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.”
I do not agree with the castle doctrine. It’s too easily used to justify lethal force when retreat is an option, however self-defense is a valid justification and from the description given I think that’s completely plausible. An unknown person breaking the glass and potentially armed could be a threat. It sucks that a guy who possibly did nothing wrong has to defend himself in an investigation, but we should have a high bar on lethal actions for civilians and cops (the standard should be higher for cops).
That’s a valid statement.
It also demonstrates a wider problem: gun proliferation is so incredibly high that the default assumption is always going to be “that person might have a gun,” and this will always prompt a much lowered threshold to use one’s own gun in return.
Exactly this. I am from Central Europe and if someone tried to break into my home, I wouldnt assume by
Renaultdefault that they have a weapon. Because burglars here aren’t armed.Do Renaults often figure into your thinking? ;)
Oh shit
And are your rapists armed?
According to most stories in the newspapers, no.
Then an unarmed intruder can still be a serious threat.
It doesn’t really matter if they have a gun or not from the perspective of someone who’s home is being broken into. Any physical violence is dangerous and can result in death. People breaking into homes aren’t getting shot because they “might have a gun”. They’re getting shot because it’s unreasonable to expect a victim to accept any further risk by trying to talk the aggressor down or subdue them some other way once they’ve broken in.
No disagreement. I’m a commie pinko by American standards, which is to say slightly left by European standards. I support gun regulation but it won’t solve the proliferation until we face up to this weird fetishization of guns we have.
You know that guns aren’t the only way to hurt people, right? People can be killed quite easily
No, I did not know that.
That’s amazing.