BREAKING: Female shooter kills three children, three adults in U.S.

A heavily armed woman entered a Christian school in Nashville, the United States on Monday morning and fatally shot three children and three staff members before she was shot and killed by the police, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said.

The spokesman, Don Aaron, said that investigators were working to identify the woman who had opened fire at the Covenant School, which serves about 200 students from preschool through 6th grade, according to its website. The 28-year-old woman was armed with two assault-style rifles and a handgun, the police said, and it was not immediately clear if she had any connection to the school.

At the start of 2023, the United States has gotten no reprieve from its epidemic of mass shootings.

Some happen in public places, bringing terror to the spaces Americans pass through every day, while others happen behind the closed doors of a home. Some are motivated by personal grievances, while others are terrifyingly random. Some capture widespread attention, while others are barely noticed outside the local area. Most but not all involve male assailants.

There is no consensus on what constitutes a mass shooting; different groups define it differently, depending on circumstances including the number of victims, whether the victims are killed or wounded, and whether the shooting occurs in a public place. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks gun violence using police reports, news coverage and other public sources, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people were killed or injured.

As of mid-March, the Gun Violence Archive has counted 129 mass shootings in the United States this year. (The New York Times)