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."
but I don't come to slashdot for this. Is it because they use the word 'drone' instead of remote control helicopter that this becomes something for nerds?
bird shot fired from a shot gun - upwards - is harmless. It comes down softly. The only way to hurt someone is to shoot them directly and they would still need to be within a few meters. There are other types of shotgun ammunition that can do a lot more harm but the shot for dove, pigeon, etc. is very small and light.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Animals do not have "rights", at least not in the sense humans do. A human has right to live. A pigeon does not have that right -- if one believes otherwise, one has to prevent pigeons from being killed by predators. The "animal rights" activists agree (I think; I have met a few of those) that it is OK animals to kill each other (which they do all the time anyway) and no "rights violation" happens when a hawk kills a pigeon. However, for some strange reason, animals rights are violated when people kill them -- at least, according to the "animal rights" activists. Go figure...
"law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.
"It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave."
TRIED. If launching the drone was against the law then do you not think that the law enforcement officers would have just arrested them as soon as they tried to launch? And shooting at something you don't like the look of because it's over your property is legal where you come from? I assume there are no civil flights, police helicopters, air ambulances, kites...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
What are you, 12? Over here in the adult world we're responsible for our own actions. There was no need for the hunters to shoot at the drone (it wasn't a danger to them they were just pissed off), so trying to blame the inherent riskiness of the hunters' actions on the operator of the drone is facile.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
WTF is a "live pigeon shoot"? Is there a dead pigeon shoot? The point of hunting is to kill something,so it is absurdly redundant. Pigeons are rats with wings and I assume that the species they are hunting there is not protected or endangered, so why not kill them? From what I have seen on TV and from real life, hunters are actually the most humane people when it comes to animals. Most of them take care to not make the animal suffer.
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)
And if women didn't walk around dressed like sluts, they wouldn't get raped.
That's true, but how does this relate to the conversation?
Analogies are almost always a bad way to discuss, but I'm more disturbed by your "that's true" statement. This is the Burka argument, women should cover up or else men won't be able to control themselves from raping them. Not trying to insult your faith if you are a conservative muslim, but so disagree with this blame the victim approach.
It is also false to claim that you won't get raped if you cover up, look into real research and statistics on rape and you'll find that it is by far not a majority of the rape crimes that fall into this stereotype category. Most rape researches would tell you it is actually usually not driven by the sex, but the use of force, domination, humiliation, pent up anger, partly similar to other violent (and hate) crimes.
And notice how they fail to show any pictures of the "gunshot damage".
IANAL but I'm a photographer. You are certainly allowed to take pictures of people on private property, permission or not. Typically you'd want to do this from public space, or someplace you have a right to be standing physically (such as the street) - in which case there's nothing your subject can do about it besides closing the curtains (or whatever).
In this case, I guess it hinges on what altitude air rights extend to. There's no legal problem taking photos of someone in private property with an airplane, but I suppose it's different if your airplane or helicopter is only a few feet off the ground and therefore essentially within the private property. But the details given suggest the helicopter was shot down over the road, which is public.
But even if they were in the property the charge is trespassing, not taking photos without permission, and they can't force you to delete the photos (or ruin the film). You can be forced to leave the private property, of course - and I suppose there is a tradition of farmers shooting shotguns off to scare away trespassers, but I'd like to think one wouldn't get away with actually shooting someone who was merely trespassing. Or, you know, simply watching you from the street.
My guess is that in addition to being anti-hunting, they are also anti-gun (those two often go together)
Hmmmmmm. From my point of view being pro-gun and pro-hunting tend to go together.
Right. And if chicks didn't dress all slutty, they wouldn't get all raped, AMIRITE?
Do you people understand rape IS NOT the woman's fault? How ignorant do you have to be to understand rape is because the rapist is a sick fuck, not because of how the woman is dressed.
Actually, most rapes probably occur because of miscommunication. A guy was never taught that the behavior he is engaged in is rape, and maybe his support network doesn't characterize it as rape, so he doesn't realize it's rape. A girl feels violated by something like what the guy considers to be rape, that she (or her support network) consider to be rape, under the same behavior. Ask a dozen different people what happened based on the same facts, you'll get wildly divergent answers as to whether or not there was rape. The problem is that we have an idea of what "rape" is in society, and it's stranger rape, which isn't what rape really is. The problem is we have conflicting beliefs as to what behavior is okay and what behavior isn't. Labeling a rapist a sick fuck is probably usually wrong. Usually rape occurs because of miscommunication and either unclear or incorrect social norms, not because of any mental deformity. If we made rape education as big a priority as rape punishment--or perhaps bigger--we would see a bigger reduction in the amount of rape than we do from punishment.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
The rapist is like a wild animal - you have to protect yourself from it. If covering up reduces the chance or you being raped even by 1%, then you should probably cover up. After all, if you do get raped, it won't matter that the rapist will go to prison - you will still be raped (compared to theft where police may be able to recover your property).
This is absolutely horrific thinking, if I can even dignify this drivel with such a description. There may be people at bars who may make friends with you with a view to killing you and keeping your head in the freezer, so if you do go to a bar, it is _your_ fault?
Fuck me dead with a goose, this is such Ye Olde thinking, it disturbs me beyond words that people would even spout such shit in a day such as this.
A rapist is "like a wild animal"? No, he is a civilised human being. In all likelihood, you know several, and have slapped them cheerfully on the back, since you are clearly clueless as regarding how duplicitous the "civilised" person can be.
http://thetandd.com/animal-rights-group-says-drone-shot-down/article_017a720a-56ce-11e1-afc4-001871e3ce6c.html
According to the article the drone was hovering over the U.S. 601 (a public road) when it was shot down. It was filming events on private property, but it was not out of bounds in itself .
That ought to address both your question and the snarky remark of the parent post.
I'm afraid this shows that those "hunters" with guns abused their privilege of toting rifles when they felt annoyed. It also illustrates the aggression these people display (as in: "they see something they don't like, so they shoot at it").
As a consequence I believe they cannot be trusted with firearms and therefore ought to lose that privilege (i.e. their gun license).
Generally speaking, you're not allowed to commit battery in defense of privacy alone. It would need to be trespass to justify that.
And you're certainly not allowed to use lethal force, much less destroy another person's chattels over public property.
(2),(3) As noted by previous posts, the issue of flying that drone over a public road (something I definitely don't endorse; I fully agree with you there) is an issue between the authorities and those activists. Those hunters have no part in that.
All that they are entitled to do is report this incident to the sheriff (who was standing right next to those activists as it seems from the article) and complain of harassment and possible of endangering traffic by flying a drone over the road. After that it's up to the authorities to prosecute. Not those hunters.
(4) Those hunters shot at something that wasn't on or over the tract of land on which they were licensed to hunt on, and it wasn't the stuff they were licensed to hunt either.
And about the right to bear arms: that is not at issue here. People in the US do have the right to bear arms, but with that right comes responsibility. It cannot be otherwise. If you abuse your rights, then there are consequences. For example: forfeiting your rights.
I believe that someone who is so easily goaded into turning a gun from its legitimate purpose should not be allowed to carry it.
Okay, I will bite. I hunt.
First of all, most of the hunters are not cowards. They are ordinary people, living pretty ordinary lives. They are no more brave, nor less brave than most people. Technically, anybody who has set a rat trap in their house is a hunter.
The matter of fairness in hunting is not an easy one. Most hunters have different takes on it. The vast majority does not consider hunting using airplanes reasonable, for example. I believe that most think wearing protective clothing against the elements is reasonable. What people consider fair also depends a lot on what and where they hunt, strangely enough. To go back to the rat trap... Do you think it's fair to the rat? Or would you prefer to kill the rat with your bare hands? Is it fair to use bait? To place the trap where the rat would usually be, or should the trap be placed somewhere else?
To me hunting isn't some kind of primal test of the abilities of my body against the abilities of an animal. It's a matter of using what the land provides. It's a matter of removing animals that causes problems with our way of life as well as gathering meat. I have no wish to bring extra suffering to the animals I hunt just because I don't use the correct tools for the job. Of course it's not fair. All predators are unfair, or they would not survive. Still the vast majority of the animals we hunt gets away. A few are unlucky, or make a bad decision.
Something I just can't help wonder is... Do you eat meat? Have you thought through the ethics of keeping animals confined for the single purpose of killing them and eating them? Compared to that I believe hunting is a better alternative from an ethical standpoint.
Context: Personally, I fully support regulated hunting for food, don't like hunting for trophy, and don't like the use of raised birds in a pigeon shoot (which seems to be the practice under scrutiny here).
After watching the video, I think there are two main issues - one (dealt with at length here) is about whether or not it was right and/or legal to shoot down the drone. The second one is whether or not it is right and/or legal for Hindi's group to be harassing the Broxton Bridge Plantation. His tone throughout and his words at the end of the video are clearly harassment - "we have a lot of plans for those people, that much I can guarantee."
If the shoot is legal, then the harassment should be illegal and the goal of Hindi's group should be to change the law through non violent protest and engaging the public (potentially with video).
If the shoot is illegal, then law enforcement should handle it. If they do not, the goal of Hindi's group should be to change the actions of law enforcement officials through non violent protest and engaging the public (potentially with video). The harassment should still be illegal.
I think this group has confused non violent protest against immoral laws with harassment of groups doing things you don't like.
If you're tromping around with weapons killing stuff, you're "expectation of privacy" is somewhat attenuated
I have a friend who lives on fifteen acres he owns. Why should his right to privacy be negated on his own property just because he's carrying a perfectly legal tool?
Those pheasants you just blew into pieces were probably expecting a little privacy, too.
They' not people. AFAIK humans are the only species with the concept of "privacy".
a pretty tolerant person, but blood sport is one of my bright red lines. It puts you in a special category. It's not that I care so much about animals, that I'm some animal hugger. I eat polish sausage, which I am told contains something that was once an animal (and judging from my digestive reaction, an animal that died of ebola).
Most hunters eat what they kill. So you're OK with eating that pig that was raised in inhumane conditions and killed, but you're not OK with killing it yourself? There's a bit of a disconnect there, don't you think?
Hunting is in our blood. Hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of years of evolution is at play here.
There's nothing whatever wrong with hunting. To be an anti-hunting omnivore smacks of hypocricy.
Free Martian Whores!
Sorry, but the adaptation didn't go away just because we moved to cities and packed our meat in plastic.
I'd rather the people who have the hunting impulse most strongly exercise it responsibly, trying to suppress strong biological impulses completely usually results in them coming out sideways to the detriment of everyone involved.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
So, does that mean I can smash up your stuff on say, a public beach?
Also, note that the "hunters" in question were shooting birds being released from boxes. There was little of the hunt about this. Kind of like a clay pigeon shoot, but with live birds. So, while I support the second amendment, let's not pretend that these were noble hunters foraging for food for their families.
Check your premises.