works for me
Posted on 09/01/2016 9:57:26 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
"It came over my airspace, 25 or 30 feet above my trees, and hovered for a second. I blasted it to smithereens."
A woman in Virginia shot down a drone flying near her property in June of this year. It's at least the third time this has happened in the U.S., with previous incidents in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Originally reported in the local Fauquier Times and subsequently covered by Ars Technica, the shooter was Jennifer Youngman, a neighbor to actor and director Robert Duvall. She had been cleaning her shotguns on the porch when two men stopped on a nearby road and started flying a drone around the general vicinity. Youngman left the drone alone while it flew around nearby fields, but prepared to take it down and ultimately did when it flew over her land.
As she told Ars Technica:
I loaded my shotgun and took the safety off, and this thing came flying over my trees. I don't know if they lost command or if they didn't have good command, but the wind had picked up. It came over my airspace, 25 or 30 feet above my trees, and hovered for a second. I blasted it to smithereens.
Shooting down drones is a bit of a legal gray area in the United States at the moment. Opponents point out that, according to FAA classifications, drones are technical aircraft and interfering with the flight of one is a federal crime. So far no shooters have been prosecuted on the federal level. In fact other drone shooters, like William Merideth, have ultimately been cleared of all charges, though the owner of that drone is still pursuing a civil suit for $1,500 in damages.
To her credit, Youngman told Ars Technica that she went about shooting down the drone with 7.5 birdshot, which is both the most effective way to take a drone out of the sky, but also ensures that the projectiles won't do any harm on the way down. The drone, however, still can. Youngman said the crash left "two punctures in [her] lawn tractor."
The best way to avoid that might be to not shoot down the thing down in the first place.
Note that President Madison likewise agreed with the 14th Congress that the roads and canals that Congress wanted to build when it drafted the public works bill of 1817 would be a good thing for both the General Welfare and Defense of the country.
But also consider that he wrote his agreement with Congress in the constitutionally required veto explanation to Congress, Madison also pointing out in the veto explanation that roads and canals were not among Congress’s Section 8 powers regardless of arguments about the postal roads clause (1.8.7).
Veto of federal public works bill, 1817
In fact, a later generation of state sovereignty-respecting justice had effectively justified Madison’s veto with the following clarification of the fed’s constitutionally limited powers — powers not expressly delegated are prohibited.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
What patriots are overlooking (ignoring?) is that there was nothing stopping the 14th Congress, or any later generation of Congress, from petitioning the states for a roads and canals amendment to the Constitution after Madison’s veto of that bill.
Hypothetically speaking, if the states had given Congress the roads and canals constitutional amendment that it wanted, Congress could have then asked President Madison, “There, are you happy now?” while Madison signed the bill based on constitutionally enumerated powers.
Regarding Madison’s narrow interpretation of the Commerce and US postal roads clauses, Jefferson had previously expressed the following concern about interpreting the Constitution.
"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.
When you buy real estate unless you sign them away at closing you have air, water and mineral rights. I don’t know what it is now but it used to be air rights up to 1000 ft. Anybody flies a drone over our house gets it back in pieces. Its not an aircraft.
yes, that’s what I mean... because that’s the exact same thing, right?
stupid....
But Area 51 Airspace goes from Ground level all the way into Space.
Should be equal for All...
This is too easy.
Her neighbor is a Hollywood actor, Robert Duvall.
Mystery solved; drone just looking for dirt on Duvall.
but, that’s dangerous .. because sometimes you just end up in the dirt yourself.
Amen to that.
Well you can’t shoot him of course, but in some states you might be able to charge that neighbor with invasion of privacy. A judge could want to hear the neighbor’s explanation for aiming a telescope at your property, particularly if it was on ongoing practice.
From Wikipedia: In the 1970s, Kansas Attorney General Vern Miller renewed the enforcement of Kansas’s prohibition, even raiding Amtrak trains traveling through Kansas to stop illegal liquor sales.[6] He also forced airlines to stop serving liquor while traveling through Kansas airspace.[7]In 2013 it is likely that these restrictions would be found unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision in Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460 (2005).
More on Democrat Miller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vern_Miller
Ya beat me to it.
Go Betty!
This was a drone. No one shot at its owner.
I realize that. I was elaborating on Megan’s comment, which I suspect was intended as hyperbole.
Yeah, someone using a drone to case houses for burglary isn’t likely. I’d say there’s a higher chance of a pedophile or some other pervert using a drone to check backyards for children or other victims than someone using a drone to plan a theft.
A drone was hovering in my private backyard while I was enjoy a cigar and sipping scotch. It really pissed me off but I’m not sure why.
works for me
Pretty! The medical ones will probably be red & white like our local Med Flight choppers.
Technically, Yosemite Sam favors a specific variant of the word which features an extra syllable: “smithereenies”.
Interesting solution.
We are in a gray area where someone is using technology to do activities that encroach on others rights. As with most things technology is moving faster than the long so it's hard to determine what is right and what is lawful.
If someone mounts a directional antenna or microphone and directed into your home do you have a reasonable right to stop that invasion of your privacy. If someone hacked into your Wi-Fi and activate the camera on your laptop but aren't physically residing on your property are they free and clear because the FCC has given those frequencies for use.
I see no difference between someone using a drone in public airspace over my property and using video surveillance with somebody intercepting my Wi-Fi traffic both are immoral, without good reason and an invasion of my rights to be secure unwarranted search.
No one has gone and shot the operators of the Drone just the instrument of the perceived privacy invasion. Correct in that there are laws governing airspace that were designed for commercial aircraft but there are also laws about one’s privacy on one’s own property and home.
Personally I wouldn't wouldn't shooting down the drone and less I had a minor that was being observed or if I felt the operation was reckless. I live in a rural area and feel quite comfortable using various shotgun rounds without fear of encroaching on someone else’s property if I miss a stray shot.
Just like you used to comment to talk about people defending Germany I will use your comment to say that you sound like a person that would defend an unencrypted Wi-Fi hack in order to do an invasion of privacy against a minor child by a pedophile and blame the owner of the wi-f’i for not doing a better job.
You can’t invade someone’s privacy by looking at something that’s clearly visible from another property. It wasn’t private to begin with.
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