MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The deadly mass shooting at a Minnesota Catholic school has prompted claims online from some politicians and political commentators.

They point to a pattern or profile of the suspected shooters. Alabama Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth is among them. He claimed there's a growing trend of transgender people committing mass shootings.

FOX54 verifies if this is accurate.

Is there a growing link between transgender people and mass shootings?

SOURCES:

ANSWER:

This claim is missing context. The majority of mass shootings in recent years have been by cis-gender men, or men whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

WHAT WE FOUND:

The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Association Center released a report in 2023, analyzing mass public attacks over a five year stretch. From 2016 to 2020 they found the attackers' backgrounds were 96% men, 3% women, and 2% transgender.

The Violence Prevention Project, a nonprofit and non partisan research center classifies a mass shooting as four or more people shot and killed, excluding the suspect. They examined more than 200 mass shootings in the U.S. since 1966, in which the incident happened in a public place and had no connection to drugs or gangs.

They identified only one suspect out of the 200 as transgender. That was the shooting at a Christian school In Nashville in 2023. Only four, we can also report, were women.

We're still learning more about the tragedy in Minneapolis, and about the shooter. If...

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