Police Not Issuing Charges For Handgun-Firing Drone -- Feds Undecided

Mr.Intel sends a followup to last week's news of an 18-year-old man getting a lot of attention for posting a video of a handgun being fired from a drone. Despite calls to arrest the man, police say they can't find any reason to charge him. "It appears to be a case of technology surpassing current legislation," they said. Todd Lawrie, the chief of police where it happened, said, "We are attempting to determine if any laws have been violated at this point. It would seem to the average person, there should be something prohibiting a person from attaching a weapon to a drone. At this point, we can't find anything that's been violated. The legislature in Connecticut (recently) addressed a number of questions with drones, mostly around how law enforcement was going to use drones. It is a gray area, and it's caught the legislature flatfooted." The FAA and other federal agencies are still investigating and trying to figure out if any criminal statutes were violated.

Comments

Investigating if laws were broken

[IndustrialComplex]

It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance of the law is not and has never been an excuse.

This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Errol backfiring]

Except for the police, it seems...

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of laws on the books, and when the public cries out "This man needs to be arrested!" they have to do a full investigation. They can't just say "Well, it doesn't look like there's anything wrong here. Go home folks." Because then people will bitch about some obscure law that - through a lot of hand waving and misinterpretation - makes this activity illegal, or people will start bitching that this should obviously be illegal and cops should do something about it anyways(which they can't - law enforcement does not get to choose which things are legal[the legislative branch does this] nor do they get to choose the punishment for breaking laws[the judicial branch does this]). Our system of laws is very complex, and when it comes to obscure/new cases like this, they can't just blindly state what is or is not illegal.

The police and feds immediately crossed off the obvious ones - the man owns the gun legally, he's firing it in an area where it would normally be allowed to fire it, etc. And as far as "...how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?" If they find out the man has broken the law after intense scrutiny of the law, they'll likely slap him on the wrist, tell him not to do it again, and send him home. He's not going to end up in prison for life - for exactly the reason you've pointed out: if it's not common knowledge and not immediately obvious whether it's legal or not, the man will have a strong defense in court. "Reasonable" and "reasonable expectation" are very strong legal devices. Slap him on the wrist, make sure the case hits the headlines: "DO NOT STRAP A GUN TO YOUR DRONE: CRAZY NEW LAW UPSETS TEXANS MORE AT 11", and call it a day.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[JeffSh]

regular citizens can never know if they're breaking the law, there are so many of them after all, but therein lies an interesting thing. the law is rarely applied based on who is breaking the law, but rather who the person is.

anyone can be singled out and have their life turned upside down by law enforcement, it's all a matter of application. application of the law occurs on people who already have their feet wet and lower socio economic classes.

keep your nose clean and you won't run afoul of the law. I'd say that especially goes for "do no harm to anyone else" areas, that's how you first get in trouble, is if you assault or cause a harm to someone else. that raises your profile initially and from then on the system is inadvertently designed to focus on you and drive you into the ground.

most people get away with all kinds of minor crimes, so long as they don't actually physically or monetarily harm someone else (or be black) you won't get dragged into the undertow of the criminal justice system.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[thegarbz]

Well this is exactly what happens when the technology or social norms surpass existing laws. If the laws were so clear cut at all times we wouldn't need someone to bring the case to court, and we wouldn't need judges to decide how the law applies, and we wouldn't need a legislator to update the laws.

If any legal system stays stable long enough eventually you will run into this scenario. The regular citizen can't be expected to know until either a ruling has been made or a new law is passed. This is situation normal.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Cley Faye]

In that case, I'm pretty sure regulatory organizations *know* the law. There is no ignorance there. But they still can't decide if a law was broken.
In that situation, how can an individual know with certainty if he break the law or not?

Re: Investigating if laws were broken

[O('_')O_Bush]

He isn't talking about ignorance of the law, he is talking about law enforcement having to stretch a law so ambiguous and I'll defined that law enforcement can't figure out of it applies. Since LEOs aren't judges or legislature, it really isn't supposed to be within their power to make that determination.

To me, the most perverse thing is that the kid did nothing morally wrong or hurt anyone, but LEO is trying to find a way to punish him for scaring some chickenshits? That, to me, is just disgusting.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[paradxum]

That is a great point! My beliefs on the quality of a law are as simple as this:

Laws that are there to prevent the abuse of something (gun, knife, rock) are good.

Laws that are there to prevent the potential for abuse of something (see examples above) are bad and impose on the freedom of citizens.

This is clearly someone that is not abusing anything. The potential for abuse is high, yes I give you that, but the potential for abuse of a steak knife is high too.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[dave420]

Surely It's also a balance of how useful something is when used correctly compared to the damage it can do when misused.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[wvmarle]

In many cases, the full circumstances of an event make the difference whether a law has been broken or not.

Were there any license requirements for things like flying the drone, owning the gun, firing a gun from a flying platform? Was that drone allowed to carry any cargo?

Where did it happen exactly? It may make a difference whether it's private land, public land, a gun range, or maybe a nature reserve.

It is not that black and white. So many possible questions may be raised which may determine that an act is legal or illegal.

Example. If you see something happening, it may be legal, it may be not. If you see a house being built, you will probably assume it's legal for those people to build their house there. But maybe it's not. Maybe on that piece of land, nothing is allowed to be built. Maybe they don't own the land. Maybe the building is not up to code. Maybe it's bigger than allowed. So many circumstances where building a house is legal, so many circumstances where building a house is not legal.

Another example. Grabbing a gun and firing it is, afaik, in general legal in the US. However doing so a busy street I suppose not legal. Aiming it at someone and then firing it, is also usually illegal - note the "usually", there may be moments it is legal, and then again it matters whether you're say civilian, military or police.

Re: Investigating if laws were broken

[AvitarX]

Many areas have discharge laws, that make firing a gun illegal except for defense, or at a range. Areas where that's not the case still have rules wrt proximity to a house or playground.

Probably the minority of land area, but the majority of the population within those areas at any given moment.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Shakrai]

This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.

In Common Law jurisdictions we have another principle that goes back for 800+ years: mens rea. Meaning that you have to have a guilty mind (i.e., intent) to have broken the law. Unfortunately this principle is being steadily eroded in favor of "strict liability" laws that require no intent, thus criminalizing more behavior and further expanding the power of the State.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit! It used to be that there had to be an element of mens rea - criminal intent. There also used to have to be a victim. When the "law" is hundreds of thousands of pages then everyone is ignorant of the law.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Rockoon]

Surely It's also a balance of how useful something is when used correctly compared to the damage it can do when misused.

Subjective bullshit and I can prove it.

I declare that nothing you have ever done or potentially will ever do is useful. Now head off to jail, criminal.

Re: Investigating if laws were broken

[wvmarle]

Sounds like a reasonable grounds for starting an investigation in this case.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[skegg]

mens rea. Meaning that you have to have a guilty mind (i.e., intent) to have broken the law

My understanding of "mens rea" is that the defendant knew (understood) that they were performing the action (the "actus reus") irrespective of whether or not they knew that the action was illegal. Some people commit physical actions but don't know what they're doing ... or can't stop themselves (e.g. the insane, underage child lashing out, etc).

And that the demonstration of intent (knowingly breaking the law) only exacerbates the offence.

Then again, IANAL, so my legal commentaries are probably as valuable as those of the underage child I mentioned above ...

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance of the law is not and has never been an excuse.

This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.

Ignorance is an often misapplied and misunderstood threshold. It isn't "ignorance" if it isn't reasonable for a person to have known about the law. Ignorance requires someone to "ignore" the law not merely not know it. Ignorance implies criminal intent or that a reasonable person would have known this could be illegal and should have made themselves aware of the law.

There was clearly no criminal intent in this case since he posted the video on Youtube. If he took reasonable safety precautions then I wouldn't have considered this being possibly illegal either... until someone with specialized knowledge pointed out the possibility.

If appropriate, the person should be made aware that doing this again could lead to criminal charges. But it would make a mockery of the law to press criminal charges.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[bsolar]

The issue is not about knowledge of the law, it's about legal certainty. More specifically, if the authorities themselves after investigating the issue are unsure about how the law is supposed to apply, it might be that even if such law exists it might be void for vagueness.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Anonymous Coward]

This ones easy, if you are black or poor. You broke the law.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[sjames]

The world is flat. This is a scientific principle that pre-dates the Greek.

When literally nobody knows the entirety of the law anymore (because there's too much of it for that) INCLUDING the legislature and SCOTUS (they have to look it up all the time), then ignorance of the law really IS an excuse even if it isn't accepted as one.

The elephant in the courtroom is that pretty much everyone has no choice but to do what seems right and hope for the best.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Immerman]

Well sure. But it seems like "It was Tuesday" is generally a valid excuse for the police. Along with "It wasn't Tuesday".

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Immerman]

>There was clearly no criminal intent in this case since he posted the video on Youtube.

I really, really wish that were true. Have you really never heard of any the many cases of people posting Youtube videos of thefts, assaults, even rapes? I don't know whether it's motivated by overwhelming stupidity, a desire for infamy, or what, but it's very definitely a thing.

Also, from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Ignorantia juris non excusat or ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for "ignorance of the law does not excuse" or "ignorance of the law excuses no one") is a legal principle holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content.

Basically it means it means exactly what it says. Etymology aside, "ignorance" refers to lack of knowledge and has nothing to do with "ignoring" beyond possibly ignoring the theoretical past opportunities to learn more. The principle is based on the assumption that everyone knows all the laws (or perhaps that it's your responsibility to know the law), never mind that such a claim is ridiculous given the size of modern bodies of law. It was established to protect against someone knowingly committing a crime and then avoiding liability by making the nigh-un-disprovable claim that they didn't know it was illegal.

Re: Investigating if laws were broken

[DarkOx]

Since LEOs aren't judges or legislature, it really isn't supposed to be within their power to make that determination.

Actually yes it is. Its very much the job of law enforcement to investigate if laws may be being broken. Its the judges or juries job when you go to trial to determine if you broke the law. Your defense certainly can be that the Police/Prosecutors interpretation of the statue is incorrect or does not fit the facts.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[DarkOx]

Mens rea is a component fact of guilt. There are different kinds of mens rea. The law or statue will usually define it. Some laws might require a mens rea of willful, that is you knew or at least expected a certain result form your actions and they it was criminal. Others might simply be 'negligent' like vehicular manslaughter, you reasonably could have known or reasonably should have know driving at excessive speed might result in the injury of others. There are other possible mens rea types as well.

My point is that even with a mens rea component a law can written that still more or less outlaws acting foolishly and the 'reasonably could have known' element covers simple ignorance of the law. So we have the "well I did not known I could not setup a rifle range in my residential back yard" we can still punish you for unlawful discharge because had you thought about it for a few short seconds you would have realized the inherent problems of firing weapons in populated areas and could checked into it.

I agree with you though strict liability is bogus. Statutory rape is a good example. There are plenty of 16/17 year olds who might lie to a 20 something about being 18 or 19 and there is no way that person could reasonably know they were under age. Social norms don't generally permit you to card the person you are flirting with.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Immerman]

Oh? So we should allow all citizens to tinker with high-yield nuclear weapons in downtown metropolitan areas, since there is only the *potential* of harm provided they don't do anything stupid? I think that's going to be a hard sell.

Or how about juggling sealed vials of weaponized Smallpox at the World Fair or something? So long as you don't drop them there's only the *potential* to kill hundreds of millions of people, so it should be perfectly legal, right?

I agree with you in general principle, but there's a *really* strong case to be made that if the potential damage is great enough, then even the potential warrants restriction. And once the door is open then we have to decide exactly where the line is. Firing a single handgun into the air on New Years eve is unlikely to do any real damage, but if thousands or millions of people are doing it all at once, then the odds that at least one of those bullets will come down on someone unprotected with enough speed to injure or kill them approaches 100%.

Sadly, history does show that such thinking tends toward a slippery slope but I am forced to argue that it is still justified in some cases, and that we must stand eternally vigilant in the grey areas rather than succumbing to the tempting simplicity of black and white thinking.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[anagama]

Ignorance of the law is not and has never been an excuse.

This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.

How Heller-ishly convenient. There are so many criminal laws on the books, it is impossible to know them all (ask the ABA, they tried to simply count them, which is much less than _knowing_ them, and failed: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... ). And yet an individual person without ranks of lawyers to do the research, is presumed to know each and every one. This is extremely dangerous because it gives those in power the ability to lock up anyone they don't like, which means that an individual's freedom and liberty -- core American values right? -- are subject to the whim of any dickweed with a little power.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[anagama]

This is marked funny, but the US Supreme Court recently affirmed that the joke is true.

http://thinkprogress.org/justi...

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[tompaulco]

It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?

If they are investigating, then they will find a law that he has broken. Perhaps he was wearing a hat on a Tuesday, or tied his mule to a horse hitching post or something, but there is no doubt he has broken some law. They will find one.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[tompaulco]

regular citizens can never know if they're breaking the law, there are so many of them after all, but therein lies an interesting thing. the law is rarely applied based on who is breaking the law, but rather who the person is.

anyone can be singled out and have their life turned upside down by law enforcement, it's all a matter of application. application of the law occurs on people who already have their feet wet and lower socio economic classes.

keep your nose clean and you won't run afoul of the law. I'd say that especially goes for "do no harm to anyone else" areas, that's how you first get in trouble, is if you assault or cause a harm to someone else. that raises your profile initially and from then on the system is inadvertently designed to focus on you and drive you into the ground.

most people get away with all kinds of minor crimes, so long as they don't actually physically or monetarily harm someone else (or be black) you won't get dragged into the undertow of the criminal justice system.

That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[IgnitusBoyone]

This isn't entirely true. When Petit -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... -- Tight roped the twin towers the police and Mayor came out on live televission to say a simaler phrase. "Were not sure what to charge him with, but we are sure he broke some law" Ultimently, they didn't charge him with anything but had him agree to public performances in more appropriate areas and a promise to not perticipate in simaler activity.

This isn't the only precident for someone performing an action and the court system admiting it really wasn't prepared for htis type of law breaking so instead lets use him as a public example of why we need new laws and he can go on. If you think the two crimes are so different ignoring the fact that both encouraged copy cats and both could result in death.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Chris Mattern]

"Mens rea" does not cover ignorance of law. It means you intentionally committed the illegal act, not that you knew the act was illegal. If you are on trial for emfozing a whatzit, the prosecution has to show you knew you were emfozing a whatzit, but not that you knew emfozing a whatzit was illegal.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[tlhIngan]

That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.

That has happened before. And even weirder cases where the family of the criminal has sued homeowners that shot for killing their family member.

Heck, firing at someone in your house may or may not be legal - it's legal if they present to you a threat to you or your family, but not if they're unarmed, retreating, etc. So shooting a guy going after your family is legal, but if he's running away with his back to you, it's not.

And even worse, given it's a really busy few seconds, no one is really sure.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[FrozenGeek]

This is not necessarily a problem. First off, the legality of some actions may depend on where the actions occurred. In the case of the drone, discharging a gun is illegal in some locales and legal in others. So, the authorities could well investigate where the drone was shooting. Second, law has gotten ridiculous; no cop - heck, no lawyer - is aware of all laws. See something new, like a privately owned drone firing a gun, maybe you want to check whether there are applicable laws. Now, fishing trips to find something with which to harass your ex, definitely a problem.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[spire3661]

And its wrong. Its merely the sovereign asserting its dominance, nothing more. Its a case of 'dont you dare point out the emperor has no clothes'

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[lhowaf]

Most states have regulations controlling how weapons may be transported. I don't think any state allows somebody to mount twin 50's to their car. Even in Texas a weapon being carried in a car has to be out of plain view (concealed).

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Jane Q. Public]

Ignorance of the law is not and has never been an excuse.
This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.

And it today's America, it is also complete bullshit.

When your legal system has so many laws -- many of them not even enforced -- that law enforcement, whose job it is, can't even tell if something is illegal, then it is not reasonable to expect an average citizen to do the same.

And above all else, our laws are supposed to based on the "reasonable man" principle: what would a reasonable person do in those circumstances?

When a reasonable person cannot reasonably be expected to know the law, yet is unreasonably be expected to, and punished if they don't, another reasonable person might well conclude that this is a recipe for madness and anarchy.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[rahvin112]

The precedents that the Supreme court has put in place authorizing the drug war laws allow things like this to happen. The court has basically put down the law that the end justifies the means. You can see this most apparently in Civil forfeiture where the government sues property not the owner of said property. Because this was targeting drug proceeds it was deemed ok even though it's a clear violation of the 4th amendment. Now that law is being abused to take money from small business owners and anyone in possession of any cash.

The natural extension of the drug war exceptions was to allow police to be wrong about the law yet still be able to pull someone over and search them based on that officer not knowing the law. Hence an illegal search based on an officer being wrong about the law is allowed because cops are allowed to be wrong about the law but you aren't.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[tompaulco]

That example is pretty clearly lawful self-defense (armed robbers shot during commission of a felony in which your life is threatened). You may get dragged in to the court system if an overzealous DA decides to press charges, but you will have an excellent case for your defense.

Well, we do have an overzealous DA here (Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater), and he also made it into a racial thing to help his career at the cost of an innocent man's freedom.
Also, the police took statements from the victim, without telling him that they intended to make him a suspect, and without advising him that he should consult a lawyer. Then they used that statement in court, which should be illegal since they hadn't read him his rights.
Unfortunately, he did shoot at a fleeing robber, which he should not have done, and he did kill the other robber, and either fired more bullets into his corpse, or ensure that he was no longer a threat. The video camera was not able to observe that angle.
Of course, the family came out and talked about what a good and kind young man the armed robber was, and apparently he was just on his way back from singing alleluia in the Church choir and rescuing baby seals from clubbing when he just decided to stop off and rob the convenience store.
Anyway, the judge and jury decided that the clerk overreacted, because every armchair quarterback after the fact knows that they would have been calm, cool and levelheaded in a situation where somebody was pointing a gun in your face, and they would have used only the exact amount of force necessary to resolve the situation.
Unfortunately, in Oklahoma, even if you 100% comply with the armed robber, you often still wind up dead, so you might as well fight back, and then spend the rest of your life in prison, because David Prater wants to make sure that the streets are safe for thugs, thieves and murderers, and they can go about their chosen profession without fear of retaliation or resistance from the public, and if the public does fight back against crime, Prater will make sure they spend life in jail.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Atryn]

Mens rea is a component fact of guilt. There are different kinds of mens rea. The law or statue will usually define it. Some laws might require a mens rea of willful, that is you knew or at least expected a certain result form your actions and they it was criminal. Others might simply be 'negligent' like vehicular manslaughter, you reasonably could have known or reasonably should have know driving at excessive speed might result in the injury of others. There are other possible mens rea types as well.

My point is that even with a mens rea component a law can written that still more or less outlaws acting foolishly and the 'reasonably could have known' element covers simple ignorance of the law.

Can we insist that the Youtuber "should have known" that his video would go viral, that such response would encourage copycats and that such moronic copycats would take less safety precautions and thus hold him liable for the outcomes of those future incidents? Am I stretching it too far? ;)

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[shutdown -p now]

So they know what the law says, they just know what it means.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[sabbede]

That's not what's happening. This isn't a case of someone arguing ignorance as a defence, the police are the ones who don't know if there was an applicable law. The ignorance != defence rule assumes the accused could and should have been aware of the law. In this case it could not have been possible for him to know, as demonstrated by the police's ignorance. If law enforcement doesn't know if he broke a law, there's no possible way a reasonable person could know either.

If they were to say, "we've decided law X applies to what he did", that should be considered ex post facto, as it clearly didn't apply at the time of the incident.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[Jane Q. Public]

Please point out an actual "complaint", Bluey. Then maybe we'd know what you're talking about.

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[r0kk3rz]

That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.

Interesting how you define premeditation, is it only premeditated if the whole scenario was planned? One could argue, that by purchasing and carrying a firearm you had already decided, ie. premeditated, that in certain circumstances you would use it to shoot someone.

Whether or not shooting someone for self defense is reasonable or not is up for debate, but why would you carry a gun if you had no intent to use it, under any circumstances?

Re:Investigating if laws were broken

[NicBenjamin]

It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?

It's kinda inevitable. Especially in the US. Edge cases exist, and nobody can accurately predict which ones need to be explicitly addressed in legislation years out.

And in the US you need those years. Our system is designed so that it's very difficult to create new laws when situations change. In this case both drones and firearms are highly regulated, but Congress has never explicitly passed a law dealing with both, and probably never will because it would be really complicated to get 60 Senators, 218 Congressman, and Obama to all agree on one set of proposals (OTOH, if a Prime Minister of Canada doesn't have 155 Members of the House on his side he is by definition no longer Prime Minister, which means changing the law there is much simpler then in the US); so law enforcement basically have to make it up as they go along.

Accuracy?

[invictusvoyd]

I seriously doubt that we have drones stable enough to handle the recoil of a handgun without missing the target by at least a few meters .. The stuff otherwise sounds cool :)

Re:Accuracy?

[Overzeetop]

That's not too hard, actually, from an engineering perspective. It adds expense and complexity, certainly, but it's just a design parameter. Alter the mount to react with uniform stiffness centered around and aligned with the barrel and bolt reaction mass center and you'll reduce your problem to a simple 2DOF force couple system.

I would guess that state of the art drone weapon systems are every bit as accurate as the most accomplished human snipers.

Re:Accuracy?

[burtosis]

Recoil is only really a problem after the first shot anyway. Further there dosent need to be asymmetry designed into a drone the force can be lined up with the center of mass so it only gets pushed back and there is little to no rotation.

Re:Accuracy?

[wvmarle]

I thought recoil only happens the moment the bullet leaves the barrel, and as such recoil has no effect on accuracy. The more impressive thing is that the drone handles the recoil without breaking apart or being smacked into the ground, instead it handles it quite gracefully.

Re:Accuracy?

[Orgasmatron]

It takes up to several milliseconds* for the bullet to exit the barrel. During that time, the gas is pushing both the bullet and the firearm. Because of geometry, shortly after the bullet exits, the gas stops pushing on it, but it still acts on the barrel.

So, most of the recoil happens after the bullet has left, but not all of it.

* The time depends on a lot of factors, the length of the barrel and the burn rate of the propellant are obviously huge, but also less obvious factors like the headspace of the chamber, the geometry of the lede in a rifle or the forcing cone of a shotgun, the seating depth and load factor of the cartridge, etc.

Re:Accuracy?

[Overzeetop]

"But this buffer will cause semi-auto pistols to stove-pipe when the action doesn't cycle correctly."

(1) if you're recycle time is long enough, recovery from the force of recoil is not an issue - only rotational pitch and yaw compensation for the moment due to non-coicindent CGs during firing.

(2) If you're developing a 9 DOF reaction system to account for rapid firing, you can develop an alternative cycling mechanism. It's just another milestone in the project.

obviously...

[oddtodd]

he's a terrorist

Because there are never gray areas in law

[Overzeetop]

Just because the PR people say words does not make them the most accurate depiction of events occurring. More than likely they are determining if the act meets the tests required by law and if there is reasonable likelihood that a criminal case can be successfully prosecuted. Court cases are expensive - both in money and resources; having the prosecution review a case for potential applicability is SOP.

Escalation

[Chris Johnson]

Welp, now those firefighting helicopters are in REAL trouble

this is outrageous.

[nimbius]

We are attempting to determine if any laws have been violated at this point.

As an american citizen I'm appalled by this statement. This is the land of japanese internment camps and the red scare. We once legally declared a person was 3/5ths a man based on their skin color. Heck, we have a secret prison in another country just to indefinitely punish people for anything we want at all, just because we declared they were an 'enemy combatant.' On a state by state basis we have a dazzling array of local regulations that prohibit everything from dancing to wandering the street with an icecream cone in your pocket. Clearly these officers arent trying hard enough.

Just remember: if you cant find anything to charge them with and they havent broken any laws, chances are good you can just kill them for disagreeing with you and still not be indicted for anything.

Re:this is outrageous.

[Anonymous Coward]

red scare

News flash. McCarthy was right. There were commie agents all over the damn place.

Re:this is outrageous.

[dave420]

And that justified the ruining of peoples' lives who simply had left-leaning sympathies? Being a socialist or even a communist doesn't mean one is automatically an enemy of the state.

Re: this is outrageous.

[AvitarX]

You realize the 3/5ths law was a compromise meant to reduce the power of slave owners (or increase depending on your side of th bcomprimise)?

The law was that slaves were not even people, they were chattle, owned by their owner, with no rights. They would have been far better off treated as 0 wrt to their owners representation in government.

Re:this is outrageous.

[Orgasmatron]

Are you going somewhere with this?

McCarthy was going after soviet agents. That he was going after mere lefties was fiction written by said soviet agents and piled on by their "useful idiots". (their term, not mine)

McCarthy has been very thoroughly vindicated, first by the Venona project that intercepted soviet communications, and then by the opening of the KGB files.

Claims otherwise are in the same category as claims that Columbus thought the world was flat.

Re:this is outrageous.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an american citizen I'm appalled by this statement.

Why? You don't want them carefully examining the situation before acting to charge a person?

We once legally declared a person was 3/5ths a man based on their skin color.

Not quite.

The 3/5th Rule was "all other persons" for the purposes of counting representation and direct taxes, but didn't officially mention skin color.

Ah, the way the law can be written to gloss over so many important things. That was also true of the laws AFTER the Civil War. They often avoided mentioning race specifically, so as not to be obvious, but still found ways to get it done.

Now that's the land you live in.

Re:this is outrageous.

[sjames]

Sadly, these days, just getting dragged to court is a potentially life changing punitive process.

Re:this is outrageous.

[SuiteSisterMary]

So after McCarthy was stopped, why did the Reds not manage to take over the country?

Re:this is outrageous.

[Immerman]

Sure there would - it still needs to be determined with certainty whether the particular action actually occurred, who was involved, and in some cases what the motive was (say premeditated murder versus self defense). Not to mention whether the law is being applied justly - jury nullification has a long and proud history in this country.

Re:this is outrageous.

[Immerman]

Sure it does. You just have to define "state" as "the socio-economic power structure furthering the interests of the people currently in power". Conveniently, that's usually the practical definition anyway.

Re:this is outrageous.

[Orgasmatron]

They did. Haven't you been paying attention?

Re:this is outrageous.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Hmm. I see no state-run economy, no shortages of basic, or even luxury, goods or services, no five year plans, no collectivization of goods or services, no state secret police or internal security apparatus, no political officers, no mandatory party affiliation to progress past 'illiterate farm or factory worker,' and nobody calls anybody 'comrade.'

So, yeah, offhand, I'd say Soviet-style communism hasn't taken hold anywhere, even the former Soviet union.

Re:this is outrageous.

[Orgasmatron]

No shortages of goods yet, other than ammo, but most of the others are here. And five year plans wouldn't make sense here anyway because we have no one to catch up to.

The state is deeply embedded into all economic activity already. Pick a type of business at random and go see what permissions you need to seem before you can start, and what rules you must follow while operating.

Nearly all education is collectivized, as is nearly all medicine now. Your insurance may not be under Obamacare yet, but every doctor and clinic you go to has warped their practice and administration to comply with Obamacare and Medicare mandates.

The NSA knows everwhere you go and everyone you talk to. If they notice you, they can expand that to knowing what you talk about, secretly. They have dirt on everyone worth the effort. Parallel construction is an abomination against justice. Your local police are equipped and trained like soldiers.

People are routinely pushed out of work, even out of companies they founded, and out of polite society for saying things opposed to the party line. Someone out there tries to maintain a list, but it is hard to keep up now. Brendan Eich, Tim Hunt, James Watson, Donald Sterling. Martin O'Malley was just forced to supplicate himself publicly for failing to stick to the party script. Reporters are climbing over one another for a chance to demonize Trump for daring to utter hatefacts in public.

Just because we haven't yet reached the stage where we plunge ourselves into another dark age by slaughtering millions of productive and otherwise undesirables people (google: Kulak) doesn't mean that we aren't far down the road that leads there. Check the manifesto and see how many of the 10 planks are in place and which are in progress now.

Re:this is outrageous.

[diamondmagic]

We once legally declared a person was 3/5ths a man based on their skin color.

There's nothing about this that's even a little bit true. You're presumably referring to the Constitution, which says:

Representative[s] ... shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

So not only does the Constitution never mention race, but it's actually imposing a penalty on states that want to count slaves: No, you can't get full representation in Congress for slaves.

The northern states wanted to go further, they wanted the representation to be zero.

Also note this section has been replaced per the 14th Amendment.

Re:this is outrageous.

[sabbede]

Baked into the statement is a presumption of guilt and it begs a legislative question, assuming that he must have done something wrong before the People and their representatives have made that determination. That's not how our system is designed to work.

Re:this is outrageous.

[SuiteSisterMary]

The state is deeply embedded into all economic activity already. Pick a type of business at random and go see what permissions you need to seem before you can start, and what rules you must follow while operating.

Yes, but nowhere near the level of Soviet style communism.

Nearly all education is collectivized, as is nearly all medicine now. Your insurance may not be under Obamacare yet, but every doctor and clinic you go to has warped their practice and administration to comply with Obamacare and Medicare mandates.

Good. Education was one thing the soviets were good at, and the problem with Obamacare is that it's a half-assed compromise cluster fuck. Just go full single-payer, and join the rest of the civilized world in making people not have to consciously decide if they can afford to go see a doctor or not.

The NSA knows everwhere you go and everyone you talk to. If they notice you, they can expand that to knowing what you talk about, secretly. They have dirt on everyone worth the effort. Parallel construction is an abomination against justice. Your local police are equipped and trained like soldiers.

These are problems, but have nothing to do with communist influence, per se. When the NSA can disappear you, when being sent to count trees in an Alaskan gulag is a common threat with teeth, then maybe.

People are routinely pushed out of work, even out of companies they founded, and out of polite society for saying things opposed to the party line. Someone out there tries to maintain a list, but it is hard to keep up now. Brendan Eich, Tim Hunt, James Watson, Donald Sterling. Martin O'Malley was just forced to supplicate himself publicly for failing to stick to the party script. Reporters are climbing over one another for a chance to demonize Trump for daring to utter hatefacts in public.

You know, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, aren't exactly Communist bulwarks. Again, of somebody utters 'hatefacts' and winds up doing 20 years in a labour camp of strict regime, we're communist. If the people, having heard somebody exercise their right of free speech, thanks to the free press, then decides to exercise their own right of free speech in criticizing the original speaker, however, that's kind the opposite of communism.

Existing Law

[xdor]

He hasn't committed a crime.

1. Apparently he wasn't trespassing.
2. Apparently the gun is legal
3. He was flying an R/C plane (below obstacles from what one can tell on the video)

If he shoots people or trespasses there's existing law. Flying a hobby project on private land with a gun or a container of fireworks may be ill-advised -- but you don't need to make another law because you feel threatened by the brave/stupid things people choose to do with their life and property.

Re:Existing Law

[Chris Johnson]

Remember, your autonomous roving drone with a Beretta and solenoid is not an automatic weapon unless you code the trigger as a do/while loop!

Unroll the loop, so it counts as ten individual fire events that just happen to trigger really really fast ;P

Re:Existing Law

[Dredd13]

The gun is legal but his use of the solenoid to depress the trigger may not have been. It may have transformed the "legal handgun" to simply being one component of an NFA automatic-weapon.

Re:Existing Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Unroll the loop, so it counts as ten individual fire events that just happen to trigger really really fast ;P

Premature optimization really is the root of all evil ;)

Re:Existing Law

[pla]

I realize you meant that as a joke, but seriously - A select-fire weapon has a hell of a lot more to do with the firing mechanism than how fast you can pull the trigger. A double-action semi will never function as a full auto no matter how you pull the trigger.

Case in point, entirely legal bump-fire triggers on '15s - Yes, they can spit rounds out at a rate approaching a full auto (albeit with all the accuracy of a monkey flinging feces) - But you'd need a frickin' miracle to make it through a standard 30 round magazine without a FTF due to overheating.

Every American, regardless of their stance on gun control, should find the government's stance on this one nothing short of reprehensible. We have laws for the purpose of keeping the domesticate primates from robbing, raping and murdering each other. Someone's RC aircraft (legal) pet project that just happens to include a spoooky word (gun, also legal) but hurts no one shouldn't even get the attention of the authorities, much less have them wasting resource trying to find charges they can make stick.

Re:Existing Law

[Cley Faye]

I'm curious about the accuracy of the last shot. The drone seems to move ever so slightly after the first one...

Re:Existing Law

[joneil]

Here in Canada, under Transport Canada rules, mounting any weapon on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), aka "drone", or "weaponizing" a UAC (aka" drone) is against the law, unless you have a special permit/permission to do so. As far as I know, here in Canada, the only people who have that "permission" are the military. I do not even think the police have that right here in Canada.

I know the laws differ from the USA to Canada on several issues (for example, the handgun alone would be illegal in Canada in most circumstances), but what really amazes me is the attitude that this could be legal in the USA.

Overall, I find flight restrictions on UAVs (aka drones) are more strict in the USA than Canada. So to see something that in Canada would be totally 100% against the law and yet in the USA is something that may not have broken any laws is a bit mind boggling.

Go figure?

 

Re:Existing Law

[Orgasmatron]

No.

Benchrest shooters use mechanical, electrical and hydraulic systems to activate triggers all the time. As do gunsmiths when accurately zeroing a scope, or when test firing a gun of unknown safety.

What matters is that the gun not fire more than once per human action.

Re:Existing Law

[SuiteSisterMary]

A lethal weapon whose range can very likely reach far beyond the bounds of the private property. Thus, yes, I should feel threatened because all it takes is a few more feet of altitude, or not paying attention to bearing, or any of a dozen other minor lapses and suddenly I have bullets flying towards me.

By that logic, every time you drive, every human being around you should feel threatened, and you should be charged with something, because all it takes is a few more feet of drift, or not paying attention to bearing, or any of a dozen other minor lapses and suddenly they have a car bearing down on them.

Re:Existing Law

[sjames]

I have a lawnmower. If I run you down with it, it will surely cause you grievous bodily harm. It can easoly go off of my property.

Fortunately I, like practically every owner of a lawnmower, only use it to mow my lawn.

Re:Existing Law

[Immerman]

Of course all those things would equally well apply to someone carelessly firing the gun by hand. I mean it would be especially stupid to fire a gun while dancing on top of an orchard ladder, but I really doubt it's actually illegal.

Re:Existing Law

[radtea]

Writing code is human action. As someone pointed about above, it would literally appear that a weapon fired by a loop would count as an automatic, but a weapon fired by a sequence of individual calls to the "pullTrigger" method would not be, because the act of writing each one of those "pullTrigger" calls would be an individual human action that resulted in the gun firing.

I'm not suggesting this would stand up in court--for all I know it might, but that's not knowable until it does--but serves as a nice illustration of how our categories start to break down in the face of new technology.

Re:Existing Law

[DerekLyons]

Depending on the circumstance, it could easily be illegal. Many places have laws against discharging firearms. There are also in many places where discharge is legal - so long as it's not up into the air.

Re:Existing Law

[Orgasmatron]

I'm not sure that there was any software involved here. I don't know if he's published any of the details, and if he has, I haven't read any of it. Without knowing anything else, my guess is that it was attached to a spare servo channel on his RC rig. That's how I would do it if I could afford another expensive hobby.

Hopefully his circuit requires positive reset and fire signals, meaning that it would only reset after going full-low and only fire after going full-high, so that a neutral signal (loss of radio reception) wouldn't cause either action.

Re:Existing Law

[SuiteSisterMary]

But this guy was operating his little gun drone safely and responsibly. The fact that he could have chosen not to operate it safely and responsibly doesn't, or shouldn't, suddenly make it illegal.

He didn't point a gun at anyone. If he had, he'd be breaking existing laws, and would be so charged.

So yes, there is no difference between 'he operated a firearm safely' and 'he operated a motor vehicle safely.' If in the first case, you feel justified in saying 'yes BUT,' then you must also feel that the second case is exactly the same.

By the way, I'm not American.

Re:Existing Law

[spire3661]

The funny thing is the State could ban cars, but not guns. Also, guns have a commonly accepted use by society purpose. People feed and protect their families with them.when i went to high school lots of my friends had hunting rifles in their car. Just because guns arent common to you, doesnt mean everyone freaks out the instant they see one.

Re:Existing Law

[Jack Griffin]

but you don't need to make another law because you feel threatened by the brave/stupid things people choose to do with their life and property.

So thousands of years of creating and refining laws can stop now in 2015? If this is the pinnacle of human existence then you have a very weak imagination.

Re:Existing Law

[sonamchauhan]

Of course, this guy may have done all this in the middle of his private ranch of many square miles where he lives alone and nothing can go wrong. But walk down this slope with me for a minute , will you...

Is it legal to climb your roof, and point a loaded handgun at your neighbour's head? As he walks on his lawn? Then wave your gun around, loose a shot into your own porch, wave it around some more, then point it at his head? Rinse and repeat?

If its legal, that's where we're headed. "But its a drone!" does not make it any better.

Re:Existing Law

[xdor]

Is it legal to climb your roof, and point a loaded handgun at your neighbour's head?

If you did this to a police officer he would probably shoot you. And I'm no legal expert but even your neighbor may be legally allowed to shoot you in this case.

You've described someone threatening assault with a deadly weapon. There are just a few laws dealing with that...

Re:Existing Law

[xdor]

You must a lawyer or a legislator.

I imagine you could pass a law that says the State owns all the airspace from ankle height and give the police jurisdiction over drones, beach-balls, and soap bubbles. But then I don't need to imagine that since Oregon was trying to do just that. (Notice the use of a military drone in the article, when the legislation is actually trying to get the citizens to cede their rights to their own airspace.

So unless you have a political incentive to create and pass new legislation (to look busy), or you're feeling pressure from Amazon's lobby so they can fly shipping lanes into private citizens airspace without their permission, I'd say there's no reason for another law in this case.

Re:Existing Law

[Jack Griffin]

, I'd say there's no reason for another law in this case.

Good thing we live in a democracy and what you say is only one opinion.
I'd be willing to bet that most people won't want drone mounted guns flying around over their schools, and hence new laws will be created to maintain peace and order. This is precisely why we have a functioning government and our society is more advanced than those states without out them.

Why dont they do what they ususally do?

[Lumpy]

and just make something up to arrest him for? Cops are good at that. Disorderly conduct is vague enough to stick.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[Dredd13]

Solenoid driven trigger pulls (such as used here) do, in fact, require an NFA tax stamp as an automatic weapon. It's a regulation designed around the scenario you describe (push button once, solenoid opens and closes repeatedly).

Almost certainly, that's what the Feds are investigating now, determining the exact details on how the gun was fired (that it did in fact use a solenoid-trigger-pull, etc.).

In other words, it may not be an FAA violation, but it's almost certainly a (probably-accidental) ATF violation.

please clear something up for me

[ihtoit]

How does the law in the US stand regarding unmanned combat aerial vehicles under the control of civilians?

Definition of a UCAV: a remotely operated or automatic drone equipped with a weapon that is a: guided (camera targetting?) and b: able to be fired remotely.

Re:please clear something up for me

[spire3661]

I dont see why CITIZENS should not be able to have armed drones under the 2nd amendment. The government has them, the citizens need a countermeasure. please save your 'should a citizen have an atomic bomb' arguments.

Re:please clear something up for me

[ihtoit]

that was going to be my next question, sort of. Although, answered: the Government in the UK seem to think they're entitled to the monopoly on force hence they've fudged the Law (and basically ignored common Law obligations and the $Deity-given right of self defence using whatever force necessary to stop any further incursions or threats to personal safety and even the sanctity of property) so that possession of an "unregistered"* weapon (ie something that could potentially be used to resist Government oppression at the tip of a sword) is an instant, no-questions-asked, no appeal jail sentence.

*"Registering" a firearm entitles the Government to enter your home at any time of the day or night, inspect the weapon and when they feel it necessary, seize it.

Oh, before I forget to mention this as well: during the registration process, you're asked what you need a firearm for. "Self defence against despotic rule" is not an acceptable response.

Illegal? Probably no... Am i going to do it...no

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably no laws about this yet. Maybe brandishing a weapon. It all boils down to the pilot/owner of the aircraft is responsible for any and all damage to people and property cause by anything to do with it. if it falls out of the sky and hits someone the pilot is at risk for any damage. Members of the AMA (www.modelaircraft.org) have guidelines that if followed they will insure you against damages inadvertently caused. However, they clearly spell out no guns/projectiles.

Any person handling a gun is responsible for every projectile leaving it. From the time it leaves the gun to the time it is done moving.

Trust in twitchy radio equipment on a trigger of a gun makes my pucker factor about 9.7 (diamonds people diamonds)

Backwards legal system

[awkScooby]

When did we switch from, "who did this [obvious] crime?" to "let's figure out what crimes X committed?" The feds know what this guy did. Either it's a crime, or it's not. If it requires a massive amount of digging (by subject matter experts) to try to find some law to charge the guy with, it's not justice. I suspect any one of us could be found guilty of multiple felonies if a team of lawyers were tasked with charging us with something. Having said that, this guy's an idiot for having his name associated with a video containing two hot button issues combined together.

Re:Backwards legal system

[Enigma2175]

I suspect any one of us could be found guilty of multiple felonies if a team of lawyers were tasked with charging us with something

This book claims we each commit an average of 3 felonies per day.

There is a reason for there silence.

[Diac]

The police and Feds do not want to confirm a ban at this moment as a blanket ban on arming drones might effect themselves, While I know they can make a law for the people and one for themselves it will be much harder to get a police/feds only armed drone law passed the public than simply not banning them for anyone.

Re:There is a reason for there silence.

[holmstar]

...a blanket ban on arming drones might affect themselves,...

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[RobinH]

It seems odd to me that merely installing a solenoid on the trigger would cause it to be classified as "automatic" when in reality, it then falls upon the software (or the way it's wired) to determine if it's semi-auto or auto. It doesn't look like the software is written to work in a fully-automatic mode. I understand that they might charge him anyway, but I would also think he'd have a reasonable legal defense.

Criminal intent?

[sinij]

>>>We are attempting to determine if any laws have been violated at this point

What happens to first determining if there was any criminal intent or adverse consequences?

... and this is why you should never talk to police. They might just determine that you have been violating something while talking with you.

Re:Criminal intent?

[ScentCone]

What happens to first determining if there was any criminal intent...

You can't really have criminal intent to eat a piece of toast at your breakfast table, but you can have criminal intent to kill someone. What's the difference? Killing someone is a crime. So you have to know if something is a crime before you can determine if the plan to do it is reflective of criminal intent.

...or adverse consequences?

If you plan to murder someone, and even attempt the act, but the intended victim is unaware that you took a shot at them with your silienced movie-quality assassin's rifle and missed ... what are the adverse consequence? None (as far as the intended victim is concerned), right? But the act is very much illegal because of the intended (but unrealized) consequences.

Everyone is missing what the police actually said

[Gazzonyx]

"It appears to be a case of technology surpassing current legislation."

They're intentionally not finding a reason to arrest him and they tell you why right there. They want new laws. This is an underhanded attempt at manipulating the public and I very much suspect it will work if the comments on this story are any indication.

So what you are saying...

[tlambert]

The gun is legal but his use of the solenoid to depress the trigger may not have been. It may have transformed the "legal handgun" to simply being one component of an NFA automatic-weapon.

So what you are saying... is that when I build my own weaponized drone, I should arm it with a flamethrower instead of a hand gun?

Good to know...

Re:So what you are saying...

[Dredd13]

A flamethrower would be outside the purview of the ATF. :-)

Re:So what you are saying...

[Nidi62]

A flamethrower would be outside the purview of the ATF. :-)

Pretty sure a flamethrower counts as a destructive device and therefore is fully under the purview of the ATF. Especially since they are really the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE).

Re:So what you are saying...

[Dredd13]

Neither the NFA or GCA has any regulations to deal with flamethrowers. "Destructive devices" must be explosive in nature, which a flamethrower is not.

True story.

Re:So what you are saying...

[DarkOx]

I still say ATF should be a convince store not a government agency.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[Dredd13]

The regulation is clear on this point (so I'm told, anyway, I haven't read it myself), because the *device* at that point has nothing mechanically preventing multiple bullets from firing per "manual action" (the button push in this case), it becomes a NFA weapon.

Essentially, you've got a "manual" operation, a "trigger" operation, and a firing of a round. In a conventional firearm use the manual operation and the trigger operation are the same. Mechanically at that point (in the normal firearm), the firearm prevents multiple rounds from being fired per manual action (by requiring a trigger release, and re-pulling it).

When you're using a solenoid for the trigger-pull, you lose the "connection" between the manual operation and the firing of rounds that is necessary to remain NFA-compliant.

Re:Age, 18 for long guns and 21 for hand guns

[ai4px]

I don't even think it's a firearm. I think it's a CO2 pellet /bb gun. Not enough recoil.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[AvitarX]

More importantly, unless discharge laws were violated, why should this be illegal?

It's not concealed, nobody was hurt.

Re:Age, 18 for long guns and 21 for hand guns

[donaggie03]

According to this website: http://smartgunlaws.org/minimu... the federal minimum age for possession of a handgun is 18. But according to that same website, the minimum age set by Connecticut state law is 21.

Re:Average Americans want to prohibit armed drones

[donaggie03]

That's not cognitive dissonance. On one hand you have a teenager building a flying gun in his backyard in Connecticut. One the other hand you have the U.S. military taking out the bad guys half way across the world. Having two differing opinions on these two situations is not contradictory. Are the situations much more complicated and nuanced than how I described? Sure. But for most people, that's what it boils down to, so their reactions make sense.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[Anon-Admin]

If you think that is odd, then you will love this

http://www.everydaynodaysoff.c...

Yes a 14" piece of string and a key ring attached to a rifle to make it cycle constitutes a "Machine gun" under federal law.

Can't find any law that's been broken?

[chewtoy-11]

What about the glorious catch-all "reckless endangerment" or "criminal mischief"? There are myriad ways this scenario could have gone wrong, such as a malfunction resulting in severe injury or death to the owner or a previously-unseen bystander. It's not that I think this type of thing should be outlawed, per se, but when a story such as this hits the internet, I now have to worry about every bored teenager in the sticks trying this out and potentially using no care or consideration for safety whatsoever. If it was a camera or water-balloon dropping device, eh, whatever -- but now we've planted a seed of villainous intent into the minds of people who hadn't thought of it before -- some of those minds can handle the concept, while at least a few won't be satisfied until they've intentionally harmed something with it.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[CanHasDIY]

Never look for rhyme or reason in ATF dictates. You won't find any.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Erioll]

Only the 2nd should be illegal. There is an increasing trend (decades I mean, if not longer) to criminalize what "might" occur, rather than just criminalizing actual harm. Here's a summary of what I "think" should be the laws: Shooting somebody - illegal Just carrying a gun, openly or not - not illegal. Recklessly shooting into the woods - maybe The last one's the hard part, but it slips so easily into "pre-crime" that it gets weird, and makes people afraid to do anything that "might" end up being a crime, though nobody was hurt. Thus this issue: Putting a gun on a drone - legal Shooting somebody with a gun on a drone - DEFINITELY ILLEGAL All IMO.

Re:Ummmm,

[CanHasDIY]

You obviously don't know much about firearms to make a statement like that.

An nation of lawbreakers

[zerofoo]

"But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt."

Re:Age, 18 for long guns and 21 for hand guns

[CanHasDIY]

No, dude, that was a firearm. BB guns don't report when fired.

Re:Age, 18 for long guns and 21 for hand guns

[CanHasDIY]

Possession, or purchase? In MO, for example, you can own and even carry a handgun at 18, but you can't legally purchase one from a dealer unless 21 or older.

Re:Age, 18 for long guns and 21 for hand guns

[DroolTwist]

He is 18 so? How does he have a hand gun?

I had a .22 calibur rifle in the 5th grade (granted it was a single shot). Some parents teach their children weapon safety at an early age. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing what the kid did was at all safe and responsible, but fail to see the issue of an 18 year old with a weapon, especially since they can be in the military at that age.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[cayenne8]

I have a hard time believing that. A friend of mine had a crank he could attached to the trigger and stock of a rifle, I think it was a mini14.....anyway, you could crank that thing and fire machine-gun style, like a gatling (sp?) gun.

Perfectly legal as far as I know....

Video of similar set up

And LInk to similar product for sale

So, I have trouble thinking a solenoid doing the same thing mechanically would suffice it to be an automatic weapon. Hell, one turn of the crank here fires off 4 shots.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he is not in full control of the firearm.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Anonymous Coward]

So threatening you with a gun is ok? As long as I don't actually shoot you? Now substitute a drone.
No officer I wasn't shooting anyone, or even threatening them, I was just flying around my armed killer robot.

the army dows it, and there is no regulating law

[Gunstick]

They actually attach weapons to drones, and kill people with that.
Still nobody thought it would be a nice idea to have any law around this concept, stating that army is ok, police not, and private not at all.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[nitehawk214]

Mounting a gun on my car and driving it around is illegal. Why should mounting a gun on my drone and flying it around be legal?

Now, if he was on private property and away from the public enough where the gun posed no danger to anyone... sure, knock yourself out. Same as driving a tank on private property. Flying it over public land or private property without permission, yeah that is a no-no. Same as your makeshift tank.

Now, if your backyard is sufficiently small, there may be no way to safely fly the thing. This is the grey area that the laws need to figure out.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Immerman]

If we made "recklessly shooting into the woods" illegal, hunting enthusiasts and the NRA would be up in arms.

Besides which, there's no evidence such a thing happened with the drone - all we can tell from the video is that the drone was firing a pistol in the woods. It could perfectly well have been firing into the side of dirt hill that was off-camera. Maybe even someone's safely designed target shooting range.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Sleuth]

You better stop driving your car then.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[bondsbw]

Not sure what that has to do with anything. If you are threatening to kill someone by running them over with your car, I would think that should have the same legality as threatening to kill them with a firearm. Just having/using a car and having/using a firearm for without violence or threat of violence should be legal.

curse my lack of internet-fu

[argStyopa]

I can't find it right now, but there was a quote from a Supreme Court Justice, I believe it was in the 30s-40s, along the lines of how dangerous it is when there are so many laws that the government can pretty much pick what they charge a person with, because everyone is guaranteed to have violated *some* of them at some time.
If someone could find that, it would be pithy here.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[sjames]

That MIGHT depend on the nature of the mechanism. If it is wired so that button press activates the solinoid to pull back and release is necessary for ity to move forward again, then one press can only ever fire one round.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shaitand]

Threatening to hurt someone is illegal, threatening to hurt them with any kind of weapon is a bigger charge regardless of the weapon.

Simply having a weapon in someone's presence isn't illegal even if they feel threatened. It isn't your fault is someone is overly sensitized to guns or simply timid.

In the case of a threat it makes sense for the charge to escalate because the level of threat is escalated by a weapon. For everything else where there is a more substantial charge because a gun was involved it's ridiculous. If I actually hurt you it's how bad I hurt you that counts which automatically accounts for a gun. If I robbed you what difference does it make what I use? You suffered the same injury.

Re: "Automatic" Weapon?

[Blaskowicz]

Let's imagine a button press is an individual shot, but the software doesn't allow to fire again before 3 seconds or before the drone is stabilized. Then you can tap the button repeatedly, regardless and it will be like an auto unless the software catches this and yells "Stop doing this" at the user.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[codeButcher]

I wonder if it fits into the category of automatic weapon.

A lot depends, of course, on the type of handgun used, the calibre and load of the ammunition, the drone, etc. etc., but I imagine that for some combination of these factors cycling will not take place (light ammo load, light gun/drone combination). For another combination, recoil may be too heavy for the drone to handle and keep following shots in a safe direction....

Who cares?

[Karmashock]

If I tapped a shotgun to the front of a car, would that make the car a tank? No?

Okay, so why does attaching a hand gun to a remote controlled helicopter make it an armed "drone".

These things aren't even drones. Are they autonomous? Nope. Do they have any kind of artificial intelligence? Only to assist with hovering and gyroscopic stabilization... I wouldn't call that AI.

So first off, it isn't a drone. And second off... people could have glued a gun to remote controlled anything ages ago. Why is this suddenly a problem?

Who cares.

Here is where I will care... when the flying thing is ACTUALLY a drone. Aka it is autonomous. If the thing can fly around and play "the most dangerous game" then that's another story. Dude wires a hand gun into a remote controlled helicopter? I give zero shits. People get so worked up about stuff that is less dangerous than other stuff.

Like look at all the people worried about guns but for no apparent reason everyone has forgotten that it is really easy to either make or buy high explosives. Which means you can make giant frag grenades.

And if the remote controlled helicopter thing is just the scariest thing you can imagine... then imagine one of these things dropping a five pound frag bomb on your face.

This is one of the reasons I'm not afraid of the terrorists. The horror and darkness of my own demons makes the stuff the terrorists come up with sound cute by comparison. I mean, just stop and access your own darkness for a moment and think of the worst thing you could actually build if you were a terrorist and then compare it to the stuff the terrorists have already done. They highjacked four planes and got 3 thousand people dead... okay... that's something. Really pissed the US off so it has that going for it. But I can think of a few things off the top of my head that I could do multiple times that would kill that many and more especially in densely populated cities. Would I do it? I'm not actually a monster so of course not. But I can emulate such a creature. I'd never give the damned thing agency. But the outright horrors I can dream up without even trying very hard implies that the current crop of terrorists are in fact terrible at their jobs.

Remember that guy that was randomly shooting someone every couple days. It went on for weeks? THAT was smarter than a lot of the terrorist stuff. Doesn't kill a lot of people but it creates HUGE panic. But if you want to just get a body count... restaurants. Many have hundreds of people in them at a time. They're totally undefended. You could flatten the whole building. What is anyone going to do to stop you.

Re:Who cares?

[atticus9]

I don't think he should be arrested, since he's bringing the issue to the public's attention, I do think it should be illegal (or heavily regulated) to arm drones. It's not that it would prevent a determined person from building one, but if it's legal it encourages development in the area. For example someone could build and sell drones that can be trivially armed, then anyone with a bit of money can get one to go.. hunting with? Like bombs are illegal, determined people can still build them, but it's not like you can have a shed full of bombs and have a legal right to keep them when people complain.

Re:Who cares?

[Karmashock]

its not a drone and I don't see why you'd make it illegal. I mean... I could kill you with a number 2 pencil. OR a nice big fertilizer bomb. Or any of a million things that any semi intelligent person could do if they were determined and could look up the plans on the internet.

The notion of banning things to protect people is pointless. Criminals don't obey those laws and banning stuff doesn't stop people from getting stuff which is why I can snort cocaine and back a hooker whenever I please.

Explain why your ban on the armed remote controlled helicopters changes anything?

Re:Who cares?

[shutdown -p now]

As a gun owner, I'll trust another person to pull or not pull the trigger as appropriate, but when it gets complicated enough that there are electronic components in play, I start getting twitchy. Too many variables. I mean, just try to mentally apply the four rules to this thing... you would have to actively maintain it in the right orientation to avoid pointing the barrel in the wrong direction, and the "finger" is basically always on the trigger (and that aside it could go haywire and activate by itself if it gets shortened or something). Since the gun is away it can't be safely cleared if there is say an FTF. There's no way to verify that a shot was not a squib, and firing a second one could just blow the whole thing up in pieces and rain shrapnel on anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

It's not about criminals, it's about honest people playing with a fun new "toy" without proper understanding of how dangerous it can be, and with no proper protocols to even ensure said safety designed into it.

Re:Who cares?

[Karmashock]

anything new is going to have people hurting themselves. how many old ladies stuck their cats in microwaves trying to quickly dry them out. This was something you might do with an oven... you set it to a low temp, maybe leave the door open, and it works. Its a terrible idea regardless but the point is that old ladies have microwaved a LOT of cats trying to dry them off quickly.

I wouldn't ban microwaves.

I'd laugh at the old ladies and their microwaved cats! :P Seriously, you just have to be patient with people.

The first thing the person that discovered fire said was "OUCH"... That's how this goes.

And again, you really can't ban this... I mean any hobbyst can rig a hobby servo to a trigger.

So what are you doing? Throwing people screwing around in jail or fining them? Okay... but that isn't going to stop the criminals from taking that same tech and making it into a legit weapon.

I think there are a lot of people that see this tech and are uncomfortable with it and so they basically want to put the genie back into the bottle. Just ban it and then you don't have to worry about it. Only that solves nothing. Don't fight the future.

Things are going to get a lot weirder in our life times. Cybernetics is moving along very quickly. We've already figured out how to send two way signals along human nerves in forms the body inteprets as natural. We have cocular implants which allow people to hear without ears... sound being transmitted directly into the brain from a little microphone which could be on the other side of the planet for all your brain knows. And then we have eye implants that can interface directly with the optic nerve. So your eye could be GONE or never have worked in the first place or maybe you were born without eyes... whatever. The implant transmits video directly into the optic nerve.

And we have interfaces for everything else really since those are more complicated than most of the other signals.

Long story short, cyborgs are happening and in the not too distant future.

We're also seeing the cultured or grown industrial materials become a bigger thing. Spider silk grown in tanks of genetically modified yeast or beef tissue cultured in a dish.

And then massive automation... The entire fast food industry is about to be automated. There is a company out of california selling a burger making machine that can make 300 burgers an hour... CUSTOM made... custom ground meat... so you can choose the ratio of different types of meat etc. Custom grilled... etc. And the machine costs 80 grand. Do the math. Those things are going to be everywhere about as quickly as they can build them.

Then you have the maker movement which currently people don't take very seriously but it could actually flip the entire industrial model on its head.

Then you have genetically engineered foods. There is a strong cultural and political bias against genetically engineered stuff but if you've ever tried to grow something... imagine a plant that doesn't need pesticide to keep the bugs off it. Don't get mold or fungus... is highly climate tolerant... and is super productive. Actually being a successful home gardener is currently difficult and frequently expensive just because you're going to make a lot of mistakes and that will raise you failure rate which will increase the cost per yield.

Its hard to go through all the big changes we're seeing here. Huge changes in medicine. We could be looking at practical designer babies in the not too distant future.

Point is that banning stuff is not going to make any of this go away. People need to deal with it. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Re:Who cares?

[atticus9]

Banning them makes it harder to get and reduces the number of people that will have access to it.

Like hand grenades are banned and hard to get, they're extremely effective and someone can still make them, but it's not the sort of thing that some street gang can just get half a dozen to take down people getting in there way (I'm sure they'd love too).

"Armed remote controlled helicopters" are tactically superior enough in their own right (for example I could shoot someone through their 5th story apartment window, from the driver seat of my car half a block away) that I think they should be in a similar category. Sure someone can still make them, or get access, but not the average person with a grudge or whatever.

Re:Who cares?

[Karmashock]

hmmm... how many people would actually own hand grenades if you could buy them? You're making an assumption that a ban is leading to a lack of ownership.

Who is going to buy a hand grenade?

Psychos?
Various survivalist people that are sitting in weird cabins somewhere?
Possibly some rural people f'ing around with explosives?

Who else is going to buy a hand grenade?

So lets go through our list here.

psychos really have lots of options for how to kill people. Some people seem to be under the impression that its hard to kill lots of people. Its really not. Wait for a big movie to come out, get in your car, and plow through that line that goes around the movie theater. I could probably kill a dozen people doing that easy. Off the top of my head... and I could get far more vicious than that if I really put my mind to it.

Survivalist nuts are going to be making explosives themselves anyway out of chemicals that you're not regulating using chemistry manuals off the internet. So your little ploy here fails entirely.

Then rural people playing with explosives... they already do that. They blow up stumps and knock boulders around all the time with legally purchased explosives. Wrap those explosives in old nails and you have a nasty frag grenade.

So I generally disagree with the premise that X is uncommon because it is banned. Often as not, it is uncommon for other reasons.

I mean, we could legalize heroine tomorrow and you think everyone would try heroine? No... Junkies would be all over it but the general public would steer clear for the same reason they do now. It isn't anti drug laws that keeps people from taking drugs. I could be on every drug imaginable if I wanted to. I'm not because I choose not to be on them. The DEA has no role in that.

Re:Everyone is missing what the police actually sa

[Gazzonyx]

"It appears to be a case of technology surpassing current legislation."

They're intentionally not finding a reason to arrest him and they tell you why right there. They want new laws. This is an underhanded attempt at manipulating the public and I very much suspect it will work if the comments on this story are any indication.

Probably right. But from the comments it also does seem that he clearly broke the letter of the law unintentionally. So there is already a law against this. Just because a law is broken, however, doesn't mean that a crime was committed or that charges should be filed. This is an obscure law, at most the ATF should just issue a clarification that this is illegal under existing law.

That would be very reasonable. I'm very sure it also doesn't allow a new large budget to be appropriated and I almost guarantee the police are actually looking for new toys and less restrictions along with a bigger budget. I'd bet you a beer my interpretation is much closer to what you're going to see if the recent pattern holds. I am pretty sure of this: that quote wasn't an off the cuff remark; it clearly was a call for action while giving the preferred solution in a thinly veiled way.

OTOH, I'll be the first to admit that I very well could be wrong. We'll see how it plays out.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shaitand]

For starters the roadway and the air are two different jurisdictions.

Also, I don't know about in Connecticut but here it's legal to mount on a vehicle unless the police believe you are causing a panic. If loaded the gun could potentially accidentally fire depending on the mechanism a tank never would. Outlawing a tank on the road is just silly if it's otherwise road legal.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Tyrannosaur]

Mounting a gun on my car and driving it around is illegal.

Is it?

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[parkinglot777]

Not sure what that has to do with anything. If you are threatening to kill someone by running them over with your car, I would think that should have the same legality as threatening to kill them with a firearm. Just having/using a car and having/using a firearm for without violence or threat of violence should be legal.

To me, a car has other purposes -- to transport; whereas, a gun has only one purpose -- to destroy/damage the target.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

My understanding of that is that once you strop cranking the 10/22 or mini14 it stops firing so not an automatic weapon. This basically makes any manually driven Gatling gun legal, not sure about ones with an electric motor or not but who knows with the BATFE. With the shoelace hack on the SKS it will fire until empty thus a machine gun. Love these decisions or not they are at least consistent. The BATFE does however seem fairly schizophrenic in other regards as was the case of the arm brace addition to AR and AK platform pistols.

legal precedent

[nten]

Remote turret hunting is legal and it uses a solenoid fired rifle. Not that the atf cares about precedent but it would at least be a defense.

Re:legal precedent

[Dredd13]

There's nothing *illegal* about a solenoid fired weapon. It just requires a particular set of licensing which (I doubt) the college drone operator did.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Shoten]

If we made "recklessly shooting into the woods" illegal, hunting enthusiasts and the NRA would be up in arms.

Besides which, there's no evidence such a thing happened with the drone - all we can tell from the video is that the drone was firing a pistol in the woods. It could perfectly well have been firing into the side of dirt hill that was off-camera. Maybe even someone's safely designed target shooting range.

I think there's a difference between "shooting into the woods" and "recklessly shooting into the woods."

If I own 100 acres of private land that I have marked as private, and I go into the middle of it and shoot away knowing full well that there's nearly no chance that a bystander will stop the round instead of a hill or tree, that's "shooting into the woods."

If I go into a public space of forest where I don't know who may be around, or where they may be, then that's "recklessly shooting into the woods."

The same logic applies to places where mountain biking is barred during hunting season on certain days...there's a recognition that there will be people with firearms who will likely shoot at targets that move at inhuman speed at the drop of a hat, and so there are rules to limit the risk to people as a result. (I only know of this situation because of recent mountain biking in Pennsylvania, in an area where this holds true for a lot of great trails.)

You're absolutely right, though; there's nothing that indicates (unless the video has GPS metadata) where this happened, in what direction the rounds traveled, or where they might have ended up. And in the absence of probable cause that something was wrong about one of those factors, I wouldn't think he should be charged with reckless use of a firearm. And certainly in the absence of proof of the same, he shouldn't be convicted.

What I see is someone looking at the video, and imagining the potential harm if someone used the same technology in a really bad way. There's a bit of knee-jerking here to go after the guy they can go after instead of the bad guy they can imagine (but who doesn't exist...yet). I think this guy was kind of dumb to post a video like this, even though I think he should have the right to do so without negative consequences.

Re:Age, 18 for long guns and 21 for hand guns

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Same thing in Minnesota. Purchase is 21 own is 18, this applies to the ammo as well.

This just in ...

[PPH]

.... killer Roombas spotted. News at eleven.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[cstacy]

It is illegal to construct or possess a gun that is "readily convertible" into an automatic (more than one round per trigger pull); any such device is classified as an NFA weapon (machine gun). A common example is a rifle that can, with only a small amount of milling or other work, accept an autosear. It is also already established that a solenoid (or in some cases, a piece of string) turns a gun into a machine gun. In the case of this drone, there is both the automation on the trigger (which is enough), plus the fact that changing a line or two of the software. These are federal laws; it's the ATF that will get involved.

I always thought there was also a law against arming any aircraft?

The ATF regulations and determinations often seem ridiculous and unreasonable; classifying a piece of string as a machine gun; saying that holding a gun a certain way makes it into a machine gun, etc. The laws and regulations and cases in this area are complex and seem arbitrary. Adding "with a drone" into the mix isn't going to be pretty, either.

When the guy supposedly checked into whether or not he would be breaking any laws, unless he consulted a specialist lawyer in this area, he was probably totally incompetent to make a determination and just kidding himself (and his father).

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[torkus]

Oh that old gag...

A credible threat of bodily injury should be a crime. The specific means of accomplishing that should be irrelevant.

Apples to oranges.

[DerekLyons]

You're modded up - but you're actually comparing apples to oranges. Anyone with an IQ over room temperature does feel at least mildly threatened when adjacent to traffic - because it is a somewhat dangerous place to be.

But adjacent is the key word, while on the other hand the lethal weapon on a drone is dangerous at considerable range, both from the drone and from the operator. That's why many inhabited places have laws against discharging a firearm - but not against driving. That's why they're looking to see if the operator should be charged, but I'll be in no danger of being charged simply for operating a motor vehicle when I run errands this afternoon.

This is not a surprise

[radtea]

It would seem to the average person, there should be something prohibiting a person from attaching a weapon to a drone.

This has been coming for decades, and yet governments have been far too busy lining the pockets of members of the party in power to do anything about it. Donald Kingsbury predicted home-built cruise missiles in the '80's (in "The Moon Goddess and the Son").

It's been obvious since the early 90's that computing costs and hardware costs were falling so rapidly that anyone could do this on a budget of a few thousand dollars. That's now a few hundred dollars. And fully autonomous operation is not far in the future: it's just not that hard.

So the reason no one has done anything about this is that hardly anyone has been paying attention, and those of us who have believe that drone technology is worth the price of the risk posed by machines like this. There was simply no way to not get to this point without cutting off development of half-a-dozen technologies that are too important for too many things to ignore, not even counting the economic benefits of drones themselves.

Re:Everyone is missing what the police actually sa

[Gazzonyx]

Right. We're all being "manipulated" into thinking that flying guns might not be such a great idea. Because how in the world could anyone come up with that idea on their own?

I'm not at all arguing that point. I don't even particularly care one way or the other. I'm more fascinated that everyone is so busy arguing over over everything other than this blatant leveraging of the situation.

Hear me out. I'm saying that if they wanted to arrest the kid, they would. They're intentionally publicly saying 'Gee, nothing we can do about this! If only we had some new laws for this new technology...'. I guarantee if they weren't playing that angle they'd just arrest him regardless of whether a crime has been committed or not as people got up in arms about the whole thing. This is an opportunistic play for more resources the way I'm seeing it.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

Because he is not in full control of the firearm.

Neither is a person who places a firearm in a gun rest and fires it with a string on the trigger for testing purposes.

Arrest warrants all around for the cast and crew of MythBusters, then?

Strat

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Immerman]

100 acres would be a radius of only ~392 yards, and from what I can find the range of an unimpeded 9mm pistol round can be a couple thousand yards*. Obviously the accuracy will be nonexistent at that range, but we're talking about how far a stray shot can travel before hitting the ground. So, unless you've got *really* dense trees, a bullet fired into the woods will potentially cross several neighbours properties as well as your own. I really hope you're using a proper backdrop.

Moron

[DerekLyons]

It can easoly go off of my property.

Maybe on your planet. Here on earth, they generally can't. On the other hand, bullets can trivially travel great distances. In the same way, except under very unusual circumstances the extraordinarily rare rampaging lawnmower can easily be avoided. A bullet than can't even be detected by human senses prior to it's arrival cannot.

Etc... etc...

Fortunately I, like practically every owner of a lawnmower, only use it to mow my lawn.

Which is completely irrelevant - we're not discussing you or practically anyone else. We're discussing a specific individual behaving in a specific manner.

Re:Moron

[sjames]

You call ME a moron? You think something keeps my mower from leaving my property (other than me holding it)? I wish you'd share the secret of that one so I could leave it outside without it getting stolen! Do tell, what's the trick?

That specific individual fired a handgun (with a limited range) safely into a hillside away from the public. That would be why the police don't believe he violated the law. We wouldn't even be hearing about it if he was holding it in his hand at the time. We wouldn't be hearing about it if it was clamped in a vice and he fired it using the same mechanism.

Do give a call when he flies that thing in a more public setting. No need to say there outta be a law in that case, there already is.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Immerman]

Sorry, ignore the *, I decided to rephrase my footnote as the next sentence.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[nitehawk214]

Fair enough. I hope for hell it is without some kind of permit.

But a quick google search says it is in the same grey area as the drone. It simply doesn't happen often enough for there to be specific laws one way or another. Best thing people could come up with is that it would be "causing a panic." Which is pretty reasonable depending on how visible the weapon is.

might be a drone

[Chirs]

Some of these hobby systems have GPS route-following ability. I'd consider that pretty drone-like.

Re:might be a drone

[Karmashock]

Almost none of them do and this thing with a gun attached to it almost certainly doesn't.

You might as well call ALL airplanes drones on that logic because SOME planes have drone like autopilots.

But we don't do that because its silly.

Some planes are drones.

Most planes are just planes.

This thing is a remote controlled gyro stabilized helicopter.

THE WORMHOLE

[Anonymous Coward]

"For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them."

Or if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guy comes in with a fake lotto ticket and asks for money, pointing a gun. Then out of nowhere a rich man buys the ticket, and they leave the store together and he gives the gunman some eggnog, and the gunman laughs and says, "Remember, you did this to yourself."

The following day the rich man wakes up and he's no longer rich, but a FAMILY MAN sucked through a wormhole like STARGATE. Now he faces a fake reality in which he learns to love funnel cakes and is haunted by the sound of a bike's bell.

Re:if they don't know, why should anyone else?

[BlueStrat]

If *everyone* is ignorant of the law, then why in the hell should ordinary citizens be held to a higher standard?

Simple. Because those in power want the ability to fine & imprison those who threaten the status quo and/or their power & wealth and their continued acquisition & accumulation of same in some way.

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." - Atlas Shrugged

Strat

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[Orgasmatron]

Sorry, no.

Almost every AR-15 is "readily convertible" in the normal meaning of that term. Legally, "readily convertible" means the auto sear axis has already been drilled.

(I'm ignoring other conversion devices, like the lightning link and the DIAS, which are generally considered to be machine guns themselves, even in the absence of a host rifle.)

You literally drill one hole in your AR lower and it becomes a NFA gun, and you are guilty of a federal felony. You don't need to mill anything, you don't need to possess an auto-sear, you don't even need to possess any other parts, not even critical parts like the upper receiver, barrel, or hammer.

In the past, some manufacturers, out of an excess of caution, sold lowers with trigger group pockets lacking room for the auto-sear, bolt carriers neutered so they wouldn't be able to trip the sear, hammers without the second hook, selectors milled without the slot that allows the sear to catch, etc.

All of that is gone now. You buy an AR-15, and half the parts are probably surplus / production overruns that are exactly identical to the parts that go into a M4. Or you build your own and the lower parts kit might just be a surplus military M4 kit and include all the parts needed for full auto.

Because it is clear now that the hole, and only the hole, is the difference between a legal civilian AR-15 and a felony.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Coren22]

I want to mount a SAW to my truck like a technical, that would be awesome!

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Coren22]

They are in California, who knows what lengths the gun hate goes to there.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Cyberax]

As a Californian: not enough.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[weilawei]

A drill press puts a hole in the target. What's wrong with that? Why is putting holes in a piece of paper at a distance a bad thing?

Hint: it's not the firearm that's bad. It's the people abusing them. Guns don't have the sole purpose of killing animate things. For the record, I don't hunt. Once upon a long time ago, I enjoyed target shooting, but it's been probably close to two decades since I've been to a range.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

They are in California, who knows what lengths the gun hate goes to there.

Hey, at least he didn't bite a Pop-Tart into a rough 'L'-shape that could...with a large amount of make-believe...resemble the shape of a pistol! Oh, the horror! Poor kid's name is now likely a permanent entry on the infamous "No-Fly List".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Strat

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Seng]

Amen -- and it DOES take a fair amount of skill to be able to long-distance target shoot. If you can hit a steel plate at 500M with irons, you've got a fair amount of skill... AND it didn't destroy the target or kill anything.

Assault

[Etherwalk]

So threatening you with a gun is ok? As long as I don't actually shoot you? Now substitute a drone.

No officer I wasn't shooting anyone, or even threatening them, I was just flying around my armed killer robot.

Threatening you with a gun is assault (i.e. threatening you with physical harm) and you can get arrested for it. You can also get sued if you have done an intentional act that is a legal and but-for cause of putting someone in apprehension of imminent bodily harm.

If you assault someone with your killer robot, it's still assault. If you do something stupid but intentional with the robot and it makes people afraid it will hurt them, they can still sue.

We don't actually need new laws to go after people who do something bad with a robot.

Re:Assault

[rioki]

We don't actually need new laws to go after people who do something bad with a robot.

And that is the reason why the police has trouble figuring out what to charge him with. The legal situation is no different than when he was shooting a couple rounds for fun. That it involved a drone at low altitude (high altitude may be a different case), makes no difference.

Re:"Automatic" Weapon?

[Wee]

It is illegal to construct or possess a gun that is "readily convertible" into an automatic (more than one round per trigger pull); any such device is classified as an NFA weapon (machine gun). A common example is a rifle that can, with only a small amount of milling or other work, accept an autosear.

This is untrue. An AR-15 can be made to fire more than one round simply by removing (or incorrectly installing) a very tiny spring. An AK-style rifle can be made full auto by removing a small amount of metal in the right place, no other parts needed. And an SKS can be made to empty its magazine without any trigger pull whatsoever by simply jamming one piece of its mechanism into a certain position with a tiny wad of paper or something. Those are just three examples.

So then, I could legally have in my possession an AR-15, an AKM, and an SKS. Right next to those rifles I could have a pair of wire cutters, and small file, and a scrap of paper. I would not be breaking the law.

The thing you're likely thinking of is called "constructive intent". If I have all of the above in my possession with the intent of violating the NFA, then I'm breaking the law. Of course, it's up to the BATFE to decide if my intent was worthy of charging me with a crime, and then the court to decide if that crime was committed.

-B

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Shoten]

100 acres would be a radius of only ~392 yards, and from what I can find the range of an unimpeded 9mm pistol round can be a couple thousand yards*. Obviously the accuracy will be nonexistent at that range, but we're talking about how far a stray shot can travel before hitting the ground. So, unless you've got *really* dense trees, a bullet fired into the woods will potentially cross several neighbours properties as well as your own. I really hope you're using a proper backdrop.

I challenge you to find any real woods where a bullet could fly for the better part of half a mile without a tree getting in the way. Good luck with that :)

Re:Illegal? Probably no... Am i going to do it...n

[spire3661]

And yet we do it EVERY SINGLE DAY in aircraft, military drones etc..... And if you think the government is super careful, read up on how many nuclear weapons were lost in the 50s and 60s due to accidents.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shaitand]

As someone else pointed out, look at the stats. Cars cause far far more accidents and deaths than guns and they include self-defense and police shootings (which are the bulk). You are more likely to get struck by lightning than shot by a gun.

Are you terrified and suggesting it should be a crime when someone is sitting behind the wheel of a parked car with the engine turned off and you are in the path? Well, you are in far more danger there.

The side effect of the governments successful disarmament of the people is that all our civilian firing mechanisms are essentially technology from the 1800's, and for the most part we found the safest and most reliable variations on them 50-100 years ago. A standard wall outlet, most power tools, climbing in your attic or on your roof are all things that are more dangerous to you than a gun in the hands of anyone who isn't deliberately trying to shoot you.

The gun can't actually go off if it isn't cocked with tension behind the firing pin and a bullet in the chamber. Check that, treat it like it's loaded anyway. Assume it's going to shoot anything in the general direction you point it at anyway. Don't keep your finger on the trigger. The bullet comes out the hole at the end. There shouldn't be anything in that hole. The bullets are the boomy part and dramatically less likely to go off spontaneously than firecrackers but should be treated with the same caution if they failed to go off.

There you go, you and everyone who reads that paragraph now has all the gun training they need to be beyond perfectly safe holding a gun. Pretty much all of it any idiot would guess just looking at one and knowing it's purpose. When you hear people calling a guy waving a gun around a moron they mean moron not ignorant. 99% of those morons are actually people who understood once they checked for a clear chamber the gun was safe. That part is partly just to shame you in to being aware at all times and to prepare you for how much people over-react at the sight of a gun.

To learn that much and the rest you need be perfectly safe SHOOTING a gun takes about 20 minutes and one clip of ammo. A couple clips and someone who knows how to shoot and you'll actually be a decent shot.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Coren22]

Yeah...that removes my room to talk about California, my own state is just as insane about "weapons". Heck, they also jailed some poor kid for using a katana as a self defense tool (since guns are near impossible to own around here...).

http://nypost.com/1999/11/30/c...

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[bondsbw]

a gun has only one purpose -- to destroy/damage the target.

Well, no, there are two purposes:
1) to illegally destroy/damage a target
2) to legally destroy/damage a target

#2 is equivalent to the car's usage as a transportation device, and is the only legitimate usage of the item.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

They are in California, who knows what lengths the gun hate goes to there.

As a Californian: not enough.

Yes, because disarming law-abiding citizens is a well known and effective tactic to prevent street gangs and Mexican drug cartels who transport whatever they wish across the border from obtaining, possessing, and using guns against those same law-abiding citizens.

Bravo, Sir!

You have single-handedly solved all gun crime!

You win an internets!

Strat

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[dkman]

1. To prove a concept
2. To get a military contract
3. Profit

Looks like more than 1 to me.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Atryn]

Yes, because disarming law-abiding citizens is a well known and effective tactic to prevent street gangs and Mexican drug cartels who transport whatever they wish across the border from obtaining, possessing, and using guns against those same law-abiding citizens.

Bravo, Sir!

You have single-handedly solved all gun crime!

You win an internets!

Strat

I could refer you to this study as an example of the myth of the gun defense argument. Note that the article/study aren't advocating for gun control, just for a better understanding of the real data.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

I could refer you to this study as an example of the myth of the gun defense argument.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

One can use carefully-chosen and cherry-picked statistics to prove whatever one wishes.

When seconds count, police are only minutes away.

No amount of statistics will disprove that maxim.

Police are also under no legal obligation whatsoever to protect individuals.

You can choose to take responsibility for your own personal safety or you can choose to become a statistic yourself.

Your choice.

Just do not remove that choice (and Constitutionally-protected & SCOTUS-affirmed civil right) for others.

Strat

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[jdschulteis]

You are more likely to get struck by lightning than shot by a gun.

NOAA gives an average of 33 lightning deaths and 297 injuries per year in the US for the years 2004-2013.

GunPolicy.org gives a minimum of 11,068 gun homicides and 64,389 non-fatal gun injuries in any one year over the same time span.

Statistically, a random person in the US is much more likely to be killed or injured by gunfire than struck by lightning.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shutdown -p now]

It depends on the state and the gun. In WA, for example, carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun in a car is illegal (and "in" is defined very broadly here, often to the point of even just leaning a loaded gun against a parked car). But carrying a loaded handgun concealed (in the car) is fine so long as you have a permit. The question is, what counts as "concealed" here. If you were to, say, mount it inside and rig up a pipe such that it has a line of fire, I think it would, strictly speaking, meet the definition.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shutdown -p now]

A puny .22 LR round can still punch through a frozen turkey wrapped in two layers of denim at 300 yards.

Actually hitting things at that distance will be difficult, and then there's bullet drop. But the bullet can still be plenty deadly at even extreme distances.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shutdown -p now]

What would you consider to be enough?

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Jack Griffin]

Oh that old gag...

A credible threat of bodily injury should be a crime. The specific means of accomplishing that should be irrelevant.

My friend of mine killed a man with one punch once upon a time, we should make all hands illegal.
Iran should be allowed nukes as long as they don't use them.

Somewhere in there the logic doesn't add up....

Since when are we not allowed to use a machine

[sabbede]

to hold and fire a gun? It's not like such devices don't already exist.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[nitehawk214]

I am not talking about carrying a weapon in a car. I am talking about mounting one on top of the vehicle to be used while driving it. This is the better analogy to the drone in the article.

As awesome as it would be to have a belt-fed .50 on top of a truck... I think it should be illegal on public roadways, as there is no possible legal way to use it.

Now, if the vehicle is on private land out of sight (and range) of the public... go for it! I bet you could charge a fee and get some thrill seekers to have fun with it. As for transporting the weaponized vehicle from point A to point B... you would either need to store the vehicle in a trailer or disassemble the weapon from it.

I am sure there are more caveats that I have not thought of, but this is what makes sense to me.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Falos]

Threatening a person is illegal because you threatened a person*, not because of the particular event wherein you had a gun in your hand or even that its sights passed over their person. Threatening a person and using a violent device to support the threat is more illegal, whether it's a sharp spoon or a satellite laser you own (and involve in the coercion).

* this seems redundant but it's being specific - yelling "FIRE" in a theater doesn't even involve the first amendment, it's illegal because it endangers human life, there is the legal restriction.

It might seem tediously technical but it's important so we can avoid the very ambiguities you're worried about. And if we make weaponized drones illegal, I hope we do so with precise law, not arbitrary interpretable bullshit. We fucked up hard on lots of computer law, we should bitch about new law for everyone's sake. Sometimes I get heat when I do, especially around hot items like proposed laws re: swatting, free speech, harassment, when I actually welcome new law - that's clearly marked and not decided by the judge's mood that day.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[parkinglot777]

Oh that old gag...

A credible threat of bodily injury should be a crime. The specific means of accomplishing that should be irrelevant.

I just stated my opinion against GP because GP oversimplify and focusing on the word "having." Even though the "accomplishing" could be the same -- damage/injure/kill the target, a car has a lot more usefulness in general than a gun. Specific mean or not, I stated their major use anyhow.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[AvitarX]

Yes, I phrased poorly, what I meant was that there are 3 things that I can think of that would make this illegal:
1) discharge laws, and I would hope anybody shooting a gun looks into that
2) concealed weapon, this is definitely not that
3) injuring someone when it's not self-defense, did not happen

I didn't mean to make a statement on what the laws should be (where I suspect we differ, but really wasn't my point).

I am curious though, you think it's OK if I eat a bunch of shrooms, drive down the highway at 20mph, but there's no accidents?

Minimum highway speed, and intoxicated driving laws shouldn't exist? I assume you feel the same way about trespassing? If your door is unlocked, or your window open, I can go take a nap on your couch? What if I pick the lock in a non damaging way?

I think that extremely risky behavior should be banned, because many damages can't be fully compensated for.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[niftymitch]

Mounting a gun on my car and driving it around is illegal.

Is it?

Fine and dandy, that is what the gun rack in my pick-um up truck is for.
Loaded not legal. Discharge from a vehicle commonly illegal with some rodent exceptions.
Partly because of the power of the spot light and the damage to water control levies
and the risk from flood damage when a levy breaks. Yabbees?

Hunting laws make it clear that firearms in a vehicle are a no no in most locations.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[AvitarX]

Where in California?

I was in northern California (not even that far, south of Redding by a bit anyway), and there was a lot of gun love. Maybe not as much as the Texans who visited Alaska had, but a lot more than most places I've been to with gun love.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Coren22]

Mythbusters? I would assume LA area, but I have no idea.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[slashdotwannabe]

A credible threat of bodily injury should be a crime. The specific means of accomplishing that should be irrelevant.

The specific means of accomplishing the act is a primary factor of what informs the credibility of the threat.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Cyberax]

Yes, I win the Internets. And yes, the actual law-abiding citizens are much safer when only criminals have weapons.

For the record, I went through military training and I can use automatic weapons, RPGs and grenades. And I still don't even _want_ to have guns at home (And carrying them everyday? That's insane).

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shutdown -p now]

Are you sure that's enough? They did just what you said in Australia in the 90s; now they're worried that lever-action guns are "too fast", and want to ban them, too. Pump-action is also pretty fast.

And then you have guns specifically designed to work around restrictions like these, which are still not technically semi-auto (because they require you to perform a manual action to chamber the round for every shot), but are almost as fast in practice. Presumably you'd want to prohibit them, too. How would you word such a law?

Oh, and no additional magazine restrictions? 10 rounds is good enough?

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[shutdown -p now]

I am not talking about carrying a weapon in a car. I am talking about mounting one on top of the vehicle to be used while driving it. This is the better analogy to the drone in the article.

What I'm saying is that "in" and "on" is not really something that is strictly defined (and, indeed, some existing laws already interpret "on" as "in"). And if you mount one on top of your vehicle, and then build an enclosure around it such that there is a hole for bullets to come out of, but the gun itself cannot be seen, which one is it?

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

And yes, the actual law-abiding citizens are much safer when only criminals have weapons.

Lolwut!?

Care to explain the (any) logic in that? You know hoplophobia can be treated with therapy and possibly anti-depressant/anxiety medications, right?

Police draw chalk outlines and write reports long after the shooting is over. When seconds count, police are only minutes away. And again, police are under no legal obligation whatsoever to protect individuals.

For the record, I went through military training and I can use automatic weapons, RPGs and grenades.

So what? There are laws requiring mandatory safety & competency training for legal handgun owners in nearly every jurisdiction. FYI, most legal gun owners are more competent and safe with a gun than many, if not most, law enforcement officers, and LEOs carry 24/7, even off-duty.

On the whole, I'd be far more worried about those LEOs than legal firearms owners, especially since LEOs have limited immunity, the 'thin blue line', and unions at their back to absolve them of liability, which regular citizens do not.

And I still don't even _want_ to have guns at home (And carrying them everyday? That's insane).

It's your right to be a defenseless victim for any armed criminal that comes along. You have no right to make that choice for others. Neither you nor anyone else, including government, will infringe on my natural right to defend my life, my family's lives, and my property, period, full stop.

Strat

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Cyberax]

Care to explain the (any) logic in that?

I'm more at risk of dying from my spouse shooting me or from a weapon-related accident than from being shot at by criminals. See here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

There are laws requiring mandatory safety & competency training for legal handgun owners in nearly every jurisdiction.

Incorrect. There are no such laws in pretty much EVERY state in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... In most states you can just come in and buy a handgun with only a cursory background check (if that). A nice article: http://www.salon.com/2013/12/0...

FYI, most legal gun owners are more competent and safe with a gun than many, if not most, law enforcement officers, and LEOs carry 24/7, even off-duty.

Complete BS. Most gun owners have trouble distinguishing which end of a gun actually shoots bullets.

It's your right to be a defenseless victim for any armed criminal that comes along. You have no right to make that choice for others.

I also have a right not to be shot by you, because you mess up the safety switch.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

I'm more at risk of dying from my spouse shooting me or from a weapon-related accident than from being shot at by criminals. See here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... [nih.gov]

You quote a NIH study when the NIH is ideologically opposed to firearm ownership to begin with. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I dismiss this for the same reasons you'd dismiss a study funded by the NRA that contradicts it.

Incorrect. There are no such laws in pretty much EVERY state in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Wiki page you cite does not address mandatory licensed firearm instructor run safety courses in any way. Just a few miles from where I live there is a gun range that does a brisk business in providing said mandatory courses. In the 9 States in which I've personally resided there were similar mandates. And then you cite a Salon article, a well known left-leaning website ideologically opposed to the 2nd Amendment? Really? Bias, much?

FYI, most legal gun owners are more competent and safe with a gun than many, if not most, law enforcement officers, and LEOs carry 24/7, even off-duty.

Complete BS. Most gun owners have trouble distinguishing which end of a gun actually shoots bullets.

You outdo yourself here with both a baseless ad hominem *and* a sweeping generalization with no evidence whatsoever. How "open minded" and Progressive of you.

I also have a right not to be shot by you, because you mess up the safety switch.

Since you've been in the military, you are a high risk for PTSD. So then, you're fine with being forbidden to obtain a driver's license and placed under constant surveillance, since you might snap at any time and decide to plow through a crowd with your 2-1/2 ton missile or go nuts with an axe, right?

A free and open society comes with risks. Being in such a constant state of fear, perhaps you should ask to be sent to a prison where you can be watched & protected from the "scary" world 24/7/365.

Your fear does not trump my natural and Constitutionally protected rights as a human being. Grow a set, or just grow up.

Strat

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Cyberax]

You quote a NIH study when the NIH is ideologically opposed to firearm ownership to begin with. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I dismiss this for the same reasons you'd dismiss a study funded by the NRA that contradicts it.

I won't dismiss a study that is conducted properly. Even if it comes from the NRA. And NIH studies are pretty accurate - they are actually used to working with clinical studies.

The Wiki page you cite does not address mandatory licensed firearm instructor run safety courses in any way.

So pick 5 states. I'll give you details. For example, Washington (where I'm staying right now) doesn't require anything but a cursory background check (which can be avoided through the 'gun show' loophole). No training necessary.

You outdo yourself here with both a baseless ad hominem *and* a sweeping generalization with no evidence whatsoever. How "open minded" and Progressive of you.

So tell me, why do you want to KILL CHILDREN?? Do you hate them so much?

Since you've been in the military, you are a high risk for PTSD. So then, you're fine with being forbidden to obtain a driver's license and placed under constant surveillance, since you might snap at any time and decide to plow through a crowd with your 2-1/2 ton missile or go nuts with an axe, right?

I haven't seen combat so I'm not at higher risk of PTSD. And to get a driver's license in my home country, you actually do have to get a certificate from a mental health hospital that you're not under observation for any mental disorders.

A free and open society comes with risks.

Can I shoot you in the head, please? After all, you so want to live in a free society! And I totally should be free to minimize potential harm to me, right? In ANY way that I'd like, including gunning down all the gun owners.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[beastofburdon]

I'm not entirely sure what you meant here, so sorry if I am interpreting your words wrong.
Our country, with its massive stockpile of nuclear weapons has absolutely no right telling Iran that they can't have their own. The only purpose we have with denying them nuclear weapons is to ensure that we can easily push them around without fear of a counterattack.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Jack Griffin]

Our country, with its massive stockpile of nuclear weapons has absolutely no right telling Iran that they can't have their own.

I think they do. It's called self preservation.
I'm not American, and the US has plenty of flaws, but out of all the bullies in the yard, I'm quite happy America is the biggest. Sometimes principals have to give way to practicality, and equal rights is not something we should be handing out to religious nutbags that want to kill us.
Same goes for "right to bear arms". In principal it sounds nice, the reality though is it results in more innocent people being killed. Having rights doesn't mean much if you are dead.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Atryn]

They aren't carefully crafted or cherry picked. They are straight out of a public database that has been collecting standardized info for 40 years. And then corroborated by multiple other sources. It isn't about what should or shouldn't be legal, it is about a common misconception (urban myth) being actually looked at with data.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[BlueStrat]

So tell me, why do you want to KILL CHILDREN?? Do you hate them so much?

Just...wow.

Over the top, much?

You need a lot less caffeine or some psychiatric help. Maybe both.

If there had been responsible people with guns at these mass shootings a lot of lives could have been saved.

There's one common thread in these murders. The overwhelming majority occurred in a "gun free zone" but hoplophobes refuse to acknowledge or address the fact that cowardly murderers prefer defenseless victims.

Which is what anti-gun zealots create through their fear, shortsightedness, and political/ideological agendas: Helpless victims for murdering cowards.

It's people that ignore reality and push to disarm law abiding citizens and prevent them from protecting themselves, their families, and others that create helpless victims. They share a large burden of guilt for these atrocities.

Good day, sir!

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Cyberax]

Over the top, much?

So you don't have any other objections to my post? And no, it's not over-the-top - children statistically are at greater risk from your gun than from being killed by intruders.

So in essence, you want to kill small defenseless children.

There's one common thread in these murders. The overwhelming majority occurred in a "gun free zone" but hoplophobes refuse to acknowledge or address the fact that cowardly murderers prefer defenseless victims.

So you want everyone in a theater to be on guard 100% of time and be ready to shoot back at the sound of a gun discharge? Ok, so you're a nutty idiot. That's pretty clear now.

It's people that ignore reality and push to disarm law abiding citizens and prevent them from protecting themselves, their families, and others that create helpless victims.

No. YOU are ignoring reality - the advanced countries with less guns have less crime and far less murders than the US. So it's you who want people to be killed by guns, especially small children.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[beastofburdon]

Don't forget that our bullying is what put all these different fanatical groups in power to begin with. The US has never been interested in equal rights other than on paper, at least the government hasn't.
You are a damn fool if you think that disarming a society makes them any more free or safe. In every instance in history the opposite has happened. When the guns are taken away from citizens tyranny is soon to follow. Do you really think that ISIS would have a chance in hell of surviving if the citizens of those countries were armed? The reason they have so much power now is because guns were taken away from the citizens long ago.

Re: They're not going to arrest him!

[Jack Griffin]

You are a damn fool if you think that disarming a society makes them any more free or safe.

As proven by the US and their awesome homicide rate you mean?

In every instance in history the opposite has happened.

Citation? I can't think of any case in a modern democracy where less guns meant more violence, so you'll have to provide some evidence for this bold claim.

When the guns are taken away from citizens tyranny is soon to follow.

Yet every western democracy that has less guns than the US, also has lower homicide rates, and are falling. Your statement does not match the data.

Do you really think that ISIS would have a chance in hell of surviving if the citizens of those countries were armed?

They are armed you twonk. ISIS are citizens with guns fighting other citizens with guns as well as armies that have guns and tanks. Do you actually know what is going on over there?

The reason they have so much power now is because guns were taken away from the citizens long ago.

When? When exactly did the all the guns get taken off the people of Syria and Iraq? Please provide a date and reference when the great gun prohibition was enacted in these states?