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Comment by wil421 | Hacker News Reader

It’s a 30 minute class and probably a no brainer for most people. Sometimes you have to take these for a fishing licenses or to ride a Jet Ski without a license. Hunter education courses are usually mandatory. In Florida you have to take certification course if you plan to Shark fish.

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And such measures can be pretty useless and only amount to rent-seeking. I did hunter education in Colorado with the Makhaira group. Some students were unable to hit an 8.5x11 sheet of paper with a .22 bolt-action rifle at a distance of 5 yards (which is absolutely pathetic for someone who thinks they can hit a deer at even 100 yards with a hunting rifle). These individuals were granted their credentials because they failed this exercise while not breaking any of the gun safety rules (I'm not sure how you can say that you can fire a gun safely when you're that inaccurate, but that's my point).

Licensing is only tangentially about competence. The point is to have a revokable permission.

How many people continue to drive a car after having their license revoked? When they do, they are capable of far greater damage than a revoked drove license. People that have to respect for the law are not going to follow the law. How many criminals carry weapons even though there are laws?

The point of laws are to give guidance to know what is/isn't allowed, and to allow for punishiment when broken.

Selective enforcement of rules and legal discretion ought to be banned through constitutional amendment.

>> And such measures can be pretty useless and only amount to rent-seeking. I did hunter education in Colorado with the Makhaira group. Some students were unable to hit an 8.5x11 sheet of paper with a .22 bolt-action rifle at a distance of 5 yards (which is absolutely pathetic for someone who thinks they can hit a deer at even 100 yards with a hunting rifle). These individuals were granted their credentials because they failed this exercise while not breaking any of the gun safety rules

Gun safety is the point, not marksmanship.

In this case the point is safe drone use. There have been incidents of people flying drones in controlled airspace around airports, which is dangerous. The FAA doesn't give a shit about some dude and his drone, they care about the safety of the general public. A simple course like this will cut down on the number of people doing things that endanger others.

At a certain point, inability to hit a target becomes a safety issue.

You don't shoot in any direction where missing the target is a problem. If there a a house near-by or a busy road and the path of a bullet not hitting its target may encroach that space you don't even point your gun let alone shoot. For deer hunting an elevated position in a stand makes it more likely you see a deer but also makes it far less likely that a miss will go somewhere you don't want.

> You don't shoot in any direction where missing the target is a problem.

Hoping that the class included that nugget of wisdom. That being said, being wildly inaccurate with a hunting rifle isn't usually a problem, especially if the sights are calibrated correctly. A handgun however, is pretty dangerous when you don't know how to aim it.

It's one of the core gun safety bullet points, so any class covering gun safety certainly should have. . . .

Missing by a couple minutes of angle is understandable, and factored into safe use.

“Unable to hit the broad side of a barn” (American aphorism) isn’t a miss, it’s functional/cognitive inability to abide by safety rules.

Usually, these aren't expensive classes nor is the licensing expensive. And generally, those funds are earmarked towards paying either for the education or enforcement.

As for the actual shooting education... I mean, I think I care more about someone being safe with a gun than I care about them being a good shot. Missing the side of the barn matters less than making sure someone's not standing next to the barn when you are shooting.

My point was more that the class was just plain garbage and that's the most objective measure of how terrible it was that I can think of. There were people repeatedly and absent-mindedly pointing rifles at the person next to them. You know why they still got the hunter's safety card? Because they didn't do it on their last shot, so obviously they learned their lesson. The in-person instruction was also just a slide-show of the instructor's previous hunting trip.

That said, I stand by my suggestion that an inability to hit a standard sheet of paper at 5 yards with a training rifle is bad enough to qualify as a safety issue. Doing the math here, these people would be unable to hit a 60' target at typical deer ranges in my state. You can't be sure of your target and what's behind it at that point, and that's one of the 4 fundamental rules of gun safety. You should be measuring your ability to hit the vital organs of an animal in a low number of minutes of angle - so we're talking INCHES at the same ranges. If you can't do that you have no business hunting. If you're off by 60' you're just plain being reckless.

Considering the number of drone flying incidents that ground fire fighting equipment, or cause concerns around airports - I think the drone operation education is one of the cheaper ways to reduce incidents

> I'm not sure how you can say that you can fire a gun safely when you're that inaccurate,

Isn't "be aware of what's behind your target" one of the rules of gun safety?

If your aim is off enough that could be an issue. You’ll never know what’s beyond your sight, so if your aim is too high…

There are places on my property I could use for inexperienced shooters, and those would be different from places I could use.

My friend brings people to his family’s gravel pit for that reason - huge “walls” when you’re in the pit.

How would a free 30 minute class considered "rent-seeking"?

Was the certificate on marksmanship, or safe handling of a firearm?

Firing a weapon inaccurately in the correct general direction isn't high risk, this isn't how people get hurt in hunting accidents. You shouldn't even have your rifle up (let alone firing) at all unless you have a clear idea of what will happen when you miss, and a good view of the field.

I doubt the licensing body gives any thought to your probability of a successful hunt.

I'd argue that the point isn't to enable rent seeking (though some parties definitely benefit from that), the point is to add bureaucratic red tape to discourage the activity.

>I'm not sure how you can say that you can fire a gun safely when you're that inaccurate, but that's my point

The NYPD probably has a well practiced answer to this question.

For all those disagreeing, I’ll agree with you. Inability to hit a large target at very close range belies cognitive inability to perform safely. Knowing rules of the road doesn’t matter if you can’t drive on the road for a mere 100 feet without going over the curb.

That said, methinks this FAA training is abusing rent-seeking to harass & discourage small drone use (just as most legally obligated “gun safety” courses are designed to hinder ownership via imposing undue cost & time burdens).

[LFI-IV][Gunsite/Cooper]

You have to watch a video and answer basic questions before they give you a permit for Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park too. I have done that a couple of times, as well as Australia's simple drone test, and they're both no-brainers.

Let's say you're in America rather than Australia, because context matters.

If it happens a few people cannot operate domestic lawnmowers correctly and chase crowds down with them out of acts of terrorism because they slip a gasket, should we have licenses, certifications, and tracking of all lawnmowers? Is that a "no-brainer" too? Maybe we should think first before trying to regulate or educate ourselves out of every edge-case risk.

This is ridiculous because the default use for a lawnmower is solely your own yard, and it doesn't fly. Most literally power down if they leave your hand.

And the reality is that drone testing and licensing isn't based on hypothetical risks, but real world incidents which have disrupted public safety and caused injuries. So if you have sources for lawnmowers threatening the public safety and injuring anyone outside the owners' household, let me know.

Lawnmowers have aren't shopping carts. They don't know the boundaries of a yard.

You haven't seen "The Lawnmower Man?" Carry or swing a running lawnmower upside down through a dense crowd, and it will injure many people.

I think the idea with drones is that it's much easier to cause great harm to a great number of people accidentally. A lawn mower has very obvious risks: a spinning blade. A drone has many non-obvious risks: scaring wildlife, power lines, planes, restricted airspace, falling out of the sky onto people, etc.

This particular analogy in the US lead to a whole variety of safety measures, eg you can't mow with a riding mower in reverse without holding down a override switch, and there still dozens of children a year being reversed over by an inattentive operator.

Unless things have changed recently that's a California only thing.

My coworkers were recently pontificating about how "not for sale in California" is practically a marketable feature on anything with a blade or engine after one of them suffered the misfortune of buying one.

The blade brake on a walk behind was mandated in 1982 at a federal level by the CPSC. Riding mowers were mandated by ansi 2003 standard, including everyone's favourite 'operator presence control's aka the seat safety switch.

Most everything safety can be disabled if you really want, but anyone pontificating about CA compliant emissions on small power equipment can go sit with the coal-rollers as far as im concerned.

Edit: to stay on topic, if people start getting frequently maimed by drones then I'd expect to see some crazy CPSC action like an altitude safety switch or something...

I’m curious why this context matters?

Because most former British colonies tend to welcome education and regulation with open arms as a panacea instead of with suspicion of onerous, unnecessary drudgery and expense.

Which matters in terms of a non emotion based discussion on an international forum why exactly?

"No-brainer" is purely my describing it as a simple test. If you have an issue with the licensing itself, that might be better as a top level comment.

The air is a public thoroughfare. We have a long and established history of licensing for activity that require public cooperation on publicly shared resources: driving, boating, hunting, fishing, radio operation, etc.

I hear you, but this is apples and peanuts, not even oranges. There's little risk you're going to accidentally launch your mower into a car, building, a person. It stays on the ground. A small mistake or moment of inattention, or mower failure won't cause it to drop from hundreds of feet down onto who ever is below.

There's also awareness of where you can and cannot operate drones and people should know this. You are after all occupying air space. If drones could only fly up 30 feet it would be a different story but they can go quite far. People fly them over protected airspace, crash them in random places... Last thing you want is people flying them over airports, over busy streets or highways where they can crash into planes, get sucked in to engines, crash into cars and cause accidents, etc etc...

They're not asking people to take hundreds of hours of flight to get certified, just a short awareness course for those who have no common sense... You don't need to blow a gasket to have a drone accident. It's not like drones are crash proof and all aware of airspace restrictions. Just don't want to have accidents in places that can affect others or have people fly them into places that will automatically trigger an emergency responses and disrupt operations and waste time and money... Like a drone over an airport where they'll dispatch security to take down the drone and interrupt all flights taking off or landing. Thats a LOT of money for one person's ignorance or stupidity.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2190096-drones-are-caus...

I'm all for freedom as long as your 10 minutes of good times don't cost others a ton of money and the reality is there's a ton that can go wrong even with no intent on doing anything wrong.

Flying lawn mowers have existed for decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNWfqVWC2KI

One big difference here, is that for these other recreational activities the license is only required if you doing them on public lands, however on private land you do not need a hunting license, or fishing license at all

From what I understand these FAA rules apply even if i am operating a drone in my back yard.

It follows because you may be taking off from private land but you're operating in federal airspace (all airspace is federal in the US)

All airspace? Not even airspace above, say, 500 feet?

Am I literally walking through federal airspace right now?

The U.S. Constitution is pretty explicit about physical space that is allocated to the federal government and the reasons (post offices and post roads, military installations, and that's about it), so laying claim to every square inch of "air" above that land seems to be quite a stretch.

Yes, all airspace. If you're out walking, driving, or erecting a structure, you're entitled to its usage provided you're not creating an air navigation hazard. The general understanding is that you're entitled to airspace on your property, and to a limited extent on the property of others, insofar as the usage of that airspace is necessary to use the land itself. Flying anything is not, from a legal and regulatory perspective, understood to be a usage related to the land itself.

This issue has been settled for quite some time in US law. The main grey areas that exist are debates over what sorts of exceptions should be made for reasonable use of UAV/drones at low altitudes.

I've always wondered about the edge conditions.

Would flying a drone indoors require permission from FAA? What about a daredevil jump on a motorcycle?

As long as there's a roof, you can fly whatever you want indoors without the FAA's interference.

As for airborne ground vehicles - it's difficult to imagine a situation where it would legitimately be a concern, which is why it's a grey area :)

I'm actually in the UK and it appears until relatively recently, the CAA did assert control over indoor airspace. But recently they've relaxed the rules and said if there's no possiblity of escape, you can do what you want.

That does mean technically that if you're flying a drone indoors, the legality depends on how wide you open the windows.

You need a license to hunt/fish on private land.

Not in my state... I am not sure where you live but in every state I am aware of this is not true, though I tend to only live in area's where freedom is respected so...

Edit: I am rate limited but a comment below claims KY does not allow hunting with out a license, yet Offical KY government web sites says you can

"if you are a Kentucky resident hunting on your own property, then neither you, your spouse nor your dependent children need a license or statewide deer permit to harvest a deer. "

https://fw.ky.gov/Hunt/Pages/Deer-Season-FAQ.aspx

This is the regulations I am aware for most states, if you are on your own private land you do not need a license to hunt and fish

I’m not aware of any state where you can hunt wild game on private land without a license. Including states where you would expect that to be the case if it were true anywhere… ND, SD, MT, and KY to name a few. Non-game species and preserve “hunting” are a different matter.

That's very interesting. Worth moving to Kentucky! Everywhere else I have visited you need a license, and to follow bag limits. Except for non licensed animals: rabbits, squirrels, gophers for example; or predators: cougars, wolves, bears.

My state ( which is not KY) has no resictions either, I verified it just now as I had not looked at the regulations in several years as I do not hunt normally so I wanted to see if they had changed since the last I looked, but no changes.

A land owner is free to hunt, fish, etc on their own land with no license in my state

Not in Georgia if it is your land or your wife/brother/sister/dependent of you and you all live in the same house hold. You’re still required to get a free deer harvest record or free Turkey stamp etc…. No hunter ED required. [1]

[1] https://georgiawildlife.com/licenses-permits-passes/choose

The key difference is that if you're flying anything, you're not operating 'in [your] back yard' - the FAA has purview over that airspace.

Yes I am aware that the FAA claims to have full control over everything down to the ground, I am also aware there is not much case law supporting that position, and in fact the case law seems to indicated the Supreme Court could be in a position to limit the FAA's authority to 100ft and higher, anything lower than that being consider private property.

IMO it is clear unconstitutional taking for the FAA to seize ownership of all the air above my property, with out limit

I'm not sure I'm convinced the FAA's claim to airspace above private property is unconstitutional. Just as there's not a lot of precedent firmly establishing the FAA's purview in low altitude airspace, there's also not much precedent that land ownership conveys a right to airspace usage beyond the right to place structures upon the land that happen to occupy that airspace. Further, there's a clear parallel here to the FCC's purview over EM spectrum usage that does have significantly more precedent backing it, so I would expect that to set the groundwork for any future case law on the airspace matter.

In any case, it's an area that certainly needs much greater clarity than there is today.

Such as?

The Supreme Court in UNITED STATES v. CAUSBY says "The landowner owns at least as much of the space above the ground as the can occupy or use in connection with the land" They say nothing about structures being the only use, in fact they implicitly say in the ruling "The fact that he does not occupy it in a physical sense—by the erection of buildings and the like—is not material."

In that case the Supreme Court held that a plane flying at an altitude of 83ft violated the property rights of the land owner. It should not be much of a stretch to then claim the FAA regulating my use of airspace 0-83ft is an unconstitutional taking.

Even today I believe the FAA Navigable Airspace starts at 500ft above ground elevation.

It would be an interesting case if ever made it to the supreme court, I dont think the FAA's position is as strong as you believe it to be

You might be right. But this isn't about who has control. It's about making sure drone operators know where their wild-west airspace ends and the FAAs begins. How many people have purchased a drone and decided to see how high they could go without even knowing there are rules about that? The point isn't to track you or regulate you, it's to make sure you've at least read the rules even if you have no intention of flying beyond your back yard.

it seems we approach government power and the role of government from inverse positions

Your post seems to have the connotation of a "guilty until proven innocent" type of world view, where I must prove that I would not be a danger to others or would not fly a drone outside of my own back yard

That is not what I would consider a free society, I do not need to prove I will refrain from harming others in order to engage in a transaction to buy something, there are all kinds of every day products that could be (and have been) used in very violent ways, we do not have regulations on their sale.

In a free society a government needs a clear, articulable reasonable suspicion that an individual is going to cause harm to others. Not just a general suspicion that someone somewhere may cause harm. An application of general suspicion would not be a free society but rather an extremely Authoritarian society

Your backyard or 100 acre plot, doesn't change a thing, isn't restricted airspace. A plane can fly over it, and the one in a million chance that you're flying your drone high enough to impact a plane or helicopter exists.

Say people just start launching rockets and drones literally anywhere, at any time... How are flight paths supposed to be know ahead of time to avoid collisions? With 45,000ish DAILY commercial flights handled by the FAA, almost 20,000 airports in the US, how exactly do you think you can safely co-exist without catastrophes if people can just start putting stuff up there?

My reaction to this whole "unconstitutional" rebuttal to everything in the US is literally jaw dropping, confused, and wtf... If you're smart enough to not do something stupid, or not put yourself in a position to make mistakes that affect others, thats great. Good for you. There's 350 million other peeps just in your neck of the woods and I can guarantee you that same innate sense of logic and common sense doesn't apply to everyone else. When a stupid move can put the lives of 100s of others at risk, or cost a ton of money every time they need to intervene, I'm not sure you get to just throw around "me myself and I and my constitution" and actually come out not sounding like a 1 year old throwing a tantrum because he's told to not wipe poop on everything and everyone.

How many hundreds of millions or billions would have to be wasted in downtime, planes crashes, car crashes, lives lost, random injuries, before we ask people to do the equivalent of reading the dumb ass common sense instructions that came with the toy that is way more than a toy?

> A plane can fly over it

Maybe it shouldn't. Ground vehicles need to purchase land to operate, maybe planes needn't have right of way over private property.

> I'm not sure you get to just throw around "me myself and I and my constitution"

You absolutely get to. Planes are operated at profit - "me, myself an I" for a private corporation.

>>My reaction to this whole "unconstitutional" rebuttal to everything in the US is literally jaw dropping, confused, and wtf.

Well the constitution is where the Government derives is power from, I know it is a concept most people (even US Citizens to not ) understand. The Constitution is a document that explicitly outlines what the government can do, if the constitution does not grant the authority than the government has no power over that thing.

This is far different than most government organization where constitutions apply more to the people not the government, meaning the constitutions in many nations assume the government is all powerful and simply grants some rights to the people for which the government is barred from infringing.

This is not true for the US, as the founder of the US recognize that our Rights are natural rights bestowed upon us by our creator, we are self governing for which we organized a government and granted that government a very LIMITED amount of power.

>>Say people just start launching rockets and drones literally anywhere, at any time... How are flight paths supposed to be know ahead of time to avoid collisions? With 45,000ish DAILY commercial flights handled by the FAA, almost 20,000 airports in the US, how exactly do you think you can safely co-exist without catastrophes if people can just start putting stuff up there?

That is easy, as my other comments have laid out I am talking about low altitude situation, not many planes under 100ft or even 500 feet, there should be no issue with the FAA only regulating things above say 500ft

>>the one in a million chance that you're flying your drone high enough to impact a plane or helicopter exists.

So 1:1,000,000 is the statistical floor for you? You might want to rethink that because if that is your risk tolerance that more or less makes everything illegal. Hopefully you have at least some respect for freedom, and are not a complete totalitarian, pretty sure you said in another comment "you are all for freedom" but if you want to outlaw everything that has a 1:1,000,000 chance of unsafe event well I dont think you have any respect for freedom at all

Yes, because there is no such thing as unregulated airspace. The FAA governs all navigable airspace, and a drone has no minimum flight altitude, so literally any outdoor flight is within their purview.

I am aware that is the FAA Position, I am also aware that United States v. Causby The US Surpreme Court reject the US Government claim "to possess all airspace above the United States down to ground level" holding that a Military jet flying at an altitude 83ft is a violation of the land owners rights to their property, aka the low altitude airspace

Further navigable airspace under current regulations starts at 500feet above ground or structures

Additionally, the FAA only regulates buildings that are 200ft above the ground or more (unless they are near an airport), see [1]. It seems ridiculous that the FAA doesn't care if you build a 200ft tall tower and fly a drone inside it but does care if you fly a drone outside at the same height. The FAA likely realizes that regulating all buildings taller than 0ft is a ridiculous proposition while regulating all airspace probably attracts less scrutiny.

[1] https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=84336

I didn't know about the shark fishing one. That's neat. Does that include tourists that hire a charter, or is it for the charter captains themselves?

Looked it up and it’s only for shore based shark fishing because you’re taking the shark out of the water.[1]

In some states the Captain’s fishing license will cover everyone on board for most types of fishing (including sharks) in state waters, except certain Tuna IIRC based on federal laws/permits.

[1] https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLFFWCC/bulletins/2...

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