CNN: Handgun-firing drone appears legal in video, but FAA, police probe further

[sacase]

Granted, I've only read the parts that China quoted, but I'm wondering which part of what he said, do you think the politician is lying about.

I have seen UAVs with very very powerful machine guns....

Either he is a liar or a fool. I would wager both.

[PokerPacker]

I have seen UAVs with very very powerful machine guns....

Either he is a liar or a fool. I would wager both.

Police or Military?

[Xameil]

Granted, I've only read the parts that China quoted, but I'm wondering which part of what he said, do you think the politician is lying about.

Hmmmm let me think. How about the part where the assemblyman said cops had no interest in using armed UAV's. I thought it was pretty clear what I meant. It was actually the last question of the quote. Did you even read it? And I said it as a joke since I know that there are probably many cops that would love to have them.

[Bang]

The term "interest in"  in this context is extremely broad and ultimately meaningless.

 

Considering that from the moment a caveman threw first threw a rock at something, practically every single weapons development there has ever been has been to get the attacker further from the target, and hit the target harder.

 

Of course police are interested in armed UAVs. All it takes is more than one cop to think it's a good idea to make that statement true.
AND the very fact that 98% of police officers are human beings means it's a given that they want weapons to make their lives easier and safer. 

 

Pretty much any innovation that comes along, someone will think of a way to weaponize it if it can be done. But to accept that fact does not mean we just throw up our hands and give in to the inevitability.

We don't want police to have guns on drones any more than we'd want a crazy killer to have one.

 

Aside from procreation, killing is one of our stronger instincts. Making war is one of the very best things we do. More innovation has come as a result of us looking for more efficient ways to kill one another than practically anything else.

 

~Bang

[Xameil]

Very well said Bang

[China]

Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking warn over 'killer robots'

 

A group of concerned scientists, researchers and academics, including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, have warned that a military artificial intelligence arms race could soon develop if preventative measures are not taken.

 

A global arms race is "virtually inevitable" if any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapons development, the group cautioned in an open letter presented at the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires.

 

"The stakes are high," the letter said. "Autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms."

 

Other notable tech figures, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, are also signatories to the letter.

 

Autonomous weapons -- think pistol-toting Terminators, smart vehicles with mounted machine guns, and self-piloted bomber drones -- aren't just the stuff of science fiction. As the letter notes, some weapons systems are "feasible within years, not decades."

 

"[The weapons] require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce," the letter states.

 

"Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic group," it continues. "We therefore believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[daveakl]

And so it begins:

 

http://tyrone.chaoticmoon.com/

[daveakl]

"Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic group," it continues. "We therefore believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity."

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Basically this:

https://www.keylemon.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car

http://gizmodo.com/5955042/south-koreas-auto-turret-can-kill-a-man-in-the-dead-of-night-from-three-clicks

 

"The SEII is also quite versatile. It is typically equipped with a 12.7mm machine-gun, though virtually any weapon in the South Korean arsenal can be integrated into the device, from grenade launchers to surface-to-air missiles. And at just 308 pounds, the SEII can easily be mounted on the back of a truck. It operates in both fully autonomous mode—targeting, tracking, and firing on targets without any human assistance—or in "slave mode" wherein a remote human controller aims and fires."

[China]

Kentucky man shoots down drone spying on 16-year-old daughter

 

Where should we draw the line between the advancement of technology and the protection of personal privacy? For one Kentucky man, his property line is where he gets to make the call, and he made that point of view perfectly clear when he pointed his shotgun at a drone hovering in his backyard and pulled the trigger. 

 

"It was just right there. It was hovering. I would never have shot it if it was flying," William Merideth said in an interview with Ars Technica. "When he came down with a video camera right over my back deck, that's not going to work." 

 

Merideth claims that the drone was first spotted hovering over his neighbor's house—a claim his neighbor confirms—and he had no intentions of taking any actions against it until it entered onto his own property. Merideth's 16-year-old daughter was laying out by their pool at the time, and when the drone pilot decided to stop his vehicle and get an electronic eyeful, he decided enough was enough. 

 

The homeowner fetched his shotgun and pumped three helpings of birdshot into the $1,800 drone, taking it out of the air in short order. Shortly thereafter, the drone pilot and three of his friends arrived at Merideth's property. 

 

"If you cross that sidewalk onto my property, there's going to be another shooting," Merideth says he told the men.

 

The police eventually arrived and Merideth was charged with first-degree criminal mischief and first-degree wanton endangerment, both related to his discharge of the firearm. The 47-year-old Merideth is confident that the charges will be reduced or thrown out entirely once his trial date arrives. 

[Bang]

If not for the whole residential neighborhood part, I'm alright with that. It's a peeping tom, perving on  his daughter. (and it's not a person, so i don't think the morality against shooting it would apply.) The people were unharmed,  but a nice warning was issued

 

The pervert pilots ought to be charged with whatever the book can find, and then some.

Make it some sort of sex crime and put them on the register.

 

 

~Bang

[PokerPacker]

Any shotgun folks know the dangers of stray bird-shot?

[Larry]

I think I'm supporting the old coot with the shotgun, on this one.

Subject to change depending on what kind of skeet range he has.

Any shotgun folks know the dangers of stray bird-shot?

Well, assuming it's bird shot, almost none.

When my dad and brother were shooting trap, there was an incident where a Senator took a shell in the butt from like 10 feet away, and pretty much suffered embarrassment. (He, and his son, and his wife, were ignoring all kinds of range safety rules).

[PokerPacker]

Well, assuming it's bird shot, almost none.

When my dad and brother were shooting trap, there was an incident where a Senator took a shell in the butt from like 10 feet away, and pretty much suffered embarrassment. (He, and his son, and his wife, were ignoring all kinds of range safety rules).

The story said it was bird-shot. I had some understanding that bird-shot wasn't that dangerous, but I wanted to be sure before stating I'm good with the guy's actions. I'm fairly certain an old high school teacher of mine told stories of when he was younger and he and his friends would shoot shotguns at each other from across a field, so I figured that something like bird-shot might not be the most dangerous thing in the world.

[China]

Update:

 

UPDATE: Drone owner disputes shooter's story; produces video he claims shows flight path

 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The father who shot down a drone over his home has his case to national television -- and there's a new twist in the story today.

 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The father who shot down a drone over his home has his case to national television -- and there's a new twist in the story today.

The drone owner has come forward with video and his own version of what happened. 

WDRB News has obtained video of William Merideth's arrest. Merideth was charged with wanton endangerment and criminal mischief for shooting down a drone over his Hillview home.

"No, I'm not going to relax!" Merideth says in the video. "I don't give a [EXPLETIVE] about him. And I don't give a [EXPLETIVE] about your [EXPLETIVE] drone and you keep video taping. I know exactly what I did."

The story we broke has gone worldwide, appearing on The Drudge Report on People magazine's website and dozens of other online publications.

This morning, William Merideth appeared on Fox and Friends.

RAW VIDEO: Arrest of man who shot down drone

...

 

But another side of this story is emerging.

 

The owner of the drone, David Boggs, just released the flight data recorder from his iPad, saying it tracks the drone's path. In a video Boggs sent WDRB, he comments on drone's path 40 seconds before, during and after the incident.

 

"We are now one minute and 18 seconds into the flight," he says on the video. "We are now 193 feet above the ground. This area here is the world-famous drone slayer home, and this is a neighbor's home, and our friends live over here, and over here, and over here. You will see now that we did not go below this altitude -- we even went higher -- nor did we hover over their house to look in. And for sure didn't descend down to no 10 feet, or look under someone's canopy, or at somebody's daughter."

 

"We are right now one minute, 56 seconds over the drone slayer's house. We're still not on his property line -- we're just now getting ready to cross it....In less than two seconds...we are outside of his property, still at 272 feet. He shot the drone here, and you'll see it rapidly lose altitude, and the drone crash. Boom -- there it goes. Crazy, in the words of the great Paul Harvey, now you know the rest of the story."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

Now, yes, I do think a trap shooter can hit a target at 150 feet.  I'm not sure, but I think that's a really extreme range, though, for bird shot. 

 

And by "hit", I think that means "hit a flying clay target with enough pellets, with enough force, to visibly break the target." 

 

Assuming he hit the drone, then the cops should have some idea of the size of the pellets.  Might even have some. 

 

In short, it's possible that the cops can tell us that "the drone was shot from X feet away". 

 

(If they care enough to actually try to figure it out.  Their attitude might well be "hey, we've got the guy dead to rights on discharging a weapon.  And the rest of this drone **** is a civil matter, and we've got more important things to do.") 

[China]

Federal regulators to require registration of recreational drones

 

Federal regulators said Monday that they will require recreational drone users to register their aircraft with the government for the first time in an attempt to track rogue flying robots that are increasingly posing a threat to aviation safety.

 

The decision to compel drone owners to register their aircraft represents a policy shift by the Obama administration and a tacit admission by the Federal Aviation Administration that it has been unable to safely integrate the popular remote-controlled planes into the national airspace.

 

U.S. officials said they still need to sort out the basic details of the registration system — which they hope to set up within two months — but concluded that they had to take swift action to cope with a surge in sales of inexpensive, simple-to-fly drones that are interfering with regular air traffic.

 

“The signal we’re sending today is that when you’re in the national airspace, it’s a very serious matter,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters.

 

Pilots of passenger planes and other aircraft are reporting more than 100 sightings of or close calls with rogue drones a month, according to the FAA. Such incidents were almost unheard of before last year but have escalated quickly as the consumer drone market has boomed. U.S. hobbyists are projected to buy about 700,000 drones this year, a 63 percent increase from 2014.

 

Under FAA guidelines, drone owners are not supposed fly their aircraft above 400 feet or within five miles of an airport without permission. But the rules are widely flouted, and officials have been largely powerless to hunt down offenders.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[AsburySkinsFan]

Now, lets see how the FAA is able to go back and register millions of drones already sold.

I think that's the way to do it but how is the problem at this point. Serial numbers would be too easy to defeat since the owner can just remove them.

The FAA is so far beyond the ball on this that it is nearly laughable.

[tshile]

I definitely want to shoot down a drone in my neighborhood. With a pellet gun though, not like a real gun...

 

But i haven't. Suppose I shouldn't. It would be fun though.... the thing is obnoxious.

[MisterPinstripe]

Think this was a very needed change. Just in regards to having so many of these now, people flying them really high and potentially causing issues with aircraft. Gotta follow the rules of the sky, apparently reports from pilots of close calls with drones has gone up a ton in the last year or so.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I definitely want to shoot down a drone in my neighborhood. With a pellet gun though, not like a real gun...

 

But i haven't. Suppose I shouldn't. It would be fun though.... the thing is obnoxious.

Do it and get caught and you'll be charged with destruction of property.

You don't get to shoot at cars driving up and down your street no matter how annoying.

It is amazing to me how many people still believe that the US law still says that property lines extend upward to the top of the atmosphere. That all stopped with the advent of mass air travel.

[Larry]

Do it and get caught and you'll be charged with destruction of property.

You don't get to shoot at cars driving up and down your street no matter how annoying.

It is amazing to me how many people still believe that the US law still says that property lines extend upward to the top of the atmosphere. That all stopped with the advent of mass air travel.

 

i find it amazing how people seem to think that, if we want to have air travel, then we have to announce that property lines end one inch above the ground, and that anything above that point can be used by anybody who wants to, for any purpose whatsoever. 

 

Long as we're throwing around hyperbole, and all. 

[tshile]

Do it and get caught and you'll be charged with destruction of property.

You don't get to shoot at cars driving up and down your street no matter how annoying.

It is amazing to me how many people still believe that the US law still says that property lines extend upward to the top of the atmosphere. That all stopped with the advent of mass air travel.

 

Yeah, it's sort of like a joke.

 

Or at least it was supposed to be. But I'm glad you gave me this awesome advice, not sure what I'd do without it.

[AsburySkinsFan]

i find it amazing how people seem to think that, if we want to have air travel, then we have to announce that property lines end one inch above the ground, and that anything above that point can be used by anybody who wants to, for any purpose whatsoever. 

 

Long as we're throwing around hyperbole, and all. 

I'm not throwing hyperbole around at all. This is a very real issue for us in our business and we're on top of the laws, regulations and the Supreme Court rulings on the issue. Heck, this issue is covered in our real estate license course. I believe I posted earlier in this thread that the only SCOTUS ruling on the issue states that a land owner only owns as much of the air above their property as they can "control." The case they ruled on was about a crop dusting pilot that was flying low over a chicken farm which was resulting in the death of chickens. In that instance they ruled that the farmer had a right up to 83 feet, beyond that he had no right. Laws also prevent the use of "spite poles" which were designed to establish "control" up to certain altitudes.

[tshile]

does how far a bullet will travel dictate how much i control?

 

[AsburySkinsFan]

Yeah, it's sort of like a joke.

 

Or at least it was supposed to be. But I'm glad you gave me this awesome advice, not sure what I'd do without it.

See, once again the internet needs a sarcasm font, because when a Louisville Kentucky resident takes his shotgun and shoots down a drone in a subdivision is it really so far out of the realm of possibility that someone else might choose to follow suit with a pellet gun?

That's the thing about jokes, they should at the end of the day be funny, and or evident that humor was attempted.

does how far a bullet will travel dictate how much i control?

 

Now see, at least that was evident. LOL