Man takes drone out for a sunset flight, drone gets shot down
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Bullets have a ballistic trajectory and if you miss your target in a populated area, the bullet is quite likely going into someone's house or car.
Signed,
The Internet
Edit: Looking at the image[1] of the affected drone, it doesn't really look like a BB from a shotgun. It still could be, but it does look more like a .22 hole to me.
[1] - https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Photo...
It would be the intuitive thing to grab, and more likely to hit something. A small gauge one, like a .410, would even be relatively quiet (louder than a .22 rifle, but quieter than most other types of guns).
This varies by locality but in anything you'd ordinarily consider a suburban residential neighborhood, this would still amount to unlawful discharge of a firearm, I would think. If not fired into a backstop those little pellets are going to fall to earth and embed themselves into something.
Falling birdshot isn't embedding itself into anything. Direct blast, sure.
A guy in my school was hit in the head while driving. He died instantly.
It was a bit of a mystery until they found out he was hit by a stray bullet that went through the open side window, shot at 40 degrees angle more than 6 kilometres away, from a military shooting range.
(It was a low caliber bullet, but I can't remember exactly what weapon it was.)
We have said that the airspace is a public highway. Yet it is obvious that if the landowner is to have full enjoyment of the land, he must have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere. Otherwise buildings could not be erected, trees could not be planted, and even fences could not be run. The principle is recognized when the law gives a remedy in case overhanging structures are erected on adjoining land. 9 The landowner owns at least as much of the space above the ground as the can occupy or use in connection with the land. See Hinman v. Pacific Air Transport, 9 Cir., 84 F.2d 755. The fact that he does not occupy it in a physical sense-by the erection of buildings and the like-is not material. As we have said, the flight of airplanes, which skim the surface but do not touch it, is as much an appropriation of the use of the land as a more conventional entry upon it. We would not doub that if the United States erected [328 U.S. 256, 265] an elevated railway over respondents' land at the precise altitude where its planes now fly, there would be a partial taking, even though none of the supports of the structure rested on the land. 10 The reason is that there would be an intrusion so immediate and direct as to subtract from the owner's full enjoyment of the property and to limit his exploitation of it. While the owner does not in any physical manner occupy that stratum of airspace or make use of it in the conventional sense, he does use it in somewhat the same sense that space left between buildings for the purpose of light and air is used. The superadjacent airspace at this low altitude is so close to the land that continuous invasions of it affect the use of the surface of the land itself. We think that the landowner, as an incident to his ownership, has a claim to it and that invasions of it are in the same category as invasions of the surface. 11
Obviously, it's a tricky issue. It's hard to see if flying a drone over someone else's property is illegal or not. It seems that it might be contingent on altitude, noise, and other forms of disruption.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32
Of course that is in conflict with Causby, which would likely take precedent at low altitudes, though the not-unlikely result might be a test for exactly what altitude a flight would need to be to be defensible in shooting.
At the end of the day though, whichever way the law sides, the drone operator has civil restitution available (if it can be proved who shot), which should help shape the court cases.
Because it's property and not people, the redress would likely not be criminal, but civil. Within Causby's 83 foot criteria, the rationality of that defense doesn't really change, whether aircraft or no. Ergo, you would have a conflict between Causby and US Code. I dare say that because it's a federal rule, it would carry less weight than a local one, as 83+n feet is hardly un-arbitrary.
Long story short though, there's quite a lot of nuance here for which we don't have precedent.
Ordinarily (but not always), you're limited to using peaceful means to secure your rights. That would generally not include shooting stuff, though there may be exception.
So where I think you're right is that we don't have a good rule that tells you whether you can shoot a robot that walks/flies/drives onto your property. This is definitely different from shooting a person, and one could imagine it being permissible in certain situations. And come to think of it, we probably do have questions about your rights to remove or destroy other people's stuff when it's left on your property without your permission. That might be indirectly informative. But I don't have the time or inclination to really look into it at the moment. :)
e.g., I can get away with kicking your tire than I can your shin. Of course, damages is a factor here too.
Property rights are complicated as hell though. It occurs to me that one doesn't necessarily even have the unilateral right to destroy one's own property, so, yeah, I'm just going to rest on "it's complicated" and hope somebody more informed comes along to school me.
Seems to me that the drone operator has already admitted to wrecking his drone into someone's bullet. He better prepare himself to pay up some $0.25 to replace the bullet and maybe a few million for pain, suffering, and emotional trauma.
1. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-349367...
EDIT: I'm not saying shooting the thing is the best idea (esp. given bullet trajectory and such), but what real, immediate options does an offended homeowner have here?
No. And, at least in the U.S., there is no such ruling. You absolutely cannot shoot someone just for trespassing on your property.
I know that where I live, Nebraska, the rare instance when someone breaks into a home and gets shot the homeowner is in the clear. There is often talk of "castle doctrine" but I don't really know what that means. I also don't know if the breaking into a home is the important part or if someone on your lawn waving a gun or knife around could be shot with legal blessing.
The Castle Doctrine doesn't, as far as I know, have a single clear meaning, but generally refers to rules that expand the circumstances in which a homeowner can use force (including deadly force) on an intruder to their home.
If the shooter from OP's link used a .22 or anything other than bird shot, then they are a real fool and a danger to everyone around them. Off the top of my head I'm inclined to think that the reach of a shotgun is probably about the right distance that ought to be protected, maybe a little bit further because of cheap optics.
I really feel the need to drive this point home, for obvious reasons: there is no such theory. You CANNOT DO THIS. You cannot shoot a trespasser on your land, just because he is trespassing. There has to be something else involved like reasonable fear of imminent bodily injury. The threat cannot necessarily be implied from the mere fact that he is trespassing. (It's clearly a different case if the trespassing is happening in your field in broad daylight v. in your bedroom in the middle of the night.)
Anything other than birdshot in this situation would be unacceptable, IMO, assuming shooting the drone is acceptable in the first place.
Does this rule generalize well?
For example:
--my neighbor's motorcycle clearly has an illegal muffler, which annoys me in my home; am I justified in shooting it?
--my neighbors somtimes play amplified music outdoors on the private easement in front of my home after 10pm, in violation of the city noise ordinance; am I justified in shooting the stereo?
--unauthorized cars are often parked in my private lot in spite of clear sign-age; may I reasonably shoot them?
The surveillance implications of it being disallowed to disable an intrusive drone are worrying - while I'd be v unhappy if my expensive drone was shot down it is a worry if that was completely illegal. The snooping realities of drone/cameras in the wrong hands are pretty bad, from burglars scoping out targets and peeping toms all the way up to state spying on citizens.
I don't have any answers on this, but it seems our legislation is suddenly very out of date...
By the way, is flying a drone legal over populated places in the US? At least in my country it's illegal [2].
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI0i1wfKB_I
[2] http://www.seguridadaerea.gob.es/media/4427085/recomendacion...
The FCC is quite clear on the legality and penalties for doing so (https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf) but what I'm not clear on is whether the FCC can practically enforce those laws. How can someone (not the FCC) determine a jammer is being employed and would the FCC actually do anything about it?
Seems like the drone flier was the real asshole here. Someone probably got fed up with it and finally took action.
Yes, firing a gun in the air is incredibly dangerous and illegal all on its own. There was no excuse for it.
But there's also no excuse for this guy bothering his neighbors with it just because they can't stop him. Or at least, he thought they couldn't.
Nothing pathetic. Theory of least surprise. He stood near the position the thing was shot. No one else was directly visible. He is armed. He didn't like the drone. Is this proof? No. Is it pathetic to assume it? Also no.
> Seems like the drone flier was the real asshole here.
And you know this because ...?
> But there's also no excuse for this guy bothering his neighbors with it just because they can't stop him. Or at least, he thought they couldn't.
Yeah, because it is a good idea to allow any idiot to do whatever he wants if he doesn't like something.
And yes, I said dangerous. If the drone had landed on someone, that someone could be dead.
Sounds like a reasonable reaction.
With that said, it's not like he has no proof at all. If there is a neighbor that admits he hates the drone, admits he was firing his rifle in the yard the very same day, and your drone gets shot by a rifle while adjacent to his property, that's at least somewhat persuasive. It's all circumstantial evidence, clearly, but despite the common misconceptions out there circumstantial evidence is very much a kind of evidence.
1. Is it legal according to all the regulations?
2. What about liability if a drone malfunctions and divebombs some people?
If you're flying a drone over crowds, you should take full responsibility for its ability to safely operate in a regular manner compliant with regulations.
Unless you could prove that your drone was sabotaged or jammed or something to that extent, you'd be liable for at least the damages and a misdemeanor charge.
I'm not a legal professional though, so take this with a grain of salt and consult one before flying over crowds (as well as FAA obviously).
Turns out that New York has not passed any relevant drone laws that I've found, but FAA guidelines specifically say you should not fly above groups of people:
Potential market gap here: gunshot-resistant drones, exclusively for the US market.
> "I never crossed his property—I looked back at my flight log—I never once crossed his property."