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Hunters Shoot Down Drone of Animal Rights Group
Required Snark writes "A remote control drone operated by an animal rights group was shot down in South Carolina by a group of thwarted hunters. Steve Hindi, the group president said 'his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.' After the shoot was halted, the drone was launched anyway, and at this point it was shot down. 'Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out,' Hindi said in the release. 'As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter.' 'It is important to note how dangerous this was, as they were shooting toward and into a well-travelled highway,' Hindi stated in the release."
There's video linked from the fine article. It looks a lot less dramatic than what the summary makes it sound to be. The road is not exactly a four lane interstate. It's single/double track and there's no traffic. The only vehicle you see is the animal rights group's parked van. Go see for yourselves.
Stefan Axelsson
PETA is currently trying to get the 13th amendment to be applied in the case of five killer whales held by SeaWorld.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16920866
Yes, PETA is trying to get antislavery law to be applied against animals, which if successful will seriously change everything...
Given that the article says it crashed onto the highway, and helicopters aren't known for gliding, I'd say they were on top of the highway.
#6 Birdshot fired out of a 12 gauge has a maximum effective range of around 40 yards, when shooting birds. I can guarantee there was no danger posed to anyone on that highway, the birdshot never even got close.
My guess is that in addition to being anti-hunting, they are also anti-gun (those two often go together). Well something else you discover is that often the anti-gun crowd is very, very uneducated about guns. Rather than learn all about them so as to have more solid arguments, they are scared by them and thus know little to nothing about them.
So it doesn't surprise me at all they they would believe that any gun fired in any direction is a major hazard. Plus I'm sure they are bitching as loud as possible to get attention (and it seems to be working).
For those wondering, the parent is correct: birdshot will fall to the ground harmlessly. Birdshot is composed of hundreds of tiny, tiny pellets, 2mm or so. Thus they lose kinetic energy rapidly in the air, and don't hit very hard when they fall. It is specifically designed to be shot in the air and not have to worry about where it falls. Rather important for bird hunting.
Even buckshot isn't all that dangerous falling back to ground. While larger and heavier, it is also just round lead balls and thus cannot maintain a ballistic trajectory and just falls back to the ground.
Rifle bullets are the ones that are most dangerous, though pistol rounds can be as well. Since they are spin stabilized they can maintain a ballistic trajectory for long distances, miles even. As such they can potentially hit with lethal force even if fired at a pretty steep angle.
Usually when people shoot in any sort of practice or competition, it is with clay pigeons. They are just little clay discs that fly pretty well, and shatter very nicely when hit with a shotgun blast. For a live pigeon shoot one would assume they would be using real pigeons.
(unexciting) Youtube video of the shootdown can be found on the SHARK youtube channel.
Doesn't look like they were trespassing.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
you are wrong as nobody would be able to fly private aircraft and hot air balloons.
And yes I know this, I was a private pilot. I'm not tresspassing until I am below the tree line.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Hindi and his crew were lucky. They should have been arrested. South Carolina has a hunter harassment law.
50-1-137: It is unlawful for a person wilfully to impede or obstruct another person from lawfully hunting, trapping, fishing, or harvesting marine species. Any person violating the provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be punished as provided by Section 50-1-130. In addition to the criminal penalty, any person convicted must have his privilege to hunt, trap, fish, or harvest marine species recreationally or commercially revoked for one year.
50-1-130: Unless a different penalty is specified, any person who violates a provision of this title is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or imprisoned for not less than ten days nor more than thirty days.
A human has right to live.
Which is why 58 countries have capital punishment and we have been hearing a lot lately about countries from a certain corner of the world respecting the shit out of this right to live. Oh, I am sorry, what was your point again?
The majority of animal rights activists do not want to abolish the eating of animals. They just want to see them treated as humanely as possible: No unnecessary pain, no killing for fun or sport (as in TFA), no medical experiments, acceptable living conditions. Is that so wrong? Do living creatures who are proven to be capable of feeling pain and distress not have a right to be treated fairly?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
On my property, I expect a right to privacy. If my property and privacy is invaded after I deny permission, then your flying camera is merely a "peeping tom tool" at this point.
Expect your little toy to be damaged...and...don't EVEN try to equate it with a piloted commercial aircraft with human lives on board. The attempt just illustrates the weakness of your logic.
That's just plane wrong. (pun intended)
You have no reasonable expectation of privacy from overflying aircraft. Florida v. Riley, IIRC, was the name of the SCOTUS case that established that. YMMV, and consult an attorney for applicable state law. (State constitutions or other law may grant you different rights, although that likely gets tricky in a federally regulated area like aviation.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
None of that is to say it is a good idea or anything, but I doubt it is all that common for people to get injured or killed by it.
Wrong, celebratory gunfire kills quite a few people every year
Given that the article says it crashed onto the highway, and helicopters aren't known for gliding, I'd say they were on top of the highway.
Their video shows the drone flying away from the highway, then returning towards the highway presumably after it was shot at; around 2:15 in the video, it looks like it took some damage to one of the rotors, so it was perhaps damaged enough to no longer maintain altitude, but not enough to prevent them bringing it back under some control.
A lot of the deaths occur from the bullet entering your shoulder and hitting your heart. Penetrating your shoulder requires a lot less velocity than your head. This paper "Can a Falling Bullet Be Lethal at Terminal Velocity? Cardiac Injury Caused by a Celebratory Bullet" seems to suggest that you can indeed be killed by falling bullets.
They didn't commit battery.
Webster's Unabridged:
"Law. an unlawful attack upon another person by beating or wounding, or by touching in an offensive manner."