Kentucky Man Shoots Down Drone Hovering Over His Yard

[Deltaboy]

http://www.wave3.com/story/30355558/dro ... y-in-court

Shooter 3 Drone 0

Judge threw out the case and threw out the discharging a firearm charge as well. Drone owner says its not over.

Drone owner says he was at 200 feet. I'm just thinking about my clay pigeon shooting, if I didn't get it close, I'm certainly not going to get it far away. What is the effective range of a shot gun?

I call the Drone owner a Liar cause #8 shouldn't take it out at that range.

[baldeagle]

The charges have been dismissed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... andom_3_na

[dhoobler]

FAA owns the airspace over your home.

That is sort of true. The FAA defines six classes of airspace, A, B, C, D, E and G. It controls classes A-E. Class G airspace is uncontrolled.

Class G airspace, where is does exist, generally has two ceilings, 700 ft or 1,200 ft. If you live away from an airport, there is a good chance that the airspace above your property, up to at least 700 feet, is not controlled by the FAA. Property near an airport may have controlled airspace all the way to the ground.

BTW, the minimum altitude for a manned aircraft above your house is 1,000 feet above the top of the structure, regardless of airspace classification.

[dhoobler]

Slightly off-topic, but y'all are better at technology than me:
What effect would a laser have on a drone? Could someone permanently damage the camera with a laser?
Curious and thanks in advance,
Nick

I would advise against pointing a laser at any air-borne object. The FAA is aggressively pursuing criminal charges against such activity. It is intended to protect pilots from being blinded by a laser, but the federal government has a tendency to overreach anywhere that it can.

http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/safety/report/laserinfo/

[OldCannon]

Yep. I fly multirotors professionally and I worry about the day that someone will try to knock a $20k X8 out of the sky because they think I'm spying on their pool

We get it, technology is scary. But it's also VERY easy to misjudge intentions. For example, one of my cheap rigs will fly fairly autonomously. If I happen to drop a waypoint directly over a sidewalk where your daughter is walking, it's going to pause for a moment while it turns to the next waypoint before moving on. To the average person it's going to look like it's stopping intentionally.

Small FPV racers have another problem. We have tunnel vision with these aircraft, and our only method of checking our surroundings is to look.Many of us have big open fields we fly in, but if it's in a park, someone innocently flying around could EASILY be thought to following a kid on a bicycle that they're not even aware of.

.....

I honestly expect gun owners to have more sense than to immediately start shooting (into the air no less!) at the first sign of something remotely questionable. As CHL holders, we're supposed to be MUCH more mature than that, and yet I've seen hundreds of gun owners supporting this type of idiocy across multiple forums.

As a guy who is now racing FPV quadcopters, I have to tell you that "drones" are quickly being labeled as the "assault weapons of the skies," and if the analogy doesn't give you a little sympathy to what most _law abiding_ drone flyers do, think about this:
1) The FAA is now in the process of requiring registration of drones in a manner that is explicitly forbidden permitted by law, but they are citing "emergency needs" to begin regulating and licensing drones _at the point of sale_. Sound familiar?
2) The media pushes the paranoia of drones often by manufacturing fear (see the recent "investigative report" on KHOU about drones spying on you), without consideration of common sense facts. Sound familiar?
3) There are some dumb kids/young adults who are NOT following proper safety rules when it comes to flying their drones, and it's giving a colossal number of safety-minded drone operators a VERY bad reputation. Sound familiar?
4) Cameras on drones, especially the ones you can buy in most stores, have very poor resolution, FAR worse than your cell phone (and FAR noisier, should anybody be worried about privacy), but, again, people seem to think they have some kind of inherent magical properties that make them more dangerous to your security than anything else. Sound familiar?
5) In an odd twist, the one group that SHOULD be helping fight the FAA's panic push for regulations is the AMA (Aircraft Modeler's Association), which is the largest organization that supports and promotes model aviation. Instead, they're helping the FAA "carve out" special protections for "traditional modes of model flying" so that the majority of their clientele isn't affected (this should sound familiar to those of us that endured the Clinton years of "Assault Weapon" carve outs, particularly the shenanigans of Smith & Wesson and Ruger)

So, whether the drone flyer in this case had nefarious intentions or not (highly unlikely), please keep in mind that there are some interesting blueprints being established here by the FAA that could very well give legal precedent to something like additional regulation of firearms by the ATF.

Just some food for thought.

[Pawpaw]

For those that question how far a shotgun can kill:

[C-dub]

And two other witnesses said they saw the drone below the tree line. That would be well below 130 yards and probably in the 25-50 yard range.

[Keith B]

Case has been dismissed by the Judge http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/03/k ... drone-man/

[GlassG19]

According to the FAA, none. How ridiculous is that?

I have a better idea than shooting it down. A large butterfly net made with Kevlar impregnated twine, weighted on the edges like a fishing net. Shoot it from a tennis ball launcher type affair. Catch the rascal and make it yours. You could mount it on the wall like a trophy or just wait for the idio....er....person who owns it to show up at your door.

[gljjt]

Yep. I fly multirotors professionally and I worry about the day that someone will try to knock a $20k X8 out of the sky because they think I'm spying on their pool

We get it, technology is scary. But it's also VERY easy to misjudge intentions. For example, one of my cheap rigs will fly fairly autonomously. If I happen to drop a waypoint directly over a sidewalk where your daughter is walking, it's going to pause for a moment while it turns to the next waypoint before moving on. To the average person it's going to look like it's stopping intentionally.

Small FPV racers have another problem. We have tunnel vision with these aircraft, and our only method of checking our surroundings is to look.Many of us have big open fields we fly in, but if it's in a park, someone innocently flying around could EASILY be thought to following a kid on a bicycle that they're not even aware of.

.....

I honestly expect gun owners to have more sense than to immediately start shooting (into the air no less!) at the first sign of something remotely questionable. As CHL holders, we're supposed to be MUCH more mature than that, and yet I've seen hundreds of gun owners supporting this type of idiocy across multiple forums.

As a guy who is now racing FPV quadcopters, I have to tell you that "drones" are quickly being labeled as the "assault weapons of the skies," and if the analogy doesn't give you a little sympathy to what most _law abiding_ drone flyers do, think about this:
1) The FAA is now in the process of requiring registration of drones in a manner that is explicitly forbidden permitted by law, but they are citing "emergency needs" to begin regulating and licensing drones _at the point of sale_. Sound familiar?
2) The media pushes the paranoia of drones often by manufacturing fear (see the recent "investigative report" on KHOU about drones spying on you), without consideration of common sense facts. Sound familiar?
3) There are some dumb kids/young adults who are NOT following proper safety rules when it comes to flying their drones, and it's giving a colossal number of safety-minded drone operators a VERY bad reputation. Sound familiar?
4) Cameras on drones, especially the ones you can buy in most stores, have very poor resolution, FAR worse than your cell phone (and FAR noisier, should anybody be worried about privacy), but, again, people seem to think they have some kind of inherent magical properties that make them more dangerous to your security than anything else. Sound familiar?
5) In an odd twist, the one group that SHOULD be helping fight the FAA's panic push for regulations is the AMA (Aircraft Modeler's Association), which is the largest organization that supports and promotes model aviation. Instead, they're helping the FAA "carve out" special protections for "traditional modes of model flying" so that the majority of their clientele isn't affected (this should sound familiar to those of us that endured the Clinton years of "Assault Weapon" carve outs, particularly the shenanigans of Smith & Wesson and Ruger)

So, whether the drone flyer in this case had nefarious intentions or not (highly unlikely), please keep in mind that there are some interesting blueprints being established here by the FAA that could very well give legal precedent to something like additional regulation of firearms by the ATF.

Just some food for thought.

Most excellent good f for thought. Some good analogies.

[Jusme]

How waterproof are they? I might need to water the tops of my trees,with a high pressure water hose and didn't notice that electronic toy hovering over my yard.

[The Annoyed Man]

http://americanintelligencereport.com/j ... n-backyard

Judge Rebecca Ward has cleared charges against William Merideth for destroying a drone which was hovering over his property with a shotgun, claiming the drone was an invasion of privacy, local TV station WDRB-TV reports.

“He had a right to shoot at this drone, and I’m gonna dismiss this charge,” said Ward.

Oops! Looks like Keith B beat me to it about 2 months ago.