Prominent politicians responded to a Minneapolis school shooting by blaming transgender people. The shooter, Robin Westman, reportedly killed two children and wounded 18 people before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot. Mike Johnson referenced a past school shooting reported to involve a transgender individual. Data show mass shootings are overwhelmingly committed by men; research tracking shootings since 1966 found 95 percent of perpetrators were male, and the vast majority were cisgender. A terrorism research director stated there is no evidence that transgender people are disproportionately responsible for mass violence and that the data indicate the opposite.
Johnson, appearing on America's Newsroom on Fox News Friday, was asked by host Dana Perino if "there has to be some sort of accountability on the transgender front." The shooter, Robin Westman, who killed two children and wounded 18 (some sources say 17) people at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis Wednesday, has been reported to be transgender. Westman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene.
In reality, the common denominator regarding mass shootings is that they are committed by men - 95 percent of the perpetrators in shootings tracked since 1966 were male, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government. And the vast majority have been cisgender.
"I'm aware of no evidence to support the claim that transgender people are disproportionately responsible for mass violence events in the U.S., including shootings in schools," Michael Jensen, research director at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, told "In fact, the data suggests quite the opposite."
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