Italy Once Conquered the World, Today Citizens Aren’t Allowed to Defend Themselves * The Gateway Pundit * by Antonio Graceffo

Watching the news and conservative social media feeds from Italy, one sees that migrant crime has exploded across the country. Even global tourism destinations such as Rome have become unsafe at night, while robberies and other violent or sex-related crimes are occurring at an alarming rate, even during the day.

For two thousand years, Rome projected power across three continents, building an empire on the discipline of its legions and the authority of its law. Today, Italy is being overrun with invaders, and an Italian citizen who fights back against a criminal in their own home or shop faces a mandatory criminal investigation and often a prison sentence longer than the one handed to the person who attacked them.

Gun ownership is highly restricted, castle laws are virtually nonexistent, and even the police are discouraged from defending themselves or using force to apprehend noncompliant criminals.

Under the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, any use of lethal or serious force against an intruder or attacker automatically triggers an “iscrizione nel registro degli indagate,” a formal entry into the register of criminal suspects. Prosecutors typically open the case as manslaughter or “eccesso colposo di legittima difesa” (culpable excess in self-defense), pending forensic and ballistic review.

A 2019 reform, Law no. 36/2019, was intended to strengthen self-defense rights, establishing that proportionality between defense and offense is presumed inside one’s home or business. In practice, judges continue to draw a hard line: force used against an active, ongoing threat is defensible; force used against a suspect who is already fleeing is not, and courts have consistently classified the latter as excessive or even as an act of vengeance.

American laws are generally much more favorable toward self-defense and the defense of one’s home. California Penal Code section 198.5, a “castle doctrine” statute, gives homeowners a legal presumption of reasonable fear once an intruder has forcibly entered, shifting the burden onto prosecutors to disprove that fear.

Italian law, even after 2019, still requires the defender to establish that danger was actual and the response proportionate, case by case. Separately, 38 U.S. states have “stand your ground” laws removing any duty to retreat anywhere a person is lawfully present. Italy has no equivalent.

The clearest recent example is Cinzia Dal Pino, a 65-year-old businesswoman from Viareggio who, on September 8, 2024, struck and killed Noureddine Mezgui, a Moroccan bag-thief, with her SUV. Prosecutors sought a life sentence. In June 2026, the Assize Court of Lucca convicted her of murder and sentenced her to 18 years.

Mario Roggero, a jeweler in Grinzane Cavour, shot and killed two robbers after a 2021 armed raid on his shop. Because the men were fleeing when he fired, courts rejected his self-defense claim. Italy’s Supreme Court finalized his 14-year, 9-month sentence in July 2026.

The pattern predates both cases by decades. In 2006, Antonio Monella killed 19-year-old Albanian Ervis Hoxha, who was stealing his Mercedes. Monella was convicted of voluntary homicide but was later pardoned.

That same year, gas station attendant Graziano Stacchio was investigated after killing a robber, although the case was ultimately dismissed.

In 2011, Piacenza entrepreneur Angelo Peveri shot and wounded a Romanian thief. He was convicted and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

In another 2006 case, Ermes Mattielli wounded two Roma men who were stealing copper from his property. He was convicted and ordered to pay damages.

Part of why many of these cases involve improvised weapons rather than a handgun carried for the purpose is that Italy treats gun ownership as a conditional privilege. The core law is the Consolidated Public Security Law (TULPS) plus Law no. 110/1975. Licensing requires a clean background check and psychological evaluation, with the Questura completing review in 30–45 days.

The United States imposes no federal licensing requirement to own a firearm. The Second Amendment makes firearm ownership a constitutional right, not a state-granted privilege. About one-quarter of states require some form of permit, and in most of those, the requirement applies only to handguns. For example, New York requires a license to purchase a handgun but not a rifle or shotgun. Only a handful of states, including Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, extend permit requirements to long guns. No state imposes anything resembling Italy’s mandatory psychological evaluation or its requirement to demonstrate a specific threat before being allowed to carry a firearm for self-defense.

To put the difference in gun ownership into perspective, Italy has an estimated 8.6 million civilian firearms in circulation, owned by only about 1.2 million licensed gun owners. By comparison, estimates place the number of civilian-owned firearms in the United States at nearly 500 million as of 2026.

Police face related but legally distinct restrictions on the use of force, even in cases of self-defense. In Italy, force is governed by Article 53 of the penal code, not civilian self-defense law. On the fleeing-suspect limit, Italian and American law converge: the 1985 ruling in Tennessee v. Garner bars deadly force against an unarmed suspect who’s merely running.

The systems diverge after an investigation begins. American officers can raise qualified immunity. Italian officers had no equivalent, until this year. In February 2026, Italy issued a security decree creating “Modello 45-bis,” a preliminary log that keeps a person out of the formal suspect registry when a justification appears evident from the outset, applicable to officer or citizen alike.

One of the new law’s first uses became a flashpoint. On July 19, 2026, Abderrahim Fakir, a 42-year-old man born in Morocco, died in Bologna’s Pilastro district after being restrained on the ground by police on via Svevo. He held no Italian citizenship, but he was a legal resident, in the country awaiting a routine renewal of his residence permit.

Residents had reported him to police as agitated, and he reportedly had some kind of confrontation with the driver of a car entering a nearby garage. Italian media did not specify the nature of the confrontation. When officers called emergency medical services, they told dispatchers they believed they were dealing with a man experiencing a psychiatric crisis.

Video obtained by the family’s lawyer shows Fakir restrained face-down, with his wrists and ankles bound by zip ties. His face was marked by what the lawyer described as pepper-spray residue from very close range. Red Cross responders performed chest compressions and used a defibrillator on him before he died.

Bologna prosecutors opened a manslaughter inquiry but placed the two officers and four paramedics involved in the Modello 45-bis register rather than the standard suspect registry pending review. The decision was not a finding of innocence and did not close the case, but it triggered large protests in Bologna. Demonstrators demanded the measure’s repeal, and police responded with tear gas and water cannons. International coverage drew comparisons to the 2020 death of George Floyd in the United States.

The Interior Ministry has separately circulated new internal guidelines instructing officers to de-escalate, call for backup, and use force only as a last resort when handling agitated or noncompliant individuals. The written, centrally mandated sequence has no direct equivalent in American policing, where use-of-force standards are set by individual states and police departments.