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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."
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?
I am Not an Animal!
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
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
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.
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.
I think its a valid analogy.
In that case, they shouldn't have shot the drone... they should have beaten the drones father for failing to teach it proper behavior.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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.
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.
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.
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.
Seriously, people are missing out on the obvious business opportunity here. Shooting at clay pigeons is boring. Why not get a fleet of armored drones and get people to PAY to shoot at them? You could have competitions among pilots to see how long they can last without getting shot, and make people PAY for that as well. I'm sure the hunters in this case were high-fiving each other like crazy. C'mon peeps, if you can't fight 'em, join 'em!
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.
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?
There were women there walking around dressed like pigeons.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
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!
In fact the redneck "I shoot trespassers" is illegal
I thought you had Castle Doctrine in most of your states..?
As for here in the UK, you get thrown in jail if you don't offer the burglar a cup of tea after he tires of murdering your children.
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.
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!
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).
Forget the hunters. What if some Bozo flying a drone manages to crash it causing significant damage somewhere? Sue the Bozo? Naw, he ain't got no money. Sue the manufacturing for selling a dangerous product?
How do serious RC flyers handle this? Fly only over club owned land? Maybe a collective liability insurance for members?
The AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) is the national organization that most RC fliers are members of. They carry a liability insurance policy which covers members in the event of aero-modeling related accidents, as long as the member complied with the AMA code of conduct - which prohibits flying in the manner these people did. Flying over land that's not yours, or in a manner that could result in crashing on a roadway or other occupied area, is a violation. These guys created a much greater public hazard than the hunters. In fact, having seen the video, the hunters did not break any of the standard rules of gun safety and caused no hazard at all. The helicopter was well above and also to the side of all bystanders, such that falling shot would have landed far from any of the people.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
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.
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.
Having spent the weekend having an impromptu Mythbusters marathon, I've learned that once bullets start to tumble their terminal velocity is between 60 and 100 mph which will really really hurt if it hit you on the head but is not going to penetrate and kill you. However, if it keeps on its ballistic trajectory (i.e. not straight up) they can kill at quite a distance just like the poster said. These are not mutually exclusive positions. At the most it means you can't kill yourself by shooting up in the air.
(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.
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.