Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told a news conference Thursday that the woman that killed 3 people had been identified as a temporary employee, Snochia Moseley of Baltimore County. It appears only one weapon was used.  It was a 9 mm Glock handgun that was registered in Moseley’s name. And no shots were fired by responding law enforcement officers, he added.   In Aberdeen, the 26-year-old assailant killed three people before turning the gun on herself, say sheriff’s officers, who have not revealed a motive. Witnesses say the shooter, a temporary employee at the warehouse, had been arguing with someone before the incident.

One thing, though, was unusual: The shooter – who killed three people – was female.

There are two primary reasons for the gaping disparity between gun violence committed by men and women, said Laura Dugan, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland.   “Men, in general, are much more violent than women, and that’s been well-documented and well-recorded,” Dugan said. “With every single statistic that you can imagine, gender is the biggest predictor of violence.”  Greater male violence could be traced to a number of factors, Dugan said, such as testosterone, or the fact that women tend to be more relationship-oriented, while men are “object-oriented and focused on finishing things up.”

The second reason is that men are significantly more likely to own guns. According to a 2017 Pew study, 39 percent of men said they owned a gun, compared with 22 percent of women. Men were also more likely to have participated in gun-related activities growing up and tended to buy guns at earlier ages, the study showed.   Dugan noted that women are more likely to own guns for self-defense purposes, while men buy guns for a variety of reasons.

Three people were killed Thursday morning in a shooting in Harford County, Maryland, according to a law enforcement official.  The law enforcement official had knowledge of the shooting but wasn’t authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.     The Harford County Sheriff’s Office tweeted that the shooting involved “multiple victims”.   In a tweet, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said his office is monitoring the situation in Aberdeen and that the state stands ready to offer any support.