I meant to blog about this the other day, but I have to admit that I’m still a little floored by the news out of California about a guy who shot down the drone that his neighbor was playing around with in the area.
The drone was never over the shooter’s property according to GPS and mapping data. The drone wasn’t equipped with any kind of camera or anything that would give just cause to worries of an electronic peeping Tom situation.
But I think the most troubling aspect came out of that initial story on Ars Technica. This is from the drone owner’s very polite email to the shooter:
This is the third time discharge from your firearms has hit our house and property. The first incident left a bullet hole in the door by our garage. The second incident occurred last Thanksgiving when birdshot from your skeet shooting activities rained into our backyard. The third, of course, being what we’re currently discussing.
I’m obviously a big fan of pretty much any lawful recreational firearms use. However, I can say that if I discovered bullet holes near my door, had shot raining down in my backyard, and then had one of Sebastian’s remote helicopters shot out of the sky over my property, I would not be nearly so polite in addressing your unsafe and irresponsible firearms use.
Unfortunately, the attitude and disrespect from the shooter only makes this case so much worse. The fact is that he was in the wrong to shoot down the remote device that wasn’t over his property. He seemingly has a history of unsafe shooting at his neighbor’s house. Refusing to pay, even after being ordered to by a court, isn’t the way to go. In fact, if I was the judge and had any avenue to do so, I would have also ordered a required NRA safety course for the guy in addition to the money owed the victim. Instead, the shooter is argumentative and is now the cause of stories on recreational shooter bad behavior that have run nationwide and even abroad. Congratulations for working so hard to make gun owners look so bad!
So this contraption was not really a “drone”, but really a glorified RC helicopter with a GPS attached to it?
I guess the term drone is going to be misused and misapplied just as much as the term “assault weapon”.
Unfortunately, asshats come in all shapes and sizes, some are gunnys.
Jeez, that’s terrifying. Competition shooting safety standards _really_ need to trickle into general shooting culture. Hopefully that’ll happen naturally, since new gun owners seem much more likely to get training.
If it doesn’t… Well, we’ll probably end up losing, so it’s probably worth some activism time.
In the country shot gun use and lead pellets often fall on adjoining property. I used to have neighbor who shot a lot and the pellets fell on the horses backs in the pasture. The horses got used to it and no harm. The bullet hole by garage door is more serious.
As to shooting down a RC copter, that is allowed if over your own property. This case it was not over the property but common road to both owners Many people have spied on neighbors with RC copters with camera mounts. Since I have seen cacti with cameras to get tags done by police in odd rural area, this is not an irrational fear.
The shooter owes damages and the request to be notified is not unreasonable either to avoid mistakes.
This situation is going to be more common. People are getting pushed and the privacy issues are getting critical. Since the government runs our tags and monitors our calls, emails and text, the idea using a RC copter is not absurd. More people will have had enough and shoot things that come on their property.
I accept neighbors cats and dogs on my property and last week had several dogs run through and then asked to be let in. It came from a boater that docked at neighboring beach.
But is someone starts to fly over me I would probably search down the owner and ask them not to do that. I have large non curtain windows and have lots of trees so no need for curtains. I would be upset if a neighbor is using my airspace to fly an RC plane or copter.
The shooter sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic.