What would you if it were you?

[Iglooo]

jym, if you raed my post, you’d realize I said we need to define “my airspace”. Because we allow a plane flying over our head, many miles up in the air, doesn’t mean we should allow everything flying over our head at any height.

Also, if you read the article, you should know the guy shot a BB gun with safety in mind. He may have done everything wrong but he is clear on that point. Talking about guns is distracting.

[jym626]

Yes, read your post, igloo. Was pointing out that lookingforward addressed it earlier. And regardless of whether he "shot it with safety in mind, It quite likely it was illegal to shoot it at all in his neighborhood. If he really felt that threatened by the drone, he could have tossed a tennis ball at it. A gun is not the solution to anything. Have you watched the video of his arrest? It’s interesting. As is the subsequent video of the flight path that negates most of the things he said that weren’t expletive rants at the person filming and police officer. And apparently it wasnt 10 feet above his property, it was about 270-300 feet above. And he admitted he waited for it to come over his property to shoot it.

[Iglooo]

Do you or your husband own a drone? Just curious.

Airsoft guns are not classified as firearms and are legal for use by all ages under federal law. However, some municipalities and states place restrictions on Airsoft guns.

I can’t find Kentucky law. Since he isn’t charged with gun possesion/firing, I am guessing he was lawful.

[jym626]

Well, its Bullitt county. Maybe that says something. Regardless, it was, IMO, an overreaction, and his side of the story is not supported by the videos. Wonder if he would he shoot ET flying the sky over his house on his bicycle.

BTW, we adopted a dog many years ago that had BB gun pellets in him. Horrible, irresponsible and mean thing to do to an animal, whether it was intentional or an accident.

[lookingforward]

Thing is, the arrests I’ve heard of were not automatically to blame the person who “attacked” a drone, but to use current law as a reference. No, you can’t usually shoot at will in a neighborhood. And laws of physics apply, what goes up comes down with great force. I don’t want to be hit by a descending anything, even a BB. Those celebrities who have paparazzi hovering over their weddings, blowing everything around, aren’t allowed to shoot them off.

But I agree with Iglooo that this all needs to be better defined. This is a new tech that can allow a craft to come within feet of our homes- even right up to our doors.

Btw, does a BB effectively reach 200 feet up? That’s roughly 20 stories. And my garden hose barely reaches a spray to my second floor windows, so I just doubt that’s my defense.

As with some other CC issues, maybe we need to let our congress folks know our feelings.

[jym626]

Agree that there should be updated laws and regulations to keep up with industry changes, as was with internet laws. But vigilante justice seems unnecessary to me.

[BunsenBurner]

Jym, the answer is not as simple as “you don’t own the airspace and anyone can enter it.” Here is a recent law review article on the subject:

http://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2015/02/RULE.pdf

To date, most of the scholarly11 and legislative12 activity relating to domestic drones has centered on the devices’ potential impact on privacy rights and criminal evidence gathering. Regrettably, legal academicians and policymakers have devoted far less attention to an unsettled property law question that underlies these and many other domestic drone issues: Up to what height do surface owners hold strict rights to exclude flying objects from physically invading the airspace above their land? Legal uncertainty and confusion are likely to continue swirling around the domestic drone industry until courts or legislators clear up this basic property question.

I know there was a big discussion in our local legal community of whether construction crane arms swinging above neighboring property can be counted as trespass. Cranes are different because they are physically attached to the ground, but there is also an argument that a drone is not like an airplane - it is “attached” to the ground by the means of the operator guiding it.

[jym626]

Jym, the answer is not as simple as "you don’t own the airspace and anyone can enter it.

True, because I never said that. Or implied that.

[lookingforward]

Cranes can fall and kill or cause major damage. If they put one next door, darned straight I’d be outside checking it’s possible fall trajectory. We get distracted, I think, by the fact these drones are small, cute, and all the Amazon type of hype about their innovative offerings.

Know those things the police can use to sweep under a door and have a look inside? That might be one parallel, to me. Their use should be regulated and justified, a drone chasing a suspect should consider the safety of others around, etc.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/theres-a-drone-flying-over-my-house-can-i-shoot-125546065994.html

[BunsenBurner]

Sorry jym, this thread moved fast while I got distracted by fixing breakfast, I thought your reply “lookingforward addressed it” was to Igloo’s comment on owning airspace (which got edited).

[BunsenBurner]

Here is another good read on the subject and some food for thought on how one can legally fight with a manned pest:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/03/self-defense-against-overflying-drones/

Here are some solutions to a subset of issues proposed in the article:

For starters, we suggest a total ban on weaponized robots in the US. A blanket ban would remove one of the greatest threats people might otherwise perceive, and make it much less reasonable to respond to a large class of robot intrusions with force.

We also propose that all mobile robots should be required to carry warning markings, lights, and the equivalent of a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) that would be recorded in a state or national registry. At present, there’s no practical way to tell a robot’s capabilities by looking at it (and drones can be hard to see, especially in the dark). Although far from perfect, these notices would be calibrated not just to warn of the drone’s presence, but also to say something about its capabilities, such as whether it carries a camera, and whether it is capable of capturing sounds or wifi or other information.

Setting up a licensing regime and national or state-based registries would help connect a malfeasant robot to its owner or user, but no single system is likely to work in all circumstances. Because drones can be small and may be used outdoors in low-light situations, license plates or airplane-style markings alone may be poor solutions; conversely, license plates or markings should work well for larger and purely terrestrial robots. In addition to markings, all aerial robots should be required to carry an active RFID chip with the maximum practicable range given the state of RFID technology. The range required could be adjusted annually for new robots based on improvements in RFID technology until the range slightly exceeded the minimum height requirement that the FAA likely will establish for drones.

No discussion of a notice regime would be complete without some discussion of cheating. Notice regimes are ineffective when there are a sufficient number of bad actors. In a world with widespread cheating, notice is not reliable, so it becomes more reasonable to look at all drones as potential threats. Even a relatively small number of bad actors — liars — can undermine a notice regime if they cause dangerous false reliance. Enforcement of disclosure rules for robots in general, and drones in particular, will be difficult, but civil and even criminal penalties for false statements may be in order.

Were we to transition to a legal regime in which the default rule privileged reasonable self-defense, but the owner-operator’s standardized and intelligible declaration of harmlessness made self-defense presumptively unreasonable, then a false statement of harmlessness should be considered fraud or worse. We propose that the penalty for misidentifying a robot be comparable to that for falsifying or obscuring a license plate, and that the penalty for falsifying or altering a robot’s internal unique identification number be equivalent to the penalty for altering a VIN.

[Iglooo]

@lookingforward, quick search tells me it depends on BB. A typical BB is fired at 45m/s but some are slower some faster. Fired at 45 m/s can reach up to about 300 feet but there won’t be any impact on the drone since the pellet is standing still at that point. At 173 feet, the pellet is traveling at about 10 m/s. That’s about 20 miles per hour. Not sure how much impact a pin head traveling at 20 mile/hr can exert on the drone. Not sure about my math, either. That will be like while driving at 20 mi/hr, letting a pin head out the window and have a piece of cardboard to catch the pinhead. Would it bore a hole?

[BunsenBurner]

No, lookingforward, it was not about cranes falling. That’s why construction co’s have to be licensed, bonded, and insured. The issue was that crane arms can swing up in the air above neighboring property and whether this movement would constitute trespass - when the bottom of the crane tower is not trespassing . I don’t have electronic access to the article on the subject, so can’t post a link…

[lookingforward]

Well, I can grasp that. But, so it seems maybe the guy couldn’t have necessarily scored a devastating hit if it were truly flying 200-270-300 feet up?

[Iglooo]

Digging it a bit deepe; they put shooting range of BB at about 30 feet. If so, it may be safe to assume BBs don’t have much impact at 173 feet. How do drones record their height? Do they have a sensor checking where the ground is or do they just have GPS and cite the height from the known sea level? If your house is 100 feet above the sea level,…

[Nrdsb4]

Is a BB gun the same thing as a gun that shoots birdshot?

Obviously I’m not a hunter.

[Iglooo]

Good point. Someone said earlier it was a BB so I assumed they were the same. No idea.

[dstark]

We are going to see a lot more drones. Amazon, Google…

I can see a huge truck… The back of the truck is opened up…and thousands of little drones fly out the back of the truck like bats…and the drones are carrying tiny goods to homes nearby.

[jym626]

I think buckshot is a shell casing full of BBs but someone else should confirm this.

[lookingforward]

Dont know if this one was linked http://www.wdrb.com/story/29675427/drone-owner-responds-to-claims-of-privacy-invasion

There’s a lot of he said/he said. The guy bought it for play. The suggestion he was videoing a property for a legit commercial biz is off.