The only GOOD DRONE is a DEAD DRONE. Y'hear me, scumbags?! There’s nothing worse in journalism than a big-mouthed writer who can’t take what he gives. So I would like to thank all those readers who emailed me personally to offer their opinions on last week’s column in which I cast doubt on Hollywood’s portrayal of computer hackers as sharp-witted and articulate with washboard abs rather …
I have heard that in many locations around the US, you can shoot whomever you like just as long as they’re on your property.
Not to my knowledge. They must in inside your house, and uninvited, before you can open fire. If they are outside your house but on your property they must both be armed with a weapon and also an imminent threat.
On the opposite extreme, there are areas of California where in the same situation you are required to give ground, even if a loved one is in danger. In this situation if you assault the intruder, the intruder can actually prosecute you for assault!!! There was a case in the 1970's where a burglar was assaulted by the homeowner and the homeowner was prosecuted. The burglar famously said on the stand, "I didn't want to hurt anyone Your Honor, I just wanted to rob his house".
I'd keep an eye out for lurking IT journalists from now on.
Don't be soft. Dabbs would first have to stop knitting his yoghurt lentils and go grab his shotgun. A gun he will almost certainly be too weak to lift from the skim soy lattes and other right on food stuffs.
I like drones - racing them looks like a whole lot of fun! You will, however, not be racing them in my garden because my home is not your playground Dabbs.
If your flight of icarus is low enough and slow enough to be hit by anything I have at my disposal, well, you had it coming so don't complain. Run to the hills, or as todays yoot would say, jog on.
- and a bit of a holiday for you, methinks, Dabbsy! Now, please hand that weapon to the nice bomb-disposal drone I'm talking to you from. No don't do tha...t! sigh. Sorry, REME chaps, he's done it again. I think we'll have to go with the sleepy-gas, strap him to a stretcher and fly him to his favourite holiday destination whilst he's out.
Is yelling "git orf ma grass" out the window the stage before or after driving like Mr Magoo?
Maybe Logan's Run had it right. Finish you off while you're still compos mentis none of this faffing about trying to revoke passports, guns, driving licences, or opening window privileges.
"revoke his passport before he can get to the US and cause more gun crime than they've already got"
No, no, no, its alright. We enjoy gun crime. That's why we have so much of it. Yes, it is a national insanity; maybe its caused by groundwater contamination or the 60Hz powerlines messin' with our brainz. But whatever the cause its our national insanity so you Yurpeans can just keep drinking your soy lattes and driving your wee, little scooters* and stay on your side of the Atlantic. At least we have the good sense not to wear speedos.
*We are also torque-crazed. Each and every last one of us. Even little girls with Hello Kitty dolls. We don't know why, we just go with it.
Would there even have been a second shot or would they all by then have been floating down to earth at 32 feet p.s.p.s?
Mythbusters tested such a scenario, and firing a (hand)gun inside a plane at altitude turned out as, although undesirable, nowhere near problematic. Apart from maybe hitting a vital piece of electronics or hydraulics (which tends to disable just one of multiple redundant controls, but see United 232 for a case where redundancy just didn't cut it), you're left with a rather small hole, through which the inside pressure will want to equalise with the outside pressure. Given the pressure difference and the area of the hole, that's going to take some time.
Bringing a plane down through decompression can happen, but there are usually words like "explosive" or "extremely sudden" in the accident investigator's reports. And even getting the airplane converted, in flight, to a cabrio (Aloha Airlines Flight 243) isn't necessarily fatal.
Sod 'em, I'm more interested in the sarcastic ammunition that is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I can think of a few Usenetizens upon whom to use that particular put-down at this very moment. Powerful stuff when used correctly.
That said, following your lurid description of the average geek, Peppa Pig's dad would have probably been a wiser choice - with added Lynx, natch.
A nice example of taking out CCTV cameras with paintballs is found here.
----------
Re "I have heard that in many locations around the US, you can shoot whomever you like just as long as they’re on your property.
Well, looks like in Texas you can shoot British tourists.
Strictly speaking, in the US you can only shoot another legally if that person is endangering your life or the life of another person. Generally, the rule is in the US an intruder inside someone's house is fair game because the residents do not know if the person is armed or not. But you can not legally shoot someone who is fleeing or leaving aka in the back. Occasionally there have been situations were an armed third party intervened and shot the perpetrator in the act. This is considered legal because the intervention protected someone else's life.
If you are in the metro Atlanta, GA area do not try to break into house in Kennesaw. Kennesaw has a law (unenforced I believe) requiring residents who can legally own a gun to have one in their home. US gun law generally forbids convicted felons and violent mentally ill people from owning guns.
"US gun law generally forbids convicted felons and violent mentally ill people from owning guns.
How's that working out for you?"
Pretty well for all of those convicted felons and violently mentally ill people who obey those laws.
Of course, convicted felons be definition have shown a problem with obeying the law.
There should be a law about that.
Felons are not likely to obey the law so the point is moot. The mentally ill are often not listed in the database.
In the US, to buy a gun you have to fill paperwork for a background check before the dealer can even consider a sale. The background check is then run throw a FBI database which has the names of those who can buy or possess a gun. This takes a couple of minutes. Assuming you pass the background check you can then buy the gun. Some states have stricter rules such as a waiting period before the final sale.
re: "fill paperwork for a background check before the dealer can even consider a sale" -- This is true if the individual buys from a dealer. In some states, if the background check results do not come back within $num_hours (varies by state) the dealer shall sell the firearm. In some states, background checks are not required for private (person-to-person) sales or sales at gun shows. Then there's the issue of when states with VERY different approaches to firearms share a border and visitors don't know the differences, or where exactly the border is in the rural areas.
Private gun sales are not regulated and they would be very difficult to regulate. However, it is a felony to engage in a straw purchase - buying a gun for someone (usually a felon) who is not legally allowed to possess one. Unless all the serial numbers are removed, a gun is traceable to the first dealer sale. So if your gun was found in the possession of felon you better have a very tight (true) story of how that happened.
The nuances of US gun law are somewhat confusing because most, even in the US, get very inaccurate information about gun rights. Also, most gun violence is concentrated in gang infested areas of the US with most people rarely carrying a weapon.
This story is the only one I have heard of where someone actually shot down a drone. The more details I have heard - shot gun, long loitering times, previous incidents, etc. - leads me to believe it was reasonable to believe his teenage daughters were being stalked with the possible intention of rape of his daughters. Also, what was overlooked in the hype, the shooter did have to appear before a judge to defend his actions. There was the real possibility of a conviction. I happen to agree the judge got the decision right in this particular case but another vaguely similar case may have a different outcome even in Kentucky.
"However, it is a felony to engage in a straw purchase - buying a gun for someone (usually a felon) who is not legally allowed to possess one."
But it's kind of hard to prove the gun was straw-purchased and not stolen as the former owner claims, and under the Sixth Amendment, it falls to the government to prove the straw buyer's lying.
In some states, if the background check results do not come back within $num_hours (varies by state) the dealer shall sell the firearm.
The federal law for $num_hours is 3 days so that makes it at least 72 hours. I'd say that the FBI should be able to pull their finger out in three days but given that whole Boston Marathon thing where they had a much longer heads up it certainly gives one pause.
Regarding private sales, the point is largely moot since "gang banger" is unlikely to ask "drug dealer" to undergo a background check even if required by law to do so. More likely it's going to be a simple exchange of a paper bag for a newspaper through an open car window where the bag holds meth and the newspaper is folded around a pistol.
The primary difference in the US is whether the state has a "Stand your ground" provision or a requirement avoid shooting if there is a possibility of deescalating the confrontation. In any case, a shooting will almost certainly result in an investigation as to whether it was justified. Contrary to Hollyweird and the US media, no one in the US has the right to shot anyone except certain narrowly defined situations.
Technically, federal laws make it illegal to violate local (state) laws regarding selling or purchasing guns, e.g.:
THE GUN CONTROL ACT OF 1968
TITLE 18, UNITED STATE CODE, CHAPTER 44
TITLE I : STATE FIREARMS
CONTROL ASSISTANCE
So, it is the local standards that actually trump decisions.
Some other points to consider are shotgun range, the drone operator says his drone was above 200 feet but eye witnesses contradicted that. The judge went with the witnesses. It is possible that both testimonies are accurate. The drone uses GPS to estimate altitude not radar or anything more accurate, so the "altitude" in the data record would be above the geoid surface, not necessarily above the ground. The shotgun owner apparently took the drone down with one shot. I can't find any mention of shot guage, but a 200-foot plus shot, which is what the drone operator is arguing the shooter made would be impressive skill or remarkable luck.
Also, more extensive accounts indicate that the drone had hovered over the same yard six times during the preceding year and that a sixteen-year-old woman was sunbathing in the yard. So, unless there is some remarkably interesting arhcitecture, why was Boggsie running his drone there repeatedly? The shooter says that the drone was harassing the yard. Maybe it was.
>>"Also, more extensive accounts indicate that the drone had hovered over the same yard six times during the preceding year and that a sixteen-year-old woman was sunbathing in the yard. So, unless there is some remarkably interesting arhcitecture, why was Boggsie running his drone there repeatedly? The shooter says that the drone was harassing the yard. Maybe it was."
The drone owner then came round with three mates and were apparently pushy / aggressive enough that the guy felt they were being threatening to him causing him to warn them off his property. Honestly, from all the interviews and coverage I have read on this, the guy who shot has seemed reasonable and calm and the drone owner an anti-social and entitled git.
In Texas "He needed killing" falls under the Justifiable Homicide defense.
As well, it should.
It's all perfectly legal if you think of it as a post-trimester abortion.
Just please refer to my Enemies List - and my list only - to find out who those people are.
(There are just too many unauthorized Enemies Lists there that may mistakenly have my name on them.)
They are a drunken menace who think they have a god given right to fire on people.
My solution? Allow walkers/ramblers/mountain bikers to carry side arms:
French hunters would be more careful where/how they discharge their weapons if they thought they'd get a few 9mm rounds back in return.
Any drone flying over your property without prior agreement should be shot down; let's face it, if it's not being flown by a pervert filming your children or a criminal casing the place, then it's going to be the government thinking that trendy beard you have just grown means you are a member of ISIS, in which case 'Incoming' may be appropriate.
This post has been deleted by its author
HMG has decided that you can't fly your drones unless you have passed the following proficiency test.
1) Fly said drone from South to North over the Island of Malta during Bird migration.
If your drone does that totally unscathed you will be eligable to apply for a Drone Operators License
Those Maltese shooters will have a field day with any drone silly enough to venture into Maltese airspace.
Downing Drones will make a pleasant change from the Feathered birds that they seem to kill by the thousand.
The Balearic islands, Sardinia and the coast of Spain are also gauntlets for migrating birds to run (fly) in the Autumn each year.
I am generally pro gun and have done a bit of hunting in the past but to see a semi drunk, 100Kg guy in camo' gear shooting dicky birds that weigh a couple of grams would be a joke if it wasn't such a sad and pathetic pursuit.
I think there's a case for giving hunters a permit to hunt hunters!
Instead of a lead flinging firearm I use a "High Energy Radio Frequency" or HERF Gun. You can aim it at people & not kill them (unless their pacemaker fizzles) & it makes such pleasing bug zapper noises when the drone, security camera, or auto check out terminal bursts into flame.
Except the man who shot down the drone sounds nothing like that. He's been pretty reasonable in everything we've seen of him so far. It's the drone owner who has been ranting (with gems like 'if you let him shoot down my drone what's to stop him shooting down a helicopter') and claiming that he was flying it at 200' when a shotgun has a range of around 90' if you're lucky. And the man had time to watch it hover, go inside, get his shotgun come back out, aim and shoot it, all whilst it was still over his garden. So it's hard to make the case that it wasn't intruding.
Disappointing rambling from Alistair who seems to prefer his stereotypes and expectations to reality. I usually enjoy these articles.
"It is a matter of personal opinion, of course, but I feel that a family man with a shotgun in the house is, by definition, a psychopath in training."
You might feel differently if you lived somewhere where you had to deal with varmints.
@ Alistair Dabbs
"It is a matter of personal opinion, of course, but I feel that a family man with a shotgun in the house is, by definition, a psychopath in training."
Although you have no problem with guns being used at a club (as per your article). Do you think the guns are left at the club? I am in the UK and even I think thats a dumb idea as owners tend to like to visit multiple clubs as well as maintain the guns (not just in the few hours the range is open at). Not to mention criminals would love a one stop shop for all their firearm needs.
I never quite understand the people who assume gun=psycho when a psycho first of all is more likely to prefer a knife to a gun (its the personal touch apparently) although I assume you mean mentally ill in general (the various other kinds) which there is no proof I have ever heard of that a gun causes. Second you are fine for these psychos to have almost unlimited access to blunt/sharp objects (real psychos prefer these btw) and of course easily combustible and flammable substances which can be lit with a cheap match or lighter. In fact a gun is an expensive way to finish someone off and if you want to remove a crowd it is less efficient too (people tend to run and hide).
As you say it is your opinion but here in the UK we really do have a distorted view of guns. Yes they can be dangerous but imbuing them with the power to create psychopaths is ... funny. But at least here in the UK we can feel safe in the knowledge that it is difficult to legally own a gun with extremely strict regulations. However the illegal ones do seem to be causing a problem in Manchester at the moment.
"Second you are fine for these psychos to have almost unlimited access to blunt/sharp objects (real psychos prefer these btw) and of course easily combustible and flammable substances which can be lit with a cheap match or lighter. In fact a gun is an expensive way to finish someone off and if you want to remove a crowd it is less efficient too (people tend to run and hide)."
You may be interested to know mass murders have still occurred after Australia's gun buyback. Several of them in fact were arsons. And in the United States, the worst massacres didn't use guns. Happy Land was an arson, and Bath Township and Oklahoma City both used explosives (the former was legally obtained land clearing charges because the killer was a farmer, the latter was homemade ANFO in spite of the purchase of denatured fertilizer).
>>"It is a matter of personal opinion, of course, but I feel that a family man with a shotgun in the house is, by definition, a psychopath in training."
Opinion / Shminion. You're a journalist and have a duty to make sure your opinions are informed. How would you like it if a popular news site made you sound like a dumb, hick bigot based on the author's personal prejudice?
Switzerland has one of the highest gun-ownership ratios in the world. Is it a nation filled with psychopaths? And don't pass it off as being just about military service - there was a proposal that guns should be stored in central armouries and it was rejected by popular referendum. I.e. the Swiss people as a whole actively voted that they all be allowed to keep their guns in their home. And it's not just Switzerland. Very many countries have a much higher proportion of gun ownership than the UK, voluntarily owned. Are you saying that psychopathy occurs much more frequently in other countries than runs in good English blood?
Different cultures perceive the meaning of things differently. Someone who grew up in a big city might stand 50cm away from someone and think it a good conversational distance. Someone who grew up in the countryside might find a person doing so to be aggressive and invading their personal space. You find someone owning a gun abnormal and look for explanations as to why they'd do something like that. In many other cultures, it doesn't signify anything. And not just America, not by a long shot. In much of the world owning a gun is common. 'Ah,' you might say. 'but these areas of the world violence is quite common and its sensible to want to defend yourself and your family'. To which I say "Hello - USA, anyone?"
What is a psychopath ? Someone who doesn't grasp consequences, someone who lacks empathy for others or social conscience? That better describes the drone pilot who hassled their neighbours and then lied about the facts; was aggressive when caught and later tried to whip up support with, as it happens, stereotypes about the guy who shot their drone.
Perhaps I'm simply too far at the opposite end to a psychopath and over-burdened with empathy, but I can't help feeling that I would be pretty upset to see myself maligned by some journalist who had never met me and plainly had just invented their own caricature to suit. I mean you admit outright that you have an a priori view on Their Type. Come to think of it, this is what you did last week with your piece about how a hacker actually wears Iron Maiden t-shirts and smells of urine. Have you not noticed that your stereotypes are rankling with people? I'm sorry if this and my last post come across as aggressive or mean. I know you put work into these articles and honestly, I usually enjoy what you write. It's just this mean stereotype humour I don't get.
Switzerland has weapons that are supplied by the military to trained national service men and stored at home. Which explains most of the high numbers.
It also does have a surprisingly ( other than by being related to gun ownership) high level of domestic gun violence, even though the overall level of gun violence isn't terribly high..
( Information taken from Snopes and the BBC websites).
>>"Switzerland has weapons that are supplied by the military to trained national service men and stored at home. Which explains most of the high numbers."
Even when I anticipate the reply and provide the explanation in advance, people still choose to skip over the parts that would contradict what they want to say! I said this in my own post. I ALSO pointed out that the Swiss people voted down by popular referendum a proposal to change this and store guns centrally. They CHOSE the situation where they all have guns in their home. By Dabb's reasoning, that makes them all psychopaths in training. Or at least the majority of the populace that voted in favour of this situation. I also pointed out that there are many nations in the world that have far higher rates of gun ownership than the UK. Is Dabbs arguing that the UK has some magically far lower rate of "psychopaths" (for whatever they mean by that) than all these other countries? Your brain has gone "Switzerland + Guns = Post about military" without actually bothering to read the rest of my post or that I covered that.
Also, Switzerland is by nearly any standard, not a country with a lot of violence as you acknowledge. So how does the fact that some of it is gun violence factor into the argument that guns mean psychopaths? Is the argument that there are lots of "psychopaths in training" yet somehow they have a low incidence of violent crime? Again, the Swiss people CHOSE to keep guns in their home by popular vote. Just like this guy in America chose to keep a gun in their home. So Dabbs is calling the majority of Swiss people "psychopaths in training". And that doesn't hold up. Nor does it hold up for lots of other countries with much higher gun ownership ratios.
I carefully did not refer to the suggestion that the Swiss ( or anyone else who walks around with lethal armaments) could be psychopaths. I merely pointed out the facts that show that the "In Switzerland there are lots of guns but not lots of gun crime" argument is not a valid one. On the grounds, among others, that a.) the guns are placed in people's hands in very specific circumstances with particular training in why and how they can be used and b.) In the home, where the guns are required to be kept, gun related violence is rather high.
>>"I merely pointed out the facts that show that the "In Switzerland there are lots of guns but not lots of gun crime" argument is not a valid one"
I never made such an argument. I simply posted these facts to refute Dabbs contention that any such person is "a psychopath in training". Those facts were that the Swiss population in majority chose such a situation for themselves. Switzerland is not a nation with a majority of psychopaths. I also pointed out that many countries and cultures have much higher gun ownership than the UK and doubted thst they had same wildly different rate of psychopathy.
You keep posting about an argument which I not only didn't make but in my original post explicitly made clear was not relevant to my point and why.
I wish there was a x100 downvote button. Yes, all gun owners are psychopaths in the same way all northerners are thick, all scousers wear tracksuits, all southerners are stuck up, all coloured people are criminals.
I could go on.
The only indisputed fact in this universe is that Maiden rule.
When every second counts, the police are only minutes away.
Or up to an hour, in rural areas. Or they may misclassify your call and not come at all.
Shotgun ownership is quite high in rural areas, and with good reason. A family man living in a rural area who owns a shotgun is probably just being a responsible parent protecting his children.
Contrary to what many believe, firearms are not banned in England. You don't need to give - or have - a reason of any kind to own a shotgun, you just need to be of good character.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/25/gun-ownership-firearms-certificates
Police rural response times: Norfolk: 20 minutes
The fact remains Dabsy, since you never grew up in a household with guns, you should stop commenting about a subject that you have NO experience with besides spreading your ridiculous FUD.
The mere fact someone possesses guns and has children does NOT mean they are "psychopaths".
Perhaps your statement is more indicative of YOUR mental state of affairs. I have two boys (now men) and four grandchildren and yet I have never devolved into thinking I might use guns on them.
You obviously have! Sounds like you are depressed as "comedy" is known to be the last respite of the clinically insane.
My "exposure" to guns at an early age (12) means that I know how to handle them safely which you could not even begin to do.
I also don't "glorify" them or "horrify" them. They are mere tools and the only reason they could be considered unsafe is if someone does not know the proper care and use of firearms. Hammers don't kill people and guns don't kill people. People kill people. Take responsibility for your own actions instead of blaming the tools.
Trigger locks (that are always included free by all gun manufacturers) prevent most potential "misuse". Gun safes prevent ALL but the most hardened criminals from even touching your guns and ammo.
But hey let's allow nothing (including the facts) to get between you and your anti-gun, anti-American agenda. I can't see how you can even be in the same room with Lester.
The REAL issue in this country is the incredibly stupid lack of any comprehensive mental health care system to prevent people who are unstable from acting out. Even Obamacare does not address this issue.
EVERY person who has caused some kind of massacre in this country and elsewhere was as crazy as a loon and in most cases was already identified to the authorities as being nuts long before any shooting took place.
Always nice to hear him, and rather apt for at least the start of the article. ..
Then there are the unwelcome intrusions into my personal cyberspace to deal with. Perhaps I could persuade a judge to justify my violent retaliative action against every Nigerian scammer and American spammer attempting to fill my inbox.
Back in t'early days of t'internet (fade to sepia; brief montage of dinosaurs driving past in their steam-powered horseless carriages); it was with just such an attitude that I decided to do something about spam, to wit, insult each and every one of them personally, like an abridged Wowbagger. Not being infinitely prolonged, of course, I automated it. So I downloaded the most abusive insult dictionaries I could find (including the Shakespearian one, just to sow a bit of extra confusion); hooked it up to a randomiser and fed the lot into my spam filters, set to autoreply.
Result? I got shut down for spamming within two hours; it took all weekend to get out of the blackhole; and I never did anything silly while completely pissed on a Friday night again. The end.
By the way - this is a bad idea; not only because of the blackholing; but also because spammers have been known to spoof 'from' addresses...so chances are I was insulting completely the wrong people. Like many a "seemed like a good idea at the time" Friday night ideas; the glaring flaws only revealed themselves afterwards, during the "I regret everything" stage.
You do know nitroglycerin is colorless, too. Not to mention pretty easy stuff to set off, meaning by the time you get up close and personal it may already be too late. Not to mention the stuff is a true explosive in that it doesn't combust, it detonates which means even a drink bottle of the stuff is going to result is a lot of damage and a lot of finger-pointing, not to mention potential backlash come next election.
This post has been deleted by its author
He didn't shoot the drone pilot, he shot the drone.
In much the same way as you can torture any unwanted mail delivered by the postman, but not the postman. You can electronically waterboard any Nigerian scam email, but not the (not actually a) Nigerian themselves.
Europeans visceral reaction to gun (ab)use is childlike. If he'd reached for the nearest slingshot would it be the same? If it had been low enough for a nice swing with a baseball bat to have an electronic pinata would the call be to ban all Mexicans?
As some old fart once probably never said, "Get orf moi land!"
Though some would point out mail that goes in your mailbox is now considered your property. Same with E-mail once it's in your Inbox.
But suppose someone hits a ball into your yard. Anything you do to the ball is not being done to the ball's owner, but it's still not your property, so there can be repercussions.
It's just that in the drone's case, property rights ran afoul of other laws concerning tresspass and voyeurism. Basically, it's "destruction of property" versus "peeping tom": law versus law. In this case, "peeping tom" won and provided the justification.
You raise an interesting point. I suppose it comes down to how much damage the presence of the ball caused. Did it break a window and knock over an expensive vase? Did it kill a chicken in the yard? Did it cause someone to trip and fall? Did it merely leave a dent in the lawn? Each of these is a different degree of damage or harm. I do believe that you are free to discard it in the trash without trying to find the owner or you can simply turn it over to the police and let them deal with it as I did when I found a bicycle at the end of my driveway.
Likewise we can ask what damage the drone caused by its mere presence. Clearly it reduced the sense of security of the family. Perhaps it somehow contributed to other trauma, one of the daughters may no longer feel safe sunbathing in their backyard or perhaps refuse to even go into the back yard. In both the ball and drone cases the potential for harm is great it's just that with the ball it's more likely to be immediately apparent.
Dear Mr. Alistair Dabbs,
In your article “The only GOOD DRONE is a DEAD DRONE” you are concerned that your readers might be children. Actually you Mr. Dabbs might be too young to remember the atrocities that many evil governments committed against their own people such as the Soviet Russia, Cambodia, China or Syria. If the people in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Hungary Czechoslovakia would have had plenty of guns in their houses during the World War II times I am convinced that Nazi would have think twice before invading other countries and Mao Zedong and Stalin would not have succeeded in causing the deaths of tens of millions of their own people. You are equating the gun ownership with sports and hunting, like most gun articles on the internet, and you are incorrect. Gun ownership should be always seen as first line of personal defense against criminals and as an insurance against evil governments. When an armed criminal enters your home in the middle of the night there is not button that you can push on your IT gear that will instantly put a police officer between you and the criminal. You are on your own to defend yourself and your family. From your article it seems that you are OK with hunting. We strongly disagree on hunting Mr. Dabbs. I would never shoot at an animal, and I do consider hunters killing animals, more or less in the same category as killers. However, while I will never kill an animal unless in an extreme situation of self-defense, I would have no issues shooting and killing a criminal entering my home.
Recently witnessed this first hand. An eight year old with a bow and arrow downed a drone that had been hovering over his family's group of tents and deliberately winding them all up.
Pretty hilarious really, the reaction of the operator when he flounced over to pick up his wounded toy was probably more childish than the eight year old.
If you think that flying a drone around videoing other peoples private lives is cool than you are either a middle-school teenager or a flat out manner-less nerd.
Flying around the neighborhood peeping into windows, backyards and peoples lives is creepy and rude. Don't be surprised when anyone who is a non-nerd assumes you are a stalker, pervert or rapist.
So yeah, when you hear that annoying buzzy-whirr sound it's socially acceptable to holler "Pull" and let fly with a couple of rounds of birdshot. After all it's my property and my life you GHQ/NIS wannabe's are intruding upon.
In the USA the shooting of the drone in his own backyard comes from old English law(France,ect.), a man & his castle with all that implies.
By not telling the whole story & only the short version like most articles today & most people react without investigating. Only 1 or two of the people who commented actually fact checked the story. Even then no one paid attention to their facts or checked for themselves.
Shows how lazy most people have become. It only takes a minute or less.
What is interesting is how popular violent movies are among anti gun pro safe space places people.
The USA know has 46 states with open carry rules for guns, so be prepared when visiting. What you may not realize is most states have had them for decades.
dRees
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
