Dallas airport shooting: Data shows it is rare for women to be involved in public shootings

Only three mass shootings since 1982 have been carried out by women

Only three mass shootings in the US have been carried out by women since 1982, data has revealed.

On Monday, a woman was shot by the police after she fired a handgun inside the terminal at Dallas Love Field Airport. Love Field, located north of downtown Dallas, is one of two major airports in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Police said that the incident happened after 37-year-old Portia Odufuwa was dropped off near the Southwest Airlines ticket counter at around 11am.

Ms Odufuwa then went into a toilet, where she changed her outfit and came back out. An officer in the terminal saw her pull out a handgun as she began firing into the air and “aiming at the ceiling”, police said.

She was shot at by police officers present at the airport and then taken into custody.

Data from statistica.com has revealed that since 1982, a total of 127 mass shootings have taken place in the US which had male shooters.

In contrast only three mass shootings have been carried out by women.

The data published on 14 July has surveyed mass shootings from 1982 to 4 July 2022.

Mass shooting has been defined in the survey along the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s definition of a single attack in a public place with three or more fatalities.

Gun ownership in the US is protected under the second amendment.

Recent spate of shootings, including those at Texas’s Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School, a July Fourth parade near Chicago and an Indiana mall, have brought the spotlight back on gun ownership laws in the US.

The five deadliest mass shootings in the country have all occurred since 2007.

The deadliest shooting was the 2017 Las Vegas massacre in which 58 people were killed and over 546 injured.