South Dakota - Murder and Attempted Suicide

Even in the supposedly placid state of South Dakota, guns are bad news for women. In this case the shooter was of that most vile type, succeeding in the murder part but somehow failing in the suicide part.

A Yankton woman died after an apparent murder-suicide attempt early Saturday morning.

According to the Yankton Police Department, Brianna Marie Knoll, 25, died of a gunshot wound in connection with an incident in the 1000 block of Whiting Drive.

Meanwhile, a male suspect, Nicholas Stewart Hines, 28, was found at 1008 Willow Lane with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was transported to Avera Sacred Heart Hospital, where he was stabilized and transferred to a Sioux Falls hospital. There is no word on his condition.

Naturally, there's no mention of his gun-owning status except to say that there were "several weapons" in his home. He could have been anything from a concealed-carry permit holder to a convicted armed-robbery felon. One thing for sure is Brianna Marie would have stood a better chance of survival if Nicholas did not have any guns.

This speculation is more than Monday morning quarterbacking. What's needed is better mental health screening for gun owners. People get angry all the time, but it takes a special kind of person to get angry enough to do this. In many cases those people leave plenty of signs which should disqualify them from gun ownership long before they kill someone.

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