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"Airspace under 500' AGL is traditionally considered to be under control of the landowner"

Sorry, but this is not true. Airspace above private property is considered public right of way, in the same way that a sidewalk in your front lawn is public right of way. The ceiling of what belongs to the landowner is a gray area of law, but is generally considered to be the space that is actively used. If you have a trampoline, for example, then your active usage is slightly higher than that of your neighbor without a trampoline.

The FAA operates under a white-list. Everything is illegal until a regulation is made to make something legal. Radio-controlled aircraft have an exemption for recreational flight. Unmanned aircraft operated for recreation fall under that same exemption. For commercial, or civil usage, a certificate of authority (COA) is required on a per-case basis since no blanket regulations exist yet.

"That poses the question whether we are within our property rights to shoot down any drone flying around inside it?"

No. If someone drives an R/C car along the sidewalk in your front yard, you are not entitled to shoot it because of your property rights. At best, you could try to prosecute for trespass. Same with a flying vehicle, but unless the flying vehicle is under 20ft or so, the odds are not in your favor.

What if I utilize an RC plane on my property up to 490ft. Does that extend my rights? Say I have RC drones that regularly patrol at ~400ft the perimeter of my property.

It might be a good idea to read the Wikipedia article on air rights that kordless linked (the GP of your post). IANAL, but it seems like flying an RC plane in the way you describe is just the moving version of a 'spite poll,' which are not considered a 'reasonable' use of the airspace above the land you own. You can operate an RC drone above your property, you just don't have any particular right to use it to get in the way of anyone else who wants to operate an aircraft above your property.

Shooting them down could likely be described as vandalism or purposeful damage to police property.

I realize there are other ways to disable or destroy a drone and that you're curious about the legalities. But if you did literally shoot a drone, you'd probably go to jail. If you miss you'll send a bullet miles away, endangering others. If you hit the drone, you'll rain shrapnel on the anyone below. Even then, I doubt a hit would disappate the bullet's kinetic energy safely.

A bullet expends its kinetic energy via air friction. Unless it richochets off the drone, it'll fall harmlessly some miles away.

Only if the trajectory is almost vertical and the bullet is a small caliber. People get killed by celebratory gunfire all the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire

Bullets fired at any verticle angle will fall 'ballistically' which is a fore-shortened sort-of-parabolic curve due to air friction. If the angle is large, then the fall is essentially at terminal velocity. A shot at a drone is likely to be at a large angle.

The reports of 'celebratory gunfire' deaths are all necessarily speculative - the angle of the shot is impossible to measure. We can resort to physics to get a better answer than that derived from headlines.

Harmlessly? I know this is off topic, but....

A close friend of mine was killed by a stray bullet this year at a 4th of July celebration. She was in a crowd of thousands of people gathered to watch some local fireworks. The shooter was miles away and probably has no idea that they murdered someone.

http://statenews.com/index.php/article/2012/07/student_shot_...

How horrifyingly random.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

See that is the nice thing about shotguns, they spray a pattern of pellets, lethal out to 50 maybe 60 yards and harmless to people down range. I've been duck hunting in fields where the next blind over was close enough to see the pellets land in the water between us.

The other interesting question which has yet to be answered is whether laser damage to video sensors in an unmanned vehicle in the landowner's "airspace" is actionable.

The final interesting question is whether or not its actionable if your R/C plane that you were flying around on your land and it happened to run into a drone and both fell out of the sky is a problem for you or for them. (I'd start that one off by suing them to replace your airplane)

I don't doubt though that all of these will be tested in court though.

> Airspace under 500' AGL is traditionally considered to be under control of the landowner

Seems like they should have a warrant if they want to operate drones on my property.

Note that its not illegal yet to blind optical sensors on a UAV/drone.