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.

        • Chunk@lemmy.world
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          This is such a non sequitur argument lol

          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.

          I don’t know one single government that is in favor of upending property rights, the exception being newborn Communist nations. Those same communist nations, after the Vanguard die out, stop changes to property rights. The US isn’t different from other nations. Even China (today) is resistant to changes to the property rights structure.

          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.

          What does this mean? Like, what is the point here? The US is currently reinventing their electrical grid, reshoring manufacturing, and is investing record amounts of money in itself to do so. The US carbon emissions have already peaked and they are slowly declining every year.

          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.

          Again, totally random argument you just tossed in here. The US dollar is the reserve currency because every other currency is not as appealing. Case in point: we increase the interest rate as global inflation sets in and all other nations’ currencies immediately depreciate against the dollar. China has to have currency exchange controls because people would so prefer to hold USD.

          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.

          Where do you come up with this stuff? This is some straight up fox news replacement BS. The US is 15% immigrants and is one of the only developed nations to have a relatively healthy population pyramid. If anything, this argument you’ve made is actually PRO America, ANTI rest of the world.

          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 CCP owns all Chinese property and no one can take it from them. The German government cannot expropriate property. Filipinos, Malaysians, Columbians, Egyptians, Norwegians, South Koreans… they are entitled to property rights.

          Property rights are not uniquely American and it’s weird you think property rights are what makes America uniquely bad.

    • 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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        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.

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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          What’s the average police response time in your area? Is it less than 30 seconds? Because that’s how long it would be until dude is physically in your home.

      • 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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          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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            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.

    • Compactor9679@lemm.ee
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      Amd we love not having you, too many imigrants already. If its so bad, why people keep trying to get in?

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        But there’s one thing in which America is homogenous - school and mass shootings.

      • Soulg@lemmy.world
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        We hate having these garbage laws to protect rooty tooty point and shooty more than our actual citizens

        • Rusty3427@lemmy.world
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          Personal accountability. Don’t enter a mental state where you can’t identify your own house.

          Should I just allow someone to kick my door in?

          • Adalast@lemmy.world
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            “banged and kicked on the door” ≠ “kick door in”

            He was drunk and frustrated. He was likely kicking the base of the door trying to be loud enough to wake a roommate to open the door since he couldn’t get his key to work and was confused. Castle doctrine should not have applied here as he was likely not an obvious threat. The shooter could probably have talked with him through the door or, heaven forbid, actually opened the door and talked with him to figure out what was going on and helped the obviously inebriated young man home.

            Castle doctrine is intended for when someone is making an obvious threat with deadly intent. The way it is being implemented here you can shoot a proselytizing baptist dead on your porch because they were there to attack your soul.

            • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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              He did more than make noise:

              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," at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window

              Regardless of what you think about gun laws, I think the resident had good reason to be concerned for his safety.

          • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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            Where the fuck were his friends? Sounds like he was blackout drunk. No one was sober enough to look out for him?

            Folks, if you friend gets this smashed, don’t let them wander off by themselves. All manner of bad could happen. Simply falling in a bad enough spot may be enough. People have been known to drown in their own vomit.

            If we did a better job of looking out for each other, it wouldn’t come to these shitty situations in the first place.

            • seejur@lemmy.world
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              Regardless of how drunk you are, you should not get shot for a silly mistake which endangered no one. Gun laws and this obsession of defending private property in ALL cases is simply stupid. Losing your life because you got drunk is stupid

              • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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                It wasn’t a “silly” mistake.

                I’ve been drunk plenty of times, but I’ve never smashed through a window and reached through broken glass to try to open a locked door. Most drunk people know better than to literally break into a house.

          • tchotchony@mander.xyz
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            No, but shooting them is an extreme reaction. I’m a woman alone. If this would have happened to me, I’d have barricaded the door, fled to another part of the house (there’s more than one door in), put more barricades in between us and made absolutely sure I screamed the neighbourhood awake. Once there’s more people to subdue him, the main problem is solved. Damages are to be covered by insurance. Now if he carried a gun, that’s an entirely different matter. Still, I don’t own a gun, never will, don’t think I’ll ever need one. Once a culture sees “shooting someone” as a first solution, things are down the drain imho.

            • Rusty3427@lemmy.world
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              So rely on other people to help. Ever hear of the story of Kitty Genovese? Dozens of people either saw her getting stabbed or heard her screams and nobody intervened or called the cops. Thanks, but no thanks.

              • tchotchony@mander.xyz
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                They were already on the phone with cops. I’m just buying time until they arrive. And he’s a drunk, as far as we know not a murderer. My first instinct is not to kill anybody who has a slightly bad day.

                • Rusty3427@lemmy.world
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                  Fight or flight. Some people run while others don’t. You can run all you want and assume they are drunks I have seen the darker side of humanity and will not assume the person doesn’t mean harm. Hindsight it’s easy to say oh he was just a drunk having a bad day. But when it’s 2am and they break a window to open the door, my first thought isn’t “this guy must be drunk”

          • PowerGloveSoBad@lemmy.world
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            Exactly-- no one wants to take responsibility for themselves anymore, and then has the nerve to complain when they are justifiably executed on the spot. Maybe you won’t have that last beer next time

              • PowerGloveSoBad@lemmy.world
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                You wanna know what’s REALLY justifiable, buddy? Not reading the obvious sarcasm in phrases like “executed on the spot” because the US gun culture is deranged

          • kattenluik@feddit.nl
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            Every country other than the US has wild break-in issues with fatal robberies happening 24/7 because they don’t have guns.