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Man Shoots Drone In His Property, Gets Into Trouble For It

PoS

PoS

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https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/man-shoots-down-drone-hovering-000032027.html

Merideth, 47, lives in Hillview, Kentucky. As WDRB-TV reports, a neighbor heard gunshots and called the police. Merideth allegedly told the police that a drone was hovering over his house, where his teen daughter (he has two) was sunbathing. So he pulled out his gun and gave it a merry death.

The drone's owner, police say, said he was flying it to take pictures of a neighboring house.

However, Merideth told WRDB: "Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor's house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they've got under their back yard. I went and got my shotgun and I said, 'I'm not going to do anything unless it's directly over my property.'"

And then it allegedly was.

Merideth explained: "I didn't shoot across the road, I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences, I shot directly into the air."

He says that shortly after the shooting, he received a visit from four men who claimed to be responsible for the drone and explaining that it cost $1,800.

Merideth says he stood his ground: "I had my 40 mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"

There appears not to have been another shooting. However, Merideth was arrested for wanton endangerment and criminal mischief. There is, apparently, a local ordinance that says you can't shoot a gun off in the city, but the police charged him under a Kentucky Revised Statute.
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I think its fair to shoot a drone thats on your property without permission, its a matter of individual privacy. People shouldnt be arrested for that.
 
PoS said:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/man-shoots-down-drone-hovering-000032027.html



I think its fair to shoot a drone thats on your property without permission, its a matter of individual privacy. People shouldnt be arrested for that.
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I think it is interesting that he did not get charged with shooting the drone. He was in town and they don't like it when you fire a weapon in town.

"However, Merideth was arrested for wanton endangerment and criminal mischief. There is, apparently, a local ordinance that says you can't shoot a gun off in the city, but the police charged him under a Kentucky Revised Statute."

I liked the way he handled the owners of the drone also. I could handle having this guy for a neighbor. I would have done the same thing. This gives me an idea.
 
It is just a matter of time before a drone is swept up into a commercial airliner's jet engine or collision with the drone damaging the plane's stabilizers or tail.

Local ordinances may prevent you from discharging a pistol in city limits but I think one may have some legal wiggle room to take a shot at a drone with a wrist rocket sling slot.
 
Crosscheck said:
It is just a matter of time before a drone is swept up into a commercial airliner's jet engine or collision with the drone damaging the plane's stabilizers or tail.

Local ordinances may prevent you from discharging a pistol in city limits but I think one may have some legal wiggle room to take a shot at a drone with a wrist rocket sling slot.
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Slingshots? Nah, I prefer guns, you get some good target practice too. :cool:
 
It's a petty arrest and I'm sure the charges will be dismissed.
 
Well you don't own the air above your property, and it is negligent to fire shots in the air.
 
PoS said:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/man-shoots-down-drone-hovering-000032027.html



I think its fair to shoot a drone thats on your property without permission, its a matter of individual privacy. People shouldnt be arrested for that.
Click to expand...

I'm not a gun person but I have to admit that I consider the actions of this home owner, protecting his property and his daughters, was reasonable in my view. If it's legal to own a weapon and to use it to protect your property and your family, this seems a reasonable exercise of that legal right.

No non-authority has any business or legal right to view or record your private property without your consent. The story about the drone being flown to take pictures of a neighbouring house sounds pretty fishy to me and also sounds illegal but I didn't see any reference to charges against the controllers/owners of the drone. Even authorities would have limited legal rights in this regard.

Local jurisdictions are going to have to move more quickly to set ground rules for these things or there's going to be a lot more of this type of confrontation. Where's the line? What's to stop a drone from hovering outside your bedroom window in the back of your house filming your daughter sleeping in bed? Four guys with a drone doesn't sound innocent to me.
 
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Jerry said:
I'd like to know where he got a 40mm Glock so I can buy one too.
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I think the journalist meant .40 cal but you know these journalists, they love to write about guns but have no idea what a gun is. ;)
 
CanadaJohn said:
I'm not a gun person but I have to admit that I consider the actions of this home owner, protecting his property and his daughters, was reasonable in my view. If it's legal to own a weapon and to use it to protect your property and your family, this seems a reasonable exercise of that legal right.

No non-authority has any business or legal right to view or record your private property without your consent. The story about the drone being flown to take pictures of a neighbouring house sounds pretty fishy to me and also sounds illegal but I didn't see any reference to charges against the controllers/owners of the drone. Even authorities would have limited legal rights in this regard.

Local jurisdictions are going to have to move more quickly to set ground rules for these things or there's going to be a lot more of this type of confrontation. Where's the line? What's to stop a drone from hovering outside your bedroom window in the back of your house filming your daughter sleeping in bed? Four guys with a drone doesn't sound innocent to me.
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Do you have the right to shoot down a Cessna flying over your yard or if your neighbor gets a hot air balloon and hovers over your yard can you pop it with your rifle?

I would understand if the drone were leering in windows, that's one thing, but you have little right to privacy in your yard especially from directly above.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Do you have the right to shoot down a Cessna flying over your yard or if your neighbor gets a hot air balloon and hovers over your yard can you pop it with your rifle?

I would understand if the drone were leering in windows, that's one thing, but you have little right to privacy in your yard especially from directly above.
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The FAA has ruled that flying a drone for comercial purposes is illegal in most cities. If I understand OP, these men claim to have been scouting realestate. That's a comercial purpose. Not that that justifies firing on a drone, but let's be clear that the drone pilot isn't an innocent party.
 
PoS said:
I think its fair to shoot a drone thats on your property without permission, its a matter of individual privacy. People shouldnt be arrested for that.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with him destroying the drone, but it sounds like that wasn't what he was arrested for. He was arrested for discharging a gun within city limits, which is illegal. Those sorts of laws I agree with. You shouldn't be firing a gun in a crowded urban or suburban area unless it's a matter of life and death.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Do you have the right to shoot down a Cessna flying over your yard or if your neighbor gets a hot air balloon and hovers over your yard can you pop it with your rifle?

I would understand if the drone were leering in windows, that's one thing, but you have little right to privacy in your yard especially from directly above.
Click to expand...

Firing at a Cessna or hot air balloon with people in it is one thing. Shooting a rock from a wrist rocket slingshot directly up from your back yard is only a primitive drone basically.
If your drone is hoovering over someone's back yard they have as much right to that air space as you do then. If their primitive rock drone collides with your so be it.
 
molten_dragon said:
I don't have a problem with him destroying the drone, but it sounds like that wasn't what he was arrested for. He was arrested for discharging a gun within city limits, which is illegal. Those sorts of laws I agree with. You shouldn't be firing a gun in a crowded urban or suburban area unless it's a matter of life and death.
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Well he did discharge his gun within his own property so the way I see it what the city did was punitive and without merit. I cannot agree with punishing somebody for that.
 
PoS said:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/man-shoots-down-drone-hovering-000032027.html



I think its fair to shoot a drone thats on your property without permission, its a matter of individual privacy. People shouldnt be arrested for that.
Click to expand...

Some laws will have to be revised/revisited re these drones. For sure. Most cities have ordinances about discharging a firearm within city limits. Anyone familiar with guns knows the misses are more important than the hits in that regard. Even shots fired in the air are dangerous as Chicago newspapers can attest during celebrations. Innocent people can die.

Im REALLY surprised to see LE in KY arrest someone though. I think that's evidence of our handgun hysteria of late.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Do you have the right to shoot down a Cessna flying over your yard or if your neighbor gets a hot air balloon and hovers over your yard can you pop it with your rifle?

I would understand if the drone were leering in windows, that's one thing, but you have little right to privacy in your yard especially from directly above.
Click to expand...

A property owner's rights go straight up. Not sure how "high up" they go, but as high as any tree, I'm sure. Here's a link that talks about it. SCOTUS hasn't specifically defined it. It'll have to soon.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...metz_arrest_how_much_airspace_do_you_own.html

Just because one owns the airspace doesn't mean, though, that a landowner is exempt from other laws -- such as firing a gun within city limits.

For others who don't click the link: before a ruling acknowledging the sky was becoming a highway in 1946, a landowner owned up to infinity above his property.
 
This HAS to be a typo...

Merideth says he stood his ground: "I had my 40 mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"
Click to expand...

I'm thinking he means "40 cal."

Here's a picture of a 40mm round.

WNUS_4cm-56_mk12_Alaska_passing_pic.webp
 
This case is going to get complicated, but I suspect that it will boil down to intention behind the shoot. Protecting land is one thing, but the story mentions "teen daughter (he has two) was sunbathing." Not having any idea who was taking those pictures it seems reasonable to go after the drone even with a statute about firearms discharge. I suspect the charges will be dismissed once whoever prosecutes this realizes the potential motives at play here and the dubious nature of the subsequent "visit." To me this is not a very good case to proceed with.
 
The FAA is struggling how to deal with drones that are flown into places where they don't belong.

I think a simple and straight forward solution was just found, yet the legal establishment rejects it, opting instead for a more complicated and expensive approach that's only sure to fill the pockets of lawyers.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Do you have the right to shoot down a Cessna flying over your yard or if your neighbor gets a hot air balloon and hovers over your yard can you pop it with your rifle?

I would understand if the drone were leering in windows, that's one thing, but you have little right to privacy in your yard especially from directly above.
Click to expand...

Well, those examples are a little ridiculous. If a Cessna is mere feet over my backyard, both the Cessna's occupants and I have bigger things to worry about than shooting at it and I'd be pretty sure that operating a hot air balloon in someone's backyard is against a multitude of ordinances/bylaws.

You are correct, you have limited right to privacy in your backyard based on the proximity of your neighbours, fencing, etc. But a party that does not abut your backyard has no right to invade your privacy in this manner. Courts have ruled against neighbours who install surveillance equipment on their own property if that equipment takes in activity on the adjoining property.

I'm pretty easy going and "live and let live" is a great philosophy to live by, but that doesn't extend to some jackass buzzing a drone over my daughters sunbathing in my enclosed and private backyard. I find it remarkable that the same people who generally object to government surveillance as an intrusion aren't equally opposed to this kind of idiocy.
 
CanadaJohn said:
I'm not a gun person but I have to admit that I consider the actions of this home owner, protecting his property and his daughters, was reasonable in my view. If it's legal to own a weapon and to use it to protect your property and your family, this seems a reasonable exercise of that legal right.

No non-authority has any business or legal right to view or record your private property without your consent. The story about the drone being flown to take pictures of a neighbouring house sounds pretty fishy to me and also sounds illegal but I didn't see any reference to charges against the controllers/owners of the drone. Even authorities would have limited legal rights in this regard.

Local jurisdictions are going to have to move more quickly to set ground rules for these things or there's going to be a lot more of this type of confrontation. Where's the line? What's to stop a drone from hovering outside your bedroom window in the back of your house filming your daughter sleeping in bed? Four guys with a drone doesn't sound innocent to me.
Click to expand...

Drones are being used for real estate photos, and in this case it may have been originally used for that. But I would not doubt that when they saw the girl sunbathing they decided to take a look.


My question is at what height does one get to shoot a drone?

When it is 10 feet off the ground, 20? 40? 200? With good optics the difference in height may not make much of a difference
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Drones are being used for real estate photos, and in this case it may have been originally used for that. But I would not doubt that when they saw the girl sunbathing they decided to take a look.


My question is at what height does one get to shoot a drone?

When it is 10 feet off the ground, 20? 40? 200? With good optics the difference in height may not make much of a difference
Click to expand...

That's another interesting point, and I guess it depends on the jurisdiction. Here in Toronto, there's not a chance any distance would be considered acceptable for shooting at a drone, but then we don't have many people who are licensed to own and use guns in the city. Other jurisdictions in the US would be much more accommodating. It's why I say the jurisdiction should be looking at what will be acceptable to them so that both drone owners/operators and gun/property owners know what the rules are and what can be expected if one crosses the line.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Well you don't own the air above your property, and it is negligent to fire shots in the air.
Click to expand...
Yes, you do own the air (well, the 'air rights') over your property to a reasonable height, and it varies by jurisdiction.

Not the most technical source, but the first that came-up on Google: Slate - 'Hey, You! Get off of My Cloud! How much of the airspace above your home do own?"

This question was also articulated in the manner I described on my state's real-estate License exam (albeit this was in 1985).
 
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