Hey everybody welcome back to cold case murder mysteries. I'm your host Ryan Kraus

joining you once again for a look at the societal implications of the Byron David Johnson killings that occurred on Thanksgiving Day 2012 in Little Falls, Minnesota.

18-year-old Haley Kiefer and 17-year-old Nick Brady were killed during a

failed burglary attempt inside the home of a 65-year-old Vietnam War veteran.

On the surface, it's a case that begs an answer to the

philosophical and moral question of whether homeowners should be allowed to

exert deadly force against intruders on their private property. Yet lurking

beneath that inquiry is something of greater significance,

which is the reality that guns are still available to mentally ill people in a country heavily

predisposed of violence.

And no matter your feelings on gun ownership or gun control, this is a very serious and persistent

issue American society will deal with for the foreseeable future.

There's an undeniable correlation between these two major platforms,

one that renders a situation where gun owners don't want to surrender their protective personal freedoms,

and opponents of that notion feel people are being

senselessly slaughtered in the absence of change. But most can agree mentally ill people utilize

guns for the purpose of murder. So one of the questions in my mind is this.

What does that mean? In a broad generalized manner. What do we gather from the

propensity for mentally ill people being predisposed to violence?

Or do we have a better question at hand?

Are we actually assigning mental illness only at the time of the crime and beyond as a means of justifying

the violent tendencies as a flaw to which sane people aren't prone?

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