The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed “a justifiable homicide” under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday.

Police said the identity of the homeowner who fired the gunshot that killed Nicholas Donofrio shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday will not be released because the police department and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office determined his actions were justified under the state’s controversial “castle doctrine” law, which holds that people can act in self-defense towards “intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.”

      • Leo_agiad@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        The U.S. spends a tremendous amount of its energy on paranoia, checks and balances, and being remarkably resistant to large-scale changes of the status quo, particularly with respect to rights attendant to private property.

        In the current period of bullet trains, wind farms, and unisex bathrooms, it is incredibly inconvenient, even dangerous in its own right. It looks like an operating system bug, but only because it is holding up a feature that the real owners of America don’t like advertised.

        There is a reason the dollar is still the global reserve currency- because the entire system was set up to make private property despot-and-revolution-resistant, and the smart money knows it.

        The world is heading into a major demographic shift that is going to hit everybody’s social model like a brick through a plate glass window- too many pensioners and not enough taxpayers, and no one has built the roomba that cooks and cleans for grandma yet. We will get to watch a preview in China and Russia quite soon. The pitchforks are going to come out again, and politicians will blow with the wind.

        But if you own land/stuff in America, you will still own land/stuff in America.

        I’m not saying it is right, or just. It is simply some useful perspective on what such an awkward, irritating, distributed, recursive system might have been designed for, because it certainly wasn’t designed for speed.

        The term “storm canvas” comes to mind, and with it a reminder to keep an eye to windward.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Just for curiosity’s sake, if it was the middle of the night and someone started pounding on your front door and yelling, then tried to kick your door in, then broke your window, reached in and started trying to unlock your door from the inside, what’s the civilized non-American response to that?

      • LordOfLocksley@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You engage them in conversion, explain to them simply they are at the wrong house, and keep pushing that point

        Source: I had this situation happen to me at uni, explained to the side he had the wrong house, showed him the house number, and he calmly left.

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          Cool, cool. Now, what if the intruder isn’t a drunk college kid but someone looking to do you harm? You open the door, he pushes inside because he already knew that he wanted to do harm to the people inaide this house number, and then what?

          Not everyone is a drunk kid.

      • kicksystem@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago
        1. Talk to the person
        2. Call the police and tell the person the police is coming
        3. Block the person from coming in
        4. If he comes in anyway use tools like baseball bat, hammer or kitchen knife to defend yourself
      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can bang on a reinforced steel door all you want until the police comes.

        • 𝙣𝙪𝙠𝙚@yah.lol
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          1 year ago

          Did no one read the article?

          He smashed the window and began undoing the lock from the inside

          • Liz@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            No one ever reads the article. What do we want, context?

            I’m not gonna call it the world’s best home defense shooting, but I’m not gonna call it some kind of injustice.

            • 𝙣𝙪𝙠𝙚@yah.lol
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              1 year ago

              Reading comprehension is hard

              While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door “and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob”

    • Compactor9679@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Amd we love not having you, too many imigrants already. If its so bad, why people keep trying to get in?