Police identified the school shooter in Madison, Wisconsin, as a 15-year-old student – an incident experts say is rare. Monday’s shooting at Abundant Life Christian School left three people dead, including the shooter, and six others injured.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said Monday that when officers arrived at the scene, they found the shooter, identified as Natalie Rupnow, with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and she was pronounced dead when taken to the hospital. According to police, the shooter used a 9mm handgun and was attempting to locate the weapon.

Rupnow now joins the small list of female shootings in the United States

“About 4% to 5% of all mass shooters are women,” Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, told Yahoo News. The institute’s data focuses on mass shootings in public, not just school shootings. Adam Lankford, a professor of criminology at the University of Alabama, told Yahoo News, “In general, about 95% of public mass shootings are committed by men.”

The Violence Prevention Project database has tracked mass shootings since 1996. They found that men are disproportionately likely to commit mass shootings (98%) compared to women (2%) or transgender people (less than 1%). It defines a “mass shooting” as an incident in which “four or more people, excluding the shooter, are shot and killed in a public place without any connection to underlying criminal activity such as gangs or drugs.”

The Washington Post has been tracking school shootings that occur during the school day on K-12 campuses since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. According to their parameters, 4% of school shootings are female.

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Lankford explained: “For a long time it was assumed that men were simply more aggressive than women.” Now there is research that suggests that men and women and boys and girls may be more similar when it comes to aggression or anger, but the behaviors that to which this leads differ.”

These behaviors include the type of murder weapon used and the motive that targets particular victims, according to Lankford.

“When it comes to gun preference,” Lankford says of the data, “men have a stronger preference for firearms, and the gender gap is larger when it comes to using poison or something similar to arson as a murder weapon.”

When asked about any research as to why men prefer to use firearms, Lankford responded that there is no consistent or confirmed answer. “There is speculation that women, for example, do not like to see the bloodied body or even imagine that they will be disfigured if they are discovered after committing suicide. Men, on the other hand, don’t mind this, and in some cases are even attracted to the idea of ​​blowing things away.”

Lankford added that men in the victim-offender relationship are more likely to commit murder against stranger victims. “The gender gap is slightly larger when it comes to women killing people with whom they have a closer connection, such as family, an intimate partner or someone else with whom they have a close connection,” said Lankford.

He said that in some school shootings, there was a close connection to a classmate or teacher with whom they had a grudge or conflict. In the case of the Madison shooting: “Everyone was targeted in this incident. And everyone was equally at risk,” Barnes told reporters on Tuesday.

“But then there are other cases where male shooters in particular view the victims almost as symbolic enemies and/or kill victims and don’t see them as personal enemies, but rather use them to become famous rather than…” Means of Purpose,” Lankford explained.

Experts say a school shooting is usually preceded by warning signs

Perpetrators of mass shootings often display warning signs before committing the violent acts. “In fact, in 32 percent of mass shootings in which four or more people were killed, a shooter displayed at least one warning sign before the shooting,” said Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter gun laws.

Barnes said in an interview with that the 15-year-old shooter was “obviously very disturbed.” CBS Morning on Tuesday. “Usually there are some warning signs that maybe we all missed and that’s why we need to understand that we need to come together as a community. We need to embrace our children and understand what is going on in their lives.”

Schildkraut told Yahoo News that she is working on a Department of Homeland Security-funded project to study the warning signs, behaviors and communications of people who carry out these types of shootings.

“Regardless of their gender or gender identity, these are individuals who post clear warning signs before the shooting that one or more people would typically be aware of,” Schildkraut explained.

“What our project does is analyze this entire threat environment and create public awareness training for K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and the general public to help reduce this side effect, get more people to intervene and hopefully this “To prevent tragedies from happening,” she said.