(Trends Wide) — The person identified as Audrey Hale, responsible for killing three children and three adults at Nashville’s Covenant School, used three of the seven firearms she had legally purchased in the latest US massacre.
Hale, 28, who was undergoing treatment for an emotional disorder, was in possession of a military-style AR-15 rifle, a 9mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 carbine, and a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield 2.0 9. millimeters, according to Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
The AR-15 and 9mm carbine appear to have 30-round magazines, according to experts who reviewed photos and video released by police.
“Indicates that [la persona] it was prepared to cause much more damage than it actually was able to do thanks to the relatively quick action of the police,” said Trends Wide analyst Stephen Gutowski, founder and editor of The Reload, a firearms website.
The attack at the private Christian school lasted about 14 minutes before the attacker was shot dead by police.
It is still unclear what prompted the massacre at the school where Hale had been a student.
Here’s what we know about the weapons used in Monday’s massacre, the deadliest US school shooting since last May in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 people dead.
Weapons purchased between 2020 and 2022
The attacker’s AR-15.
Hale had legally purchased seven firearms and kept them hidden in his home, according to Drake.
The seven firearms were purchased between October 20, 2020 and June 6, 2022, police spokesman Don Aaron said.
A search warrant executed at his home led to the seizure of a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other evidence, according to police.
Hale’s parents told police they knew he had bought and sold a gun, but they believed that was all.
Police know Hale left the house Monday morning with a red bag and also that her mother didn’t know there were weapons inside it, Drake said.
Three of the guns the shooter possessed were used to kill three 9-year-old boys, as well as a janitor, a substitute teacher, and the school principal.
After meeting with his parents and school officials, authorities have yet to find any specific issues or problems in Hale’s past, according to Drake. His parents considered that he “should not have weapons,” said the police chief.
Tennessee does not have a “red flag” law that allows a judge to temporarily seize the guns of someone who is considered a threat to himself or others.
Drake said police don’t know what Hale’s problems were. No evidence has come to light that this person was believed to be a threat prior to the week of the shooting.
“Law enforcement was never contacted,” Drake said. “She was never institutionalized,” she added.
However, Hale is believed to have had weapons training, Aaron told Trends Wide. The department is working to determine when and where that training would have taken place, he added.
The 3 weapons used in the massacre are common in the US.
The attacker’s 9mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 carbine.
Carrying all three firearms, Hale entered the school firing at and through the glass doors. He walked through the hallways and pointed an assault-style weapon, according to surveillance video released by the Nashville Metropolitan Police.
The first call to police was at 10:13 a.m. Officers arrived at 10:24 a.m. Three minutes later, police said, Hale died.
All three weapons Hale used in school are common, with the AR-15 being the most common rifle in the country, according to Gutowski. The assault rifle occupies a unique place in the heated political debate over gun control, he said, because it is a symbol of the bulwark of the Second Amendment.
Trends Wide analyst Jennifer Mascia, a writer and founder of The Trace, a nonprofit dedicated to gun violence, said there have been at least six other mass shootings involving assault rifles in K-12 schools in the past decade, since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.
Pistols are used more often in mass shootings, but semi-automatic rifles rarely leave survivors.
“That’s because when a rifle bullet makes contact, it twists and turns sideways, carving a wide path through human tissue,” he said.
The pistol-caliber carbine has a 16-inch barrel, but fires the same ammunition as the 9mm pistol, according to Gutowski.
In a scenario where an armed assailant attacks defenseless victims, Gutowski said, the type of firearm they use “could probably only marginally change the outcome” of the episode.
Tennessee’s flexible gun laws set the bar very low
Tennessee has some of the most lax gun laws in the country. Most mass shooting perpetrators get their guns legally, and in Tennessee, the requirements to purchase a firearm are remarkably few, according to Mascia.
“It’s perfectly legal in Tennessee to buy a gun without a background check,” he said. “Tennessee became the 25th state in 2021 without requiring a permit to carry. So you could carry a gun in public without ever having a background check.”
And Tennessee is one of about 30 US states without red flag laws, which allow police and courts to take guns away from potentially dangerous people, according to Trends Wide analyst Abené Clayton, lead reporter for the series “Guns & Lies in America” by The Guardian.
The attacker’s Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 9mm pistol.
“There’s no infrastructure for the people who are concerned,” Clayton said. “Clearly, this person’s parents were concerned and by all indications did not have a system in place that they could use to alert local authorities or obtain a petition from a judge to remove the weapons. It is certainly something that I think a lot of people wish had been available.”
In the end, it was the actions of teachers who locked down classrooms that day that prevented further bloodshed, said security consultant Brink Fidler, a former police officer who has conducted training on active attackers at the school.
Hale fired multiple shots into several classrooms, but missed no students “because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to put their children in those classrooms,” Fidler said.
Trends Wide’s Becky Schatz contributed reporting.
