The 28-year-old transgender Audrey Hale, who yesterday spread death at an elementary school in Nashville – where she was once a student – is only the fifth female mass shooter in US history.

According to The Violence Project’s database, women make up just 2% of mass shooters across the US. Based on the data of the 192 mass shouters recorded since 1966 (including the massacre in Nashville), only 5 are women.

Meanwhile, separate data compiled by the FBI shows that only one of the 61 mass shootings in 2021 was committed by a woman.

Among the most notorious “killers” – although not included in The Violence Project’s list, was Brenda Spencer, who in 1979, at the age of just 16, stormed a Cleveland elementary school armed, killing 2 people and injuring 8 other young students.

When the police asked 16-year-old Brenda why she did it, she famously replied: “I don’t like Mondays.” Brenda today remains imprisoned in California

In more recent years, there have been several other high-profile female mass shootings.

In 2015, Tashfeen Malik and her husband Syed Farook sowed death at a social services facility in San Bernardino, California when they opened fire, killing 14 people and injuring 17 others.

SAN BERNANDINO

San Bernardino County Health Inspector Farook and his wife Malik opened fire at a meeting of Farook’s colleagues and were killed in a shootout with police

In 2018, 39-year-old Nasim Aghdam broke into YouTube’s headquarters near San Francisco. She began shooting indiscriminately – luckily only injuring three people – before then killing herself with her gun. The reason – according to the police – is that she was “dissatisfied” with the platform, as she believed the company censored her videos.

Nasim Nazafi Aghdam, 39, who was born in Iran but lives in San Diego, had made several posts in Persian and English against YouTube
Nasim Nazafi Aghdam, 39, who was born in Iran but lives in San Diego, had made several posts in Persian and English against YouTube

Years earlier, in 2006, Jennifer San Marco killed six postal workers at a sorting center in Goleta, California. where he once worked. Earlier, she had shot and killed a former neighbor in the Santa Barbara area.

Jennifer San Marco

The smiling and above all suspicion Jennifer killed herself with her gun after the massacre