being coerced. She was a full partner in the carnage.
Another case that sticks in the brain is the 2018 YouTube headquarters shooting. Nasim Najafi Aghdam drove from Southern California to San Bruno because she was angry about YouTube’s "censorship" and demonetization policies. She had a specific grievance against a corporation. Her motivation was basically a mirror of the grievances we see in male shooters—a sense of being wronged by a system, a desire for "justice," and a platform to air those frustrations.
The psychology of the female shooter
Is the "female" brain different when it comes to mass violence? Probably not in the way you think. Most criminologists, including those who contribute to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit reports, suggest that while the frequency is different, the triggers often overlap.
🔗 Read more: New York Criminal News: What’s Actually Happening on the Streets Right Now
- Early Childhood Trauma: A huge percentage of all mass shooters, regardless of gender, experienced significant childhood trauma or abuse.
- The Crisis Point: There is almost always a "noticeable change in behavior" or a specific crisis—losing a job, a breakup, or a death in the family—that happens weeks or months before the event.
- Social Isolation: While women are generally more socially integrated than men, female shooters often report a profound sense of isolation or being "othered" by their community.
The main difference? Methods. Women are statistically more likely to use poison or single-victim attacks (like filicide or poisoning a spouse) than to engage in the high-tactical, "warrior-style" public mass shootings we see in the headlines. When a woman does choose a mass shooting, she is breaking a massive social taboo that goes even deeper than the act of murder itself. We see women as "nurturers" by default. When that's subverted, it's terrifying.
Breaking down the "fame-seeking" motive
A lot of male shooters want to be famous. They want the high score. They want their manifesto read on the news. With mass shootings by women, that fame-seeking element seems less pronounced, though it’s not absent. Nasim Aghdam had a huge social media presence. She wanted to be heard. But generally, women who commit these acts are more focused on a specific target or a specific grievance.
Does the media treat them differently? Absolutely. The coverage is often more focused on their appearance, their role as a mother or daughter, and "what went wrong" in their home life. It’s rarely framed as a systemic failure of masculinity—because, well, it isn't—but it’s also rarely framed as a systemic failure of anything else. It's treated as a freak occurrence.
✨ Don't miss: The Jewish Community and the Slave Trade: What Really Happened
Data points that actually matter
If we want to get serious about prevention, we have to look at the facts without the bias.
- Access to firearms: In almost every case of a female mass shooter, the weapons were either legally purchased or taken from a family member.
- Warning signs: People around these shooters knew something was wrong. In the Nashville case, the shooter’s parents were concerned about the guns. In the YouTube case, the shooter's father called the police to warn them she was angry at the company.
- Location: School shootings by women are incredibly rare, but they get the most attention. Most female-led mass violence (which often doesn't meet the strict "4 or more dead" definition of a mass shooting) happens in the home.
The reality is that "mass shootings" as a category is a narrow way to look at violence. If we expand the lens to "mass murder," the numbers shift slightly, but men still dominate the field. Why? Some researchers point to "externalizing" versus "internalizing" stress. Men are conditioned to externalize anger (aggression, violence), while women are conditioned to internalize it (depression, self-harm). A female mass shooter is, in a way, externalizing her pain in a "masculine" way.
What we can do to stay ahead of the curve
We can't just ignore mass shootings by women because they happen once every few years. That’s how people die. We have to apply the same threat assessment tools to everyone. If a student—regardless of gender—is showing signs of "leakage" (talking about an attack), they need intervention.
Threat assessment teams in schools and workplaces are the best defense we have. These teams look at behavior, not profiles. If you're looking for a "young man in a trench coat," you're going to miss the 40-year-old woman who is slowly losing her mind over a workplace dispute.
Actionable insights for community safety
- Take "leakage" seriously: If someone mentions wanting to hurt a group of people, even if they seem "unlikely" to do it, report it. Most shooters tell someone before they act.
- Secure the home: If a family member is struggling with mental health, the presence of a firearm in the home increases the risk of violence exponentially. Use gun locks or off-site storage.
- Support red flag laws: These laws allow family members or police to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from someone in crisis. They work.
- Normalize mental health help for everyone: We need to move past the idea that only certain types of people get "dangerously" depressed or angry.
Ultimately, the gender of the person behind the trigger matters less than the fact that they reached a point where they felt violence was their only option. We spend so much time arguing about the "who" that we forget to look at the "how" and the "why." By the time someone has a gun in a public square, it’s already too late. The work happens months before. It happens in the breakrooms, the classrooms, and the living rooms.
The stats tell us women aren't usually the ones doing this. But "usually" isn't "never." Staying vigilant means looking at the behavior, not the person’s gender. It means acknowledging that anyone, under the right (or wrong) set of circumstances, can become a threat if they don't have the support or the guardrails to keep them from falling off the edge.
To truly understand the landscape of modern violence, you have to look at the data provided by organizations like the FBI National Press Office or the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center. They provide the most comprehensive look at these rare events. If you are concerned about someone in your life, the best step is to contact a local crisis intervention team or a mental health professional who specializes in behavioral threats. Early intervention is the only thing that consistently stops a "pathway to violence" before it turns into a headline.