Judge: Defendant 'Had a Right' To Shoot Down Drone (wdrb.com) 620
EzInKy writes: Back in July, Kentucky resident William Merideth was arrested after he shot down a drone flying near his property. The arrest wasn't because of the destroyed drone, but because Merideth fired a gun within the city limits. Now, after a two-hour hearing in Bullitt District Court, a judge has dismissed all charges against Merideth. The owner of the drone, David Boggs, has always contested Merideth's claim that it was hovering over his yard. "But Judge Rebecca Ward says that since at least two witnesses could see the drone below the tree line, it was an invasion of privacy." Ward further said that Merideth "had a right to shoot at this drone."
Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Even from a hand gun like a 9mm, you are talking over a mile when shot upwards at the wrong angle. Forward velocity does not drop below killing velocity before downwards acceleration causes the bullet to hit the ground or some low object.
This was a very dangerous action.
About as far as you can throw a strawman (Score:5, Insightful)
He used a shotgun, not a 9mm.
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how much I am against idiots who dont respect other peoples privacy this will probably lead to innocent being hurt
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Maybe it's time for the Feds to come in and charge Merideth with Interfering With the Operation of an Aircraft. If there is this big a brouhaha over a toy quadracopter, can you imagine the chaos if we ever get flying cars?
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Problem is, people will read: I can shoot down a drone now, and they will use other things than a shotgun because they are dumb idiots
One of the strangest things I've found is that the most passionate gun lovers I know, all think that drones should be banned.
I'd love a discussion on the second amendment aspects of weaponized personal drones. Do we have the right to use a drone only as long as we have afirearm attached to it?
Is not allowing weaponized drones an example of the federal government and anti-gun forces interfering in our rights?
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I don't have a drone, that won't prevent me from being shot by some asshat who knows how a gun work but can't grasp the concept of a bullet.
Do you see the problem here? Two groups of assholes tries to stand their ground and everyone else gets caught in the crossfire.
Troll much? How could a conversation about a guy who shot down a drone using a short gun turns into 2 groups of people shooting each other?
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I don't have a drone, that won't prevent me from being shot by some asshat who knows how a gun work but can't grasp the concept of a bullet.
Do you see the problem here? Two groups of assholes tries to stand their ground and everyone else gets caught in the crossfire.
Protecting your property does not make you an asshole. Invading someone's privacy does.
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Re:About as far as you can throw a strawman (Score:4, Interesting)
You are engaging in "slippery slope" arguments.You may as well argue that we should not allow people to defend themselves with guns because someone might interpret that as a right to shoot anyone they want.
Re:About as far as you can throw a strawman (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure why the distinction of an unwelcome video camera that is intently surveilling ones backyard cannot be made by most here and instead it is equated with car cameras or public area surveillance. It can be equated with some pervert climbing a tree in your yard and video recording your family, and that is about it. In that case I don't think most people would have a problem with the homeowner destroying the camera if he could do it without harming the pervert. In this case, for some reason, simply because that camera was attached to a drone, there is a swath of people that seem to think the camera should deserve some sort of legal protection.
And there are the others that just can't get over the fact that a gun was used, and that excuses any action by the drone owner.
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Saying we "care more about criminals than we do for victims" because someone thinks you should NOT be allowed to shoot someone who MAY be a Peeping Tom is just silly.
Is this an ironic post?
flight data vs. eyewitness (Score:3, Insightful)
The interesting question, to me, is whether or not it was actually flying below the treeline. From TFA, the drone's owner presented flight data showing that the drone was not below the treeline, but the man who shot the drone down had two eyewitnesses saying it was lower. If we have altitude readings and video footage, it seems to me those should be able to trump eyewitnesses (assuming that data is complete and not suspect). That's why people are pushing to put bodycams on police, for example.
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Any data used by a court should be questioned just a rigorously. At a minimum, the following questions seem relevant:
1. Is the device collecting this data certified?
2. Is the flight data collected in a tamper-evident manner?
3. When and where was the device calibrated?
4. Was the flight data collected at the time of the incident or provided by the drone owner at a later date?
Without this information, the judge would lik
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The interesting question, to me, is whether or not it was actually flying below the treeline. From TFA, the drone's owner presented flight data showing that the drone was not below the treeline, but the man who shot the drone down had two eyewitnesses saying it was lower. If we have altitude readings and video footage, it seems to me those should be able to trump eyewitnesses (assuming that data is complete and not suspect). That's why people are pushing to put bodycams on police, for example.
He shot it with birdshot from a shotgun. If it was above the treeline its doubtful he would have been able to bring it down with such a shot. Hit it? Maybe. But the further the range the less damage and more spread out the birdshot is.
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What I wanna know is whether anyone has found any good recipes for drones?!?
The one's I've shot down all taste like plastic and creepy perversion.
Re:flight data vs. eyewitness (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA, the drone's owner presented flight data showing that the drone was not below the treeline, but the man who shot the drone down had two eyewitnesses saying it was lower.
I can tell you from experience that the people on the ground win that one every time.
I've done a lot of flying in helicopters over the years, we are allowed to fly lower than airplanes, even in cities. In fact, we have no published minimum altitude, other than to "not fly at an altitude that causes hazard to persons or property on the surface".
What does that mean? I'll tell you... my FAA inspector once gave me his answer, and since he has authority over my flying, his word counts (in so much as he is the one who can put a stop to my flying).
He said, "if I get a phone call from one person saying you're flying too low, I might call around, ask you to be careful and avoid that area. if I get multiple calls from multiple people saying you're flying too low, I'm going to get into my car and come see you, and you're already guilty. if you're scaring people on the ground, you're at fault, regardless of your altitude, fly accordingly."
Re:Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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OK, that is very simple. As the delivery drone gets close to the address it is supposed to deliver to, it has to descend in order to make the delivery. Entire neighborhood? No. A couple of houses / apartments? Yes, it will have to be low enough to make a safe delivery. This means it will go very low past at least a couple of residences.
How about make the drone obvious as carrier, similar to FedEx or UPS trucks? For example, COLOR it in a way that people will see the differences? You are talking as if all drones must look the same or similar, so people can't distinguish them.
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There are tradeoffs. Next to roads, there are often telephone poles and power lines. But even with high quality GPS or wifi based location tools on the drone, mapping locations like Google maps are often off by a street or two, so confirming the address is still needed. Picking safety over precision is going to be fascinating work.
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If someone tried to make delivery drones from a plane, which would require it to descend prior to the destination, the package would have to be dropped. That combined with decreased maneuverability would make plane-like drones a poor choice for deliveri
Re:Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:5, Funny)
You're right. Those drones will drop loot when shot out of the sky.
Re:Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:5, Insightful)
If he could hit a flying drone with a 9mm, he was either an extremely good shooter . . . or incredibly lucky. At the gun club ("Schützenverein") that I visit there are some ex German Army folks who could shoot the ears off a fly. They would not be able to do this to a drone with a 9mm.
The defendant in this case used a shotgun with bird shot: totally innocuous over long range.
This was a very dangerous action.
No, it wasn't. And this is what prevents serious gun legislation in the US: Too many people talking about something they know nothing about. This is a free lunch for the NRA: The people proposing new gun legislation don't even know the difference between bird shot or a 9mm. When these folks get around being unable to know the difference between their asses and their elbows, they could propose tighter gun restriction legislation that even the NRA would agree to.
Actually, serious drone pilots and gun folks have something in common: They follow a simple rule of "Don't be an asshole!" I don't fly my RC critters anywhere which would bother other folks. Gun folks don't shoot in any areas that could put other folks in danger.
Really simple, actually, and could be applied to virtually any device that two-legged critters can control or carry: "Don't be an asshole!"
But, apparently, that is too difficult for a lot of folks.
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"Don't be an asshole!" as a behavioural rule only works when it is safe to assume that the vast majority of the population aren't in fact assholes. Empirical evidence (ie. elections, polls, daily news) unfortunately suggest otherwise.
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An anecdote is not empirical evidence. The only thing that you have shown with your statement is that you do not understand the difference. A curated collection of anecdotes is still not empirical evidence. The difference that you seem to have missed is a little issue with selection bias.
Clearly the vast majority of the population are in fact, not, assholes. Otherwise we could assume that every collaborative aspect of soci
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Depending on your definition of "long range", birds might disagree on how innocuous it is.
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My yard has 6 other yards along the borders. Am I not allowed to fly my "drone"* in my own yard? Because it's certainly visible below the tree line by lots of people in the area. Legally I'm allowed up to 100 feet (due to proximity to airports) in my own yard. If I'm just out sport flying in the back yard and someone shot my "drone" down I would be fucking pissed. Not only for damage but danger to myself and family.
If I where hovering at say 50 feet over my yard it would be easy to mistake it as a drone wit
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Well, if your yard has 6 other yards along the borders, and you like to fly your whirligig in your backyard, is it a problem for you to neighborly wander by their homes, and say:
"Hello there! I'm your neighbor! I like to fly a whirligig in my backyard. If that annoys you in any way, please just call me, or just come by. Wanna beer?"
But you've certainly down that, haven't you . . . ?
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Your presenting your argument inaccurately. The bullet velocity on impact will depend upon several variables, and while it could possibly still kill someone, it's very unlikely. Google is your friend on this issue.
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You've already been refuted factually as far as what was shot, but I'd also point out that bullets fired upward quickly tumble and lose their aerodynamic (ballistic) orientation by the time they are falling. Tumbling bullets have a terminal velocity of 300 feet per second, which would certainly hurt but are extremely unlikely to kill anyone.
Note: bullets fired at 45 deg elevation are far more likely to maintain spin for longer, and are thus more dangerous. Unlikely to be firing this low at a drone, though
Re:Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:5, Informative)
I have been hit many, many times by birdshot that somebody fired 'up'. Duck tower, Metro Gun Club, Blaine Minnesota. When the shooters shoot at the clay targets (up) the shot is often sprinkled across the parking lot when it comes down. Now, this is usually 7-9 birdshot, so very small projectiles. I can see buck shot hurting, but not being very damaging.
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Probably a way to relabel standard birdshot and charge 3x for it.
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Less worried about shooting it down accurately than about trying to shoot it down inaccurately.
Re:Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Do you know how far bullets fly? (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine who grew up on a farm was caught by his father playing with a shotgun. His dad told him to start running because he was going to shoot at him after he counted to ten. He did in fact shoot his son, who experienced pain but no real injury. I would not endorse this method of parenting, but it does illustrate that shotguns have a very limited lethal range, at least with whatever load it had.
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+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:5, Interesting)
I think part of the problem with justice is it doesn't fit neatly in people's ideas on how things should work politically.
Guns are bad, however his privacy and property was threatened and the causality was not a life.
He used a gun as a tool to solve a problem.
Now if there was a person who got shot the justice system may have tilted the other direction.
Re:+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:4, Insightful)
however his privacy and property was threatened
His privacy was no more threatened than it is by aviation; anyone who files a flight plan can legally overfly him, and nothing prevents them from taking pictures as they go. And his property was not threatened; he shot down the drone, it was not revealed to be a firebomb.
Now if there was a person who got shot the justice system may have tilted the other direction.
There is a public interest in restricting the use of firearms within city limits and the like to actual emergencies. This wasn't one of those.
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anyone who files a flight plan can legally overfly him
Above 500 feet.
Re:+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:4, Informative)
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Unless in a helicopter, then that doesn't apply... except that the pilot "must not fly at an altitude that causes hazard to persons or property on the surface".
What is that limit? That is largely up to your local FAA inspector, among other things.
And as another helicopter pointed out, the FAA inspector is going to base his conclusions on public opinion. A person feels threatened if they feel threatened.
In this case, it is pretty clear he felt threatened (or rather that he felt his daughters were being threatened), as he resorted to shooting down the threatening object.
Re:+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:5, Insightful)
however his privacy and property was threatened
His privacy was no more threatened than it is by aviation; anyone who files a flight plan can legally overfly him, and nothing prevents them from taking pictures as they go.
They cannot legally fly below the treeline, which, if you read even the summary, you'll find was a major point of the judgement.
And his property was not threatened; he shot down the drone, it was not revealed to be a firebomb.
Whether it was threatening or not is irrelevant. You don't get to invade my backyard and then cry about how you aren't threatening.
Now if there was a person who got shot the justice system may have tilted the other direction.
There is a public interest in restricting the use of firearms within city limits and the like to actual emergencies. This wasn't one of those.
Unfortunately for you you're wrong: it was found that the downside of firing birdshot into the air is less than the downside of allowing drone operators to film someone else's backyard. Both are downsides but a court felt that the value of having one outweighed the value of having the other.
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I hope that wasn't what happened in this case. If the law says firing a gun within the city is illegal then it should be illegal regardless of other criminality in the vicinity. If defending your property is a clear exce
Re:+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:5, Insightful)
If the law says firing a gun within the city is illegal then it should be illegal regardless of other criminality in the vicinity.
People like you are why a law making it illegal to yell, "fire!" in a crowded theater actually has to spell out that it's legal when there is a fire. Because if it didn't, you would find yourself unable to apply common sense to the situation and find some poor sap guilty of the crime when he was really doing everyone a service. I'm not sure what causes it, but the inability to evaluate rules in context is a plague on our society. It leads to zero tolerance policies where kids get expelled for taking bites out of a Pop Tart in the wrong order [washingtonpost.com]. IMHO people who make rules like that are a threat to society orders of magnitude worse than the people their rules are supposed to effect.
Re:+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:5, Insightful)
And ACs like you aren't worth shit, grow some balls and get some manners then we can talk.
You say an AC isn't "worth shit", and then tell him to get some manners. He didn't insult you personally, he didn't call you names, and he didn't use foul language. He simply placed your comment into context, with relation to a problem he sees with society. For that you respond like a child.
Grow up.
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I hope that wasn't what happened in this case. If the law says firing a gun within the city is illegal then it should be illegal regardless of other criminality in the vicinity. If defending your property is a clear exception to the law then what happened here is that it was decided that this shooting fell within that definition.
You don't understand the purpose of laws then. Laws are implemented in order to try to cover common circumstances. However, it needs to be interpreted when extreme cases occur (in gray area). Once a verdict is ruled for those cases by a court, the verdict can be used as precedence for latter circumstances. The ruling could be overturned by a higher court, but the highest court has the final word on it.
Thus, when laws said "firing a gun within a city limit is illegal," it does not always mean it is illegal i
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Not even a remotely imaginative straw-man – but what should I have expected – the presence of other illegality has literally nothing to do with whether a law discriminating against blacks is morally defensible or not. Come up with a more persuasive argument, you can't brush away any law you feel like with a half-arsed analogy to the civil rig
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Because one frame day with a pixel resolution of 31cm panchromatic imagery from the WorldView-3 satellite is as privacy invading as drone with a live full HD video feed just a few meters away.
Seems some people don't understand the what privacy actually means.
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Problem is now it's open season on drones. "He's coming right for us.... I mean under the tree line!"
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Problem is now it's open season on drones. "He's coming right for us.... I mean under the tree line!"
I don't see the problem, frankly. It should be open season on any drone sent into your yard. Don't have birdshot? Use a bat, hose, whatever.
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His privacy was no more threatened than it is by aviation; anyone who files a flight plan can legally overfly him, and nothing prevents them from taking pictures as they go. And his property was not threatened; he shot down the drone, it was not revealed to be a firebomb.
Umm, no. There are restrictions regarding altitude "above ground level" (AGL) for aviation. https://www.faa.gov/about/offi... [faa.gov]
There are also property rights for airspace above your property. Just for you.. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/... [dummies.com]
Re:+1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:4, Insightful)
No, +1 for property rights. Something for which drone operators have no respect. This isn't hard, fly where you are allowed, don't fly where you aren't.
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Re: +1 for privacy supporters -1 for gun control (Score:5, Insightful)
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Cars are designed to be as safe as possible. Guns are designed to be as dangerous as possible. Yet, cars kill more people every year than guns, including suicides.
That doesn't seem to be true. The only numbers I found in a quick web search are for 2013:
32,719 deaths in car accidents (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org])
33,636 deaths from firearm injuries (source: http://www.vox.com/cards/gun-v... [vox.com])
In 2013 "people with guns" led to more deaths than "people with cars" — and that in spite of the much higher frequency and spread of vehicle usage.
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Private property is the very cornerstone of individual liberty. Frankly most of our castle doctrine laws are far to week. I think in some states it still extends to defense of property but most places you have to be in fear of your life. You absolutely should be able to use force to stop someone who is engaged in an act of theft or destruction on your property even if you don't feel your person or family is threatened. Drones are trespassing, and people should have some freedom to deal with trespassers,
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Here's the list...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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> Firing bird shot into the air is not a serious hazard. I don't know how you think hunters get birds, hint they don't wait for them to land
They don't normally hunt within city limits, where firing guns was illegal in this case. In the USA, most bird hunters hunt on private property outside city limits, where the property owner has given permission. There's some hunting on public land, but this usually requires a permit to prevent poaching and depopulating the hunted species. Similar, more stringent rest
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Also, most game animals don't nest in urban areas, so you wouldn't get many people hunting in cities unless they really liked Pigeon, but there's so damned many of those you wouldn't even need a gun. There might be some other critters like squirrels or rabbits, but people us
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It worked for Jed Clampett. He got some of those new dollars he heard about. He got ten "million dollars" for it.
Basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) (Score:3)
This was where I understood the importance of a sport flying, and especially the knowledge of the Basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Knowing and practicing the basic defensive piloting is very useful in order not to hurt a bird and not to damage an expensive RPAS. It is practically impossible for a bird to catch an experienced pilot in the air, I would guess it is about the same for a gunner on the ground with a usual shotgun.
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You would guess wrong, then.
Hint: birdshot is MUCH faster than any bird.
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Hint, even a seasoned expert duck hunter cant shoot down a drone flying erratic.
do you even know how shotguns work? you have to lead the target.
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you have to lead the target.
Here is some sport flying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] but the pilot is still trying to keep the quad-copter in the field of view of the video-camera.
This looks juicy (Score:2)
Oh so he just used a tool (shotgun) to disable (obliterate) another tool. Sounds pretty reasonable...in America.
A tool, while could be also a weapon is not in its sole purpose a weapon. If he missed or caused other harm but I digress...a wise person (judge) found that it was reasonable.
What I'm very curious about is the precedent. So a drone above the property is fair game for a shotgun, how far above? how close? what if you only thought it was a drone but actually it was some other RC toy? -what if you
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Just wait until cube sats get better optics.
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It was reasonable to me too, because it's in the US.
As you are a self-proclaimed European I can see how you might assume this relates to teen girls.
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I believe this described the tacit limit of your property rights as "within shotgun range."
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My point was unrelated to your response...but as you mention accidents I can tell you that you can only have so many accidents with a fork in a cinema than with a semi-automatic.
#justsayin
Uhhh, Judge is an idiot (Score:2)
Are we all forgetting the video of the shot down drone? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
It's clearly well above the tree line. Why was this not used in court?
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Oh, it WAS used in court. FTFA:
During Monday's hearing, Boggs testified that flight data showed the drone was flying higher than Meredith stated. But Judge Rebecca Ward says that since at least two witnesses could see the drone below the tree line, it was an invasion of privacy.
The judge decided to use witness testimony over factual hard evidence that the drone was over 250 feet in the air, well above the tree line. GJ idiot judge, this should be appealed.
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Factually misrepresented, you mean. Showing the blip of footage from the drone's *return* trip is deceitful. It is done to misrepresent that it was the first and only trip made by the drone.
Let me help you out here:
Drone flies in low and hovers getting some nice pictures of the sun bathing teenage girl. Drone departs, but the irritated father goes into the house to get his shotgun in case the drone returns. When it does, he shoots it without waiting for it to get low and slow. Drone boy posts the footage ex
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This was a CRIMINAL proceeding. Do you really think a court should accept as 'evidence' something provided by one of the parties involved? Now maybe if the cops had confiscated the drone and controller, and THEY provided the images and telemetry from the drone and it showed what you claim, then you would have a point. But only a moron would accept as 'evidence' data provided well after the fact by one of the parties.
The problem is not with the accuracy of the data, it is that the data is 100% unreliable.
Re:There was a sudden disturbance in the force... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, birdshot is safe to fire into the air, so there goes *that* argument)
Ever caught some birdshot in the face, after someone fired it up (above a treeline)? No? I have, from over 100 yards away. If I hadn't been wearing eye protection, I'd be blind right now. This is not as cut and dry as you're making it out to be. Not even close.
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Yup. Don't run with scissors too. But, you're more likely to get hurt falling off your bike than by birdshot at 100+ yards.
Re:There was a sudden disturbance in the force... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares about that argument? I'm more interested in the case where willful damage of another person's property is justified because someone makes an assumption that it infringes their right to privacy.
An assumption that was later found to be correct. You seem to be under the belief that it's all still "assumed" or "alleged"; it's not - there's a judgement. A court found that there was a privacy invasion. *You* are saying that there is an *assumed* privacy invasion while a court has decided that there is no "assumed" about it.
Normally when someone invades your privacy you call the police, take them to court, get a restraining order, etc.
"Normally", yes. It appears though that in this case the shooting and destruction of property was justified, and a court judgement backs that up.
In my view the correct justice would have been the person doing the shooting have to pay for the damage to the drone. Then the person infringing the privacy get hit with a fine for doing so.
That is far more consistent than having a "right to shoo a drone"
A court agreed that it was the "right" thing to do - get over it. The "right" to trespass via remote control is not a right that anyone should ever get: if you willingly invade someones privacy *repeatedly* and intentionally then expect to lose your remote control viewing privileges.
Re: Stupid judge (Score:2, Funny)
Well, justice has spoken and says you're wrong. Get over it. Justice just took a big smelly dump upon you. Your clothes are brown with Justice's spicy excrements.
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Firing a shotgun with birdshot into the air is fairly safe.
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Firing a shotgun with birdshot into the air is fairly safe.
WAY too broad a statement. I've caught a face-full of bird shot that someone sent into the air (pointed above their treeline) over 100 yards away. I'd be blind right now if I hadn't been wearing eye protection. I've shot untold hundreds of birds out of the air (and into the freezer). I never pull the trigger unless I know what's downrange for at least 300 yards, even with very light birdshot. In a suburban area when my life or my family's life isn't at risk? Never. If some local kid is being reckless with
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So what's going to happen to privacy laws when that Amazon/Walmart drone flies 500 ft over your property? 500 ft or even a mile high is nothing when you have the proper lens for zooming in. Will people have the right to buckshot these drones too to protect their privacy?
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This was birdshot, not buckshot, and it's not going to do anything at 500ft, lens or not (assuming you even have a tight enough spread to hit your target!).
Re:What is it about... (Score:5, Insightful)
The militia part is not modifying the right to bear arms. The quote reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
For those with reading comprehension, there are two statements in this sentence. 1) that a militia that is well regulated is necessary to keep a free state secure and 2) that the people have a right to keep and bear arms that the government cannot infringe upon.
I will note that your statement of there being no militia is part of the problem. As the founding fathers warned, our free state isn't secure and one of the reasons is because the militias went away. Instead we have a standing army that is continuously operating and while not mentioned in the Constitution, many of the federalist papers discussed in depth the problems with a powerful central government having a powerful military in times of peace.
I'm in agreement that we have far too many laws and we can throw out most of the federal code of regulations. However, the Constitution is a pretty small, easy to read, reasonable document that has been ripped to shreds by attempts to interpret it with a context of the modern world. However, there is a convenient part built in that allows it to be modified. But long ago the government figured out it was far easier to ignore it than go through the modification process.
Re:What is it about... (Score:5, Insightful)
The militia part is not modifying the right to bear arms. The quote reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
For those with reading comprehension, there are two statements in this sentence. 1) that a militia that is well regulated is necessary to keep a free state secure and 2) that the people have a right to keep and bear arms that the government cannot infringe upon.
There's one more thing that's important to note -- (3) these two things are combined in the same sentence because (1) is **a** justification for (2). Some interpret the sentence to mean that (1) is the only justification for (2), but the history of these types of clauses in, say, state constitutions from the same time does not really support such a reading.
Anyhow, the more useful aid I find in interpreting these things is to transfer the statement to something less controversial:
"A well educated electorate, being necessary to the democratic function of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed."
If the Constitution said that, would we infer that only registered voters (part of the "electorate") should get to keep and read books? If you're a kid or you don't vote, you don't get to read?
OR... do we interpret it to mean that the first part of the sentence is ONE important reason why "the people" in general should get to read books -- but it only applies to a subset of "the people," namely the "electorate." There may be other good reasons why other people may benefit from books, and hence the right is granted to "the people" later in the sentence (rather than a repetition of "the electorate" only) but the Constitution (which is a fairly terse document in general) doesn't list all of them.
Personally, I find the latter interpretation (i.e., a general right for "the people") to be much more compelling when we transfer the logic to a sentence on a less controversial topic.
(By the way, I'm actually in favor of much greater regulations on guns, perhaps even beyond what the 2nd amendment implies. But I refuse to twist the meaning of this sentence to accord with my personal belief.)
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"A well educated electorate, being necessary to the democratic function of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed."
So along this same analogy - would you expect that the types of books and manner of keeping them are subject to restriction/regulation?
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Which is precisely the point. If the people want to ban guns then that's fine they can do that. However, it requires an amendment to the constitution not just legislation.
Re:What is it about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do YOU people always leave out the militia part? A little inconvenient?? There is no militia now, so you don't need any guns.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that the right to be arms is an individual right, not the right of the militia. It merely facilitates the formation of a militia when needed.
Claiming that 2nd amendment only applies to the militia would have made about as much sense as claiming that the 1st amendment only applies to the press.
Sweden destroys their constitution every 10 years, and re-writes it from the ground up. This eliminates the issue of a 325,000 page federal code, and ridiculous shit like Alabama having a law against playing naked ping-ping, or a woman in California from riding a horse wearing shorts, etc.
The constitution isn't "325,000" pages. As a matter of fact the constitution fits on less than 10 pages. All the crazy laws that we have are the laws beyond the constitution that have been later added. The constitution itself is a document that explicitly is intended to be timeless. Only the most basic of concepts are addressed there, and its been working for us just fine for well over 2 centuries.
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The "325,000" was referring to large amount of US code and possibly the poster was also thinking about the legal system being based around past court rulings. There are legal systems which do not place so much faith legal presidence. Such systems are much less foobar'ed due to activist judges.
The Supreme Court is BS. They do not decide truth or reality; within our flawed system they do have too much say-- but they are not the final word.... until a more corrupt Supreme Court makes up some BS to throw out a
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You have to interpret "well regulated militia" in the context of which the 2nd amendment was written.
"Regulate" in this case means to "make regular", or to "facilitate" -- ie. government must promote an environment in which a militia can can exist and operate.
Firearm ownership was "obvious" to anyone living in the 18th century as a means of procuring food and defending against indian attacks. There was no need to explicitly enumerate this as an individual right.
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Hello????? We're not in the 18th century anymore.
Tear that shit up and make a new constitution every 10 years.
Please do that. At least start that, have the US Constitution self-destruct at the end of this year. Then the whole US federal government dissolves, because it exists solely as the creation of the Constitution. Remove the one, and you remove the other. Then the separate states can have their liberty back again.
We'll see how the new Constitution is written next year. But I don't think you'll have as much influence on it as you would like.
Re:What is it about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do YOU people always leave out the militia part? A little inconvenient?? There is no militia now, so you don't need any guns.
I wouldn't expect someone participating in a gun-control discussion to be informed about reality, but according to the US federal law, there is a militia, even today. Of particular relevance here might be the part about the unorganized militia.
10 U.S. Code 311 - Militia: composition and classes [cornell.edu]
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.