New drone laws won't work.

Criminals don't follow drone laws. Ban drones and only criminals will have drones.

A gun weirdo in Kentucky was arrested for shooting down a drone he alleges was flying above his property. The drone owners want to sue, rightfully so, and the city has pressed charges against him for shooting a gun within city limits. He claims he was just "protecting his family". He has an odd definition of what a threat to his family is, but whatever. The drone may have been invading his privacy, but he should have reported it to the police. He'll probably be found guilty of the charge, but regardless, I have a feeling he'll be back to "protecting us from our tyrannical gubment" and "making us all safer" with his guns, or be back to shooting defenseless animals with them soon enough...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/kentucky-man-shoots-down-drone-hovering-over-his-backyard/

I love your posts. I usually agree with you, but you take stereotypes to the extreme and make shit just sound silly.

Also, I need clarity on your last statement. Are you talking about him being a drunk redneck, taking pot shots at neighborhood animals from his porch, or are you talking about hunting?

Needs moar Robocop.

does an individual own the airspace above their property?

I don't think it's an issue of invasion of personal property but invasion of privacy.

I remember hearing how the issue had the chance of becoming a major hurdle in the way of commercial aviation upon its proliferation, which led authorities worldwide to amend laws concerned with private property. So to answer your question, essentially no, an individual doesn't own the airspace above their property, but I imagine he's legally entitled to the immediate fraction of it.

I get using real shooting victims as fodder to make a political point. I detest it but I get it. But drones? Come on. What was your argument? "Let's ban guns because drones have a right to fly without being shot at"?

I read the article, and while the guy who shot the drone looks like a trigger-happy redneck, I agree with his actions, provided that his account of the incident holds. I'd be infuriated and paranoid if someone sent his privately owned drone to hover over my head.

Doesn't shooting down a drone have the possibility of being a federal crime?

@GazaAli: The arstech article also failed to mentioned that the man's daughter was sunbathing in the backyard. She was the one that alerted the man to the drone.

Ky. man arrested after shooting down $1,800 drone hovering over sunbathing daughter

I don't want those HK's hovering over me, either. If I had the balls, I would have shot it down, too.

That only applies to public/civil aircrafts not privately owned drones for entertainment purposes.

@bmanva: aren't they all classified as aircraft?

OK this is nothing short of fucking creepy. He had every right to shoot that drone down. I hope he'll sue back for voyeurism.

@lostrib: Not public/civil aircrafts. Your RC planes/drones are for your personal entertainment not public or civil use.

If people want proper privacy, they should go off-the-grid.

There is no sense of true privacy anymore these days.

Someone should make jammers that can interfere with drone receivers similar to controls with matching frequencies that can steal other people's RC aircraft.

If the drone falls into my property, it's mine.

Photo! Photo! Photo!

Honestly, the guy may have a point. If you want to fly your drone over private property, then it may get perceived as a threat and destroyed.

Another shit anti-gun post wrapped in something that might have been interesting to talk about if it wasn't for the TC.

Doesn't mean there shouldn't be a reasonable expectation of privacy, especially on your own private property. And how exactly would "going off the grid" help in this instance? Drones can still film you, whether you're connected to the "grid" or not.

The daughter is like 12.

If you are properly off the grid, no one, not even the government will know where you are. That's the point I'm trying to make. There is no more "reasonable expectation of privacy" in our technological age solely because nothing is truly private anymore.

The story doesn't state that, way to be a party pooper. Maybe she is 21 and comes from college to her parents home in the summer.

As far as I understand it, living off the grid simply means minimizing your electronic footprints, meaning nothing can be easily tied to your identity. But it doesn't mean you are living in complete isolation.

Also your statements are contradicting. If nothing is truly private in "our technological age" how is one suppose to be "properly off the grid"?

If the drone was just passing by it's one thing...if it was just hovering over the guy's house taking photos I'd feel threatened as well.

Properly off-the-grid is living in a homemade shelter deep in the woods with no electronic technology whatsoever.

My point is that it's practically impossible to escape invasion of privacy.

If that drone had a gun this wouldn't have happened.

You are still vulnerable to satellite surveillance and IR camera from aircrafts. In fact they are more likely to investigate a lone anomaly in the middle of no where. If you really want to hide, you should do it in plain sight, in a densely populated city.

I don't agree with your point. It is possible and especially if there are law protecting your right to privacy which there are.

Discharging your firearm inside city limits like that is pretty retarded. Still though, I would have looked for other means of bringing it down.

This shit is silly, dude!

Yes, I am referring to hunting. If you enjoy killing things for fun, you are not different than the neighborhood kid who lights cats on fire for "fun". You should never be allowed near a gun.

Thankfully your opinion on the issue matters very little.

Uh, I doubt it. He has every right to report the alleged invasion to authorities. Anyone who owns a gun knows that you do not fire it unless you intent to kill, in defense of yourself or someone else. A flying drone poses no physical threat to you.

True that. If this drone were armed, it would never have been a victim...

Exactly. The only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good drone with a gun.

Seriously? People hunt for food. I go bird hunting because I eat the bird.

I agree that going hunting just to discard the meat and put a trophy on your wall is pretty weird. But hunting for sustenance is completely different.

No need of laws in Rust anyway.

I can't believe some people could say there is no need for drone laws. Is it freedom speech again?

Puhleeeeeease! The old "I hunt for food" excuse. lol. You kill defenseless animals because you enjoy it. There's no way around it.

Tell me something. Do you eat meat? Where do you think it comes from?

I have no objection to eating animals. We're omnivores and they're tasty. I also have no objection to hunting for food. I dislike disingenuousness though.

Hunters may eat their prey, but it's not the reason they hunt. They hunt because they enjoy hunting and killing other creatures. It's strange how we as a society can admit that the neighborhood kid who goes around killing the neighbor's pets clearly has mental issues, but his father can stalk and shoot 20 deer for his own amusement and no one thinks twice about it.

How can we ascertain that a flying drone poses no physical threat to someone? Just a couple of days ago I came across a news article about a privately owned drone that had a gun mounted on it. There's also the possibility to load a drone with explosives.

Even if we were to dismiss these more extreme scenarios out of hand, the invasion of privacy alone is ground enough for action. I don't know about you, but a drone hovering over my house would get my paranoia into overdrive mode. I'd want the drone away immediately.

I'm anything but a proponent of gun ownership, but this was a legitimate use of firepower. I hope the drone's owner doesn't get a penny AND get sued for voyeurism seeing how the house owner had an underage girl sunbathing in the backyard. Now that I think about it, who the hell thought that commercializing drones was a sound idea...

Because we know the facts and this one did not have a gun strapped to it. Invasion of privacy is not grounds to shoot a gun, ever.

The drones themselves aren't bad (outside of airports). But, the payloads people put in them can be. Some payloads are simple wireless cameras. Others are infrared. Still others have electronic eavesdropping devices that can be used for identity theft.

I don't have complaints if drones fly over designated areas such as the mini-airfields used by RC modelers. My neighborhood have several RC modelers and I've never seen them fly their aircraft over the neighborhood. They head over to a spot away from populated areas used by the RC modeler association.

Just because he's a redneck with a gun doesn't mean a group of people flying a drone in your backyard is okay.

I'd probably try to find a way to break it too. Invasion of privacy and he didn't kill anyone.

Also lol @ juns comment. I'd love that.

EDIT: On the topic of hunting animals they are animals. They aren't people or friends and lighting an animal on fire or being an asshole is different from shooting them and killing them on the spot.

There's a difference between shooting them in the leg or in the jaw leaving them half dead instead of killing them right there to eat.

I think people who kill and eat animal know more of the burden than the people who go to their local grocery store and buy the animal meat in some plastic wrapped dish.

No ones hiding they enjoy the whole process or that they enjoy hunting.

Which one? About the payload? Many drones are powerful enough to carry a significant payload.

If it's about stealing someone else's drone via identical control frequencies, it's already been done with RC models a long time ago. There's not really that big a difference between commercial drones and RC models.

In fact, I lost an RC airplane that way when some asshole hijacked my controls and caused my RC aircraft to crash. I lost interest in RC models after that.

@jun_aka_pekto: it was the jammer idea

then that brings up the question of what is a legal height at which a person may fly a drone above their neighbor's property?

@comp_atkins: @comp_atkins: people do own a certain amount of airspace above their property. I remember this from a planet money podcast on npr.

I don't remember the amount however.

typical for this country, when only a handful owned these, the politicians didn't care. Now that the hobby has exploded, and the number of drone enthusiast outnumber rc enthusiast, the media has been going on a tear to ban them. A week or so ago you had the pussy firefighter that refused to fly because a drone was in the area, then the kid who may have mounted a gun, this Kentucky loser who apparently allows his 12 year old daughter to sunbath, and this weekend cnn is freaking out over the jfk drone. Glad I didn't get into this soon to be illegal, thousand dollar hobby. The nanny state will definitely be putting the kibosh on it soon enough.