Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

Given that most of these cases seem to be about property owners shooting off guns in populated (often suburban) neighborhoods, I'm not sure how much they say about how the law would view shooting down a drone taking pictures around an isolated house on a rural property.

View on HN

Many municipalities have laws against discharge of a firearm within the city limits. That said, a shotgun blast up into the air at a hovering drone doesn't pose much risk to anyone else (bullets are a different matter).

In a rural area, I'd think the most he could be charged with is property damage, but a drone hovering at a low altitude over private property must in my view (not sure about legally) be considered trespassing, which would be a mitigating factor. If a robot with a camera rolled or walked onto your property, what are your rights? The same should apply to flying drones, at least below a certain altitude.

I have a lot of trouble believing that, if a robotic camera rolled onto your rural property and started taking video of your kids playing in the yard, there are many police departments that would charge you if you took a baseball bat to it.

What about when the bullet falls back on the ground?

poster said shot, not bullets: "That said, a shotgun blast up into the air at a hovering drone doesn't pose much risk to anyone else (bullets are a different matter)."

If he was using birdshot, there would be no risk to anyone past a few hundred feet. If there was a risk, trap/skeet would not be possible in most of the places where you can shoot it.

And just to clarify why that matters, shot is lots of small pellets, and small objects experience much more deceleration due to aerodynamic drag, and have a much lower terminal velocity.

You're not generally allowed to destroy other people's property just because they're trespassing with it. They may have committed a crime by trespassing, but that's a matter for the police and the courts.

This is of particular personal interest to me, because I fly gliders and sometimes we end up making emergency landings on other people's property when the weather doesn't quite cooperate with us.

My understanding of the law there is that I'm liable (and covered by my insurance) for any damage I cause to their property in the course of landing and retrieval, but the property owner can't stop me from retrieving my aircraft, and can't intentionally damage it.

Now, the fact that it's technically an emergency landing does change things a bit, for example my actions aren't a crime the way normal trespass would be. But I don't believe it changes the property owner's rights and responsibilities.

The trajectory of the bullet generally doesn't matter with city ordinances. If you don't have a reason to be using the deadly weapon (self-defense) you generally aren't allowed to use it in a populated area.

I had a neighbor who was shooting his assault rifle into the ground in his back yard (a typical suburban neighborhood). After a few shots, the police were called, and they showed up with an entire SWAT team. Confiscated his weapons and threw him in jail for a couple days. He wasn't waving it around, and wasn't threatening anyone. It was only 3 rounds, actually, but it was enough.

I'm wondering if hobby style weapons like bb or paintball guns would take down the drone. If that would work, then are there any laws against you shooting a bb/paintball gun in your backyard?

Similarly, if someone is flying a kite and it is over your backyard and you shoot the kite with a bb gun enough to bring it down, what would the police do? Is a kite any different than a drone, legally speaking?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com