At 2 a.m. on Saturday, August 26th 2023, Nicholas Anthony Donofrio, age 20, a University of South Carolina student, was shot dead. He was found on the front porch of a house down the road from his own residence.
Authorities speculated that Donofrio mistakenly went to the wrong home and attempted to enter. The homeowner called the police to report a burglary attempt. When Donofrio continued to attempt to gain entry, someone in the home apparently shot him, and a second call was made to the police reporting the shots fired.
If Donofrio truly made a mistake, it was a truly tragic ending to a young life. But did Donofrio make a mistake, or did he have malicious intent and was really attempting to break into the home? We will probably never know.
There is another tragedy here. One that persists whether Donofrio was maliciously or mistakenly trying to enter the home.
If it was a mistake by Donofrio, then it is extremely likely that he was drunk or high. Therein would lie a real tragedy, that someone would get so wasted that they would attempt to enter the wrong home and persist in that attempt after it should be abundantly obvious that they were at the wrong home.
But there is another tragedy here. One that persists whether Donofrio was maliciously or mistakenly trying to enter the home.
It is tragic that lax law enforcement in our country is so derelict in its duty that citizens in countless communities live in fear that they will be burglarized or assaulted. For many the default assumption when someone is attempting to enter their home can reasonably be no other than it is a burglar, rather than the far less common case of mistaken identity.
No, tragic is the wrong word. It is criminal — a completely callous corrupt criminal betrayal of the law-abiding citizens of our nation — that criminals aren’t pursued and punished to the fullest extent of the law but are instead ignored or released back into society with little more than a slap on the wrist.
It is also tragic that a likely outcome of this unfortunate incident will be the politicized prosecution of the person in the home who shot Donofrio in what was clearly seen by the shooter as a necessary act of self-defense and protection. Whether it was truly necessary we may never know, but if it was necessary, and the shooter didn’t have the means or will for self-defense, the outcome could have just as easily been the death of everybody in the home.
It is also tragic that the left is spinning this incident in a way to promote their anti-Second Amendment agenda, not only seeking to abolish the foundational right to bear arms, but even calling into question the fundamental right of self-defense. Meanwhile, their feckless leaders are surrounded by armed guards and live in veritable fortresses while society suffers from rampant crime perpetrated by criminals enabled and emboldened by prosecutors who prefer to punish law-abiding citizens.
It is truly a tragic situation.