Man Gets 30 Days In Jail For Drone Crash That Knocked Woman Unconscious (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The operator of a drone that knocked a woman unconscious was sentenced Friday to 30 days in jail, Seattle prosecutors said. The woman was attending a local parade when the drone crashed and struck her. Paul Skinner, a 38-year-old man from Washington state, was charged with reckless endangerment in connection to the 2015 incident, in which an 18-inch-by-18-inch drone collided into a building before falling into a crowd. The authorities said the 2-pound drone struck the 25-year-old in the head and gave her a concussion. Her boyfriend caught her before she fell to the ground. Another man suffered a minor bruise. The accident took place during during the city's Pride Parade. Skinner, who had turned himself in, plans to appeal the sentence. His attorney, Jeffrey Kradel, said the punishment was "too severe." His client remains free pending the appeal's outcome. A misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge -- one that poses "substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person" -- carries a penalty of up to a year in jail.

Comments

Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. The drone operator deserved that or more than that.
Doesn't matter if it was a baseball bat, or a fist, or a drone.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe he's trying to weasel out of his responsibility. It's only 30 days, a fair sentence. He needs to man the fuck up and serve his time.

Re: Good.

[dougdonovan]

im glad he wasn't driving a vehicle.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

He will lose his job

Re: Good.

[Gussington]

im glad he wasn't driving a vehicle.

Imagine if was a real helicopter and it crashed into a crowd only resulting in mild concussion. He as pilot would be considered a hero.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's 38 years old and convicted of a crime. He's as good as dead already.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

He wouldn't be a hero if he was directly responsible for the crash, such as by recklessly crashing the real helicopter into a building first, damaging the rotors. Ending up with "only a concussion" may then be impressive - but he shouldn't have crashed in the first place.

He'd be a hero only if the blame is on someone else - such as the manufacturer or maintenance crew.

Drones can be tricky - which is why most countries don't let you fly them over people without special permits. And that is a good thing - he has no right to cause concussions. Heavier drones can kill, and even a small one can take out an eye with the tip of a propeller.

Re:Good.

[msauve]

"Doesn't matter if it was a baseball bat, or a fist, or a drone."

If one is hit with a baseball bat or a fist, there's a reasonable presumption that it was an intentional action. This drone incident seems to have been a matter of recklessness, not intent. So, it does matter.

Still, 30 days seems reasonable, given his actions caused actual and substantial harm, so it was more than just simple endangerment.

Re:Good.

[v1]

There's a difference here between criminal and civil action. There's a fairly good chance she's going to sue him in civil court, (and settle for doctor bills, time off work, maybe some pain and suffering compensation etc) and that alone could be quite punishing. Don't think of this criminal sentence as the retribution for the crime, that will come later.

This is all about the criminal case. Try to keep in mind it is supposed to weigh things like criminal intent, deliberate as well as actual negligence with respect to the public, etc. There certainly was negligence here, but is the punishment appropriate?

If I'm riding my bicycle down the sidewalk (which is illegal in this city btw, you're supposed to keep to the streets to avoid hitting peds) and I am talking with my friend behind me and don't see that ped on the sidewalk and run into them, knock them down, I'm likely to do more damage to them than most drones. Maybe I even give the 'ol gal a mild concussion when she hits the sidewalk. There was no criminal intent, I didn't intend to be negligent but in the end I was. (and in this case I was even breaking a law, which here is used primarily simply to make the collision undeniably my fault, rather than to ticket or arrest me) Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

I think his chances on appeal are quite justified, and quite good. That judge needs some perspective rather than a knee-jerk response. He will probably get his sentence replaced with some sort of citation, pay a $350 ticket or so for some related offense. And that makes a heck of a lot more sense than jail time. (I'm assuming this is his first offense - obviously jail time starts becoming appropriate on repeat offenders in cases like this)

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up what the word "misdemeanor " means.

Re:Good.

[DrXym]

Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

I would consider riding the pavement and not paying attention to where you going makes you culpable for the harm you caused even if it was unintentional. You might have not meant to cause the accident but it wouldn't have happened without your intentional negligence.

The same for this guy. If there is a law about causing harm through negligence and it carries a custodial sentence, and if it can be shown that flying a drone above people in an area filled with hazards is negligent, then yes he deserves jail.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be argued that operating a vehicle in a careless fashion WHILE already breaking a an actual law shows a level moral indifference to society as a whole and possibly even a degree of sociopathy. Of course your victim is going to show up for your trial in a wheelchair to bolster later civil damages claims, but right now the court is focused on your reckless disregard for the well being of anyone besides yourself.

Once you land in front of a judge, it should be about what is fair to the other person and society, so you should get the same level of concern and consideration as you showed your victim by your own actions.

Re:Good.

[octothorpe99]

And yet, this is, in a way, very similar to just flinging a baseball bat (or whatever) towards a group of people, isn't it?

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not when he crashed the helicopter into a building first. No, he would most certainly not be a hero.

Re:Good.

[kelemvor4]

And yet, this is, in a way, very similar to just flinging a baseball bat (or whatever) towards a group of people, isn't it?

Doesn't seem similar to me. Drone pilot intended to fly near people, not hit them with the drone. Hitting the people was an accident. If you throw a bat at a group of people, you intended to hit them with the bat.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, this is, in a way, very similar to just flinging a baseball bat (or whatever) towards a group of people, isn't it?

Doesn't seem similar to me. Drone pilot intended to fly near people, not hit them with the drone. Hitting the people was an accident. If you throw a bat at a group of people, you intended to hit them with the bat.

"I only intended to have the bat fly near people, not to hit them."

I don't see that much difference between the cases.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

But - think about this another way; would a crowd of people necessarily expect a drone to cause them harm? As others are posting regarding bike accidents etc - if you're a pedestrian walking about, you'd expect to make sure your surroundings are clear. You would NOT expect something to fall out of the sky and smack you on the head.

That's why drones + crowds are dangerous. It's not the pedestrian's fault at all, and even if it is an accident - the high speed falling 2lb object with pointy bits can do some damage.

Re:Good.

[TheRaven64]

What about if you use that baseball bat to hit a baseball in a park, knowing that people are nearby, and are it hits one of those people and causes concussion. Your intention was to play baseball near some people, but you accidentally injured one. I suspect you'd get a milder sentence.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

wat

Re:Good.

[CheapEngineer]

This why you are not a judge, or a lawyer.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The perspective is he could have damn well killed somebody, he's lucky a concussion is all it was. And you can kill someone by running into them on a bicycle, all it takes is for them to fall badly and bang their head hard. If he kept clear of hitting anyone, then I'd agree the punishment would be too harsh, but he failed at that, and given how serious it potentially could have been, the punishment seems appropriate.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

Yes.

Maybe you shouldn't be riding your damn bike on the sidewalk.

I think his chances on appeal are quite justified, and quite good.

You a drone operator or something? He has a right to an appeal, but it's not justified. He flew a drone over a crowd of people. That's reckless because bad shit can happen -- and in this case, it did! He's lucky he didn't cause worse injuries than he did.

This sentence is justified. He deserves punishment. People can argue that they're setting an example of him, and I say it's a great example. Hopefully it's at least as severe as an "example" every time. Maybe people will get the idea that flying a drone is an act of responsibility, and if you act recklessly, there will be consequences.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm riding my bicycle down the sidewalk (which is illegal in this city btw, you're supposed to keep to the streets to avoid hitting peds)

Public endangerment

and I am talking with my friend behind me and don't see that ped on the sidewalk

Reckless endangerment

and run into them, knock them down, I'm likely to do more damage to them than most drones.

Assault

Maybe I even give the 'ol gal a mild concussion when she hits the sidewalk. There was no criminal intent,

There were 2 criminal intents: violating local bicycle ordinances and intentionally distracting yourself from the details of your surroundings.

I didn't intend to be negligent but in the end I was.

You were way past negligent

(and in this case I was even breaking a law, which here is used primarily simply to make the collision undeniably my fault, rather than to ticket or arrest me) Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

easily

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed on all counts. In fact I hope there's a civil suit to foilow, and I hope he gets at least a 6-digit judgement against him. Irresponsible people being irresponsible with what should be just a toy you play with in an open field or in your backyard should be treated harshly as a warning to others. This will also serve as part of a growing list of precedents that, with any luck, will curtail the sale and use of drones in the U.S., if (I can but hope) outlaw them completely, with the exception of small toy-like drones that can only be operated within limited line-of-sight, and only for a few minutes at a time. This technology, clearly, should not be in the hands of amateurs, it should only be allowed for professionals and the military, and then only in sharply defined roles and circumstances.

Re:Good.

[luis_a_espinal]

He will lose his job

Life and consequences. News at 11.

Re:Good.

[luis_a_espinal]

There's a difference here between criminal and civil action. There's a fairly good chance she's going to sue him in civil court, (and settle for doctor bills, time off work, maybe some pain and suffering compensation etc) and that alone could be quite punishing. Don't think of this criminal sentence as the retribution for the crime, that will come later.

This is all about the criminal case. Try to keep in mind it is supposed to weigh things like criminal intent, deliberate as well as actual negligence with respect to the public, etc. There certainly was negligence here, but is the punishment appropriate?

If I'm riding my bicycle down the sidewalk (which is illegal in this city btw, you're supposed to keep to the streets to avoid hitting peds) and I am talking with my friend behind me and don't see that ped on the sidewalk and run into them, knock them down, I'm likely to do more damage to them than most drones. Maybe I even give the 'ol gal a mild concussion when she hits the sidewalk. There was no criminal intent, I didn't intend to be negligent but in the end I was. (and in this case I was even breaking a law, which here is used primarily simply to make the collision undeniably my fault, rather than to ticket or arrest me) Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

Depends on the injury I would supposed, but in my book, yeah, in the hypothetical case, you were grossly negligent and where one cunt hair away from causing grave harm or even death.

It's like, if I'm texting and driving and I kill or hurt someone, I deserve to go to jail. Same with a bicycle. From an ethical POV, whether the law specifically says so, I'd say any person (myself included) who injures someone from gross negligence when conducting something that is not even vital, yeah, jail time.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

That does happen every now and then; it's considered a known risk born by the spectators, regardless of whether they were aware of it or not. There might be some civil liability (IANAL), but no criminal offense.

Re:Good.

[Registered Coward v2]

If I'm riding my bicycle down the sidewalk (which is illegal in this city btw, you're supposed to keep to the streets to avoid hitting peds) and I am talking with my friend behind me and don't see that ped on the sidewalk and run into them, knock them down, I'm likely to do more damage to them than most drones. Maybe I even give the 'ol gal a mild concussion when she hits the sidewalk. There was no criminal intent, I didn't intend to be negligent but in the end I was. (and in this case I was even breaking a law, which here is used primarily simply to make the collision undeniably my fault, rather than to ticket or arrest me) Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

Yes. While criminal intent may come into play for an action that is clearly criminal - such as accidentally walking out of a store with an item may not qualify as shoplifting; negligence is enough to justify a criminal charge, absent intent, depending on the circumstances. Riding a bike as you describe may be enough to make you criminally negligent, merely not intending to no cause harm isn't enough to absolve you of a crime. Is 30 days too much? That's a separate argument from whether criminal charges were appropriate.

In the drone operator's case, a reasonable person, flying a drone over a parade and around obstacles, should be aware that his actions could cause harm and ensure is does not; so I agree with the negligence charge. He may not have intended any harm, but should know that a 2 lb drone falling from any height is dangerous and been more careful.

Re:Good.

[HornWumpus]

If you were playing baseball on a marked field (not a marked field would be grey area if you were their first and it was obvious to all you were playing ball), it would be on the spectator. Assumed risk.

If you were just hitting a baseball in a park and ignoring the people there, it would be on you.

Re:Good.

[rhazz]

... I am talking with my friend behind me and don't see that ped on the sidewalk and run into them, knock them down, I'm likely to do more damage to them than most drones... Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

If you were on a crowded sidewalk cycling fast enough to potentially kill someone? Absolutely you should be charged. I think you don't understand the dangerous potential a falling 2lb object can have. On a crowded parade street it was almost guaranteed to hit someone, and she was lucky to only get a concussion. Also as one of the links said - if all people will face is a fine, this is going to become a common occurrence.

Re:Good.

[Immerman]

Did he have a the required training and license to operate the drone near people? As I recall it's otherwise quite often illegal to operate unmanned aircraft (RC airplanes, etc) outside of private property and established "RC aircraft parks", because of the risk of exactly this sort of thing happening.

In the event of collision with bystanders, aircraft, by virtue of their initial altitude, typically hit a lot harder than their weight would suggest, and unlike bicycles, etc, the direct risks of collision are felt entirely by the victim, as the RC pilot is safely elsewhere.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we know that the person flying the drone crashed it into the building out of negligence? I've flown little mini RC quad copters and find that a myriad of things can make those things go all over the place. The most likely cause is usually radio interference, or drop in signal causing the copter to loose the "control" signal. But other things such as a hard gust of wind, low battery, drop or fluctuation in control signal, or a mis-balanced rotor, or a motor that malfunctioned can all cause a quad-copter/drone to go off course without the operator being a negligent flyer causing the drone to hit a building. Once the copter hit the building, it most likely damaged and not controllable.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

He will lose his job

Good

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

You absolutely deserve (at least) a month in jail for the bike incident... you could have killed someone.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what if you throw a bat and someone moves in the way? You may not have intended for someone to be hurt, but they were hurt anyway.
Operating ANYTHING that can injure people requires one to be aware of what they are doing, and trying to stop people from getting unintentionally injured.
If you are swinging a baseball bat: it is YOUR responsibility to ensure people are warned to stay well away from your striking area, and that what you are striking is unlikely to riccochet and hit people. This is not "it was their fault for getting in the way of my swinging arms and kicking legs".
Likewise, hitting people with a car is punishable. I want to drive near people, but if my foot slips, missed the brake and hitd the accelerator, hitting out a bunch of schoolkids, I am still at fault for mis-handling the vehicle. The fact that I didn't mean to hurt them means little to kids in hospital beds, or possibly dead.

Re: Good.

[Zero__Kelvin]

If you mischaracterize unintentional as intentional, as you have done here, then sure, it sounds like you aren't a moron ... to everyone who can't see clearly what you did.

Re: Good.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"That's reckless because bad shit can happen"

EXACTLY! It's why driving a car or eating at a restaurant is punishable by a stiff prison sentence! Bad things can happen man!!!!

Re: Good.

[Zero__Kelvin]

If you were ever on the money at all you lost it with "assault", which requires Men's Rea.

Re: Good.

[DrXym]

I think it's you who are the moron if you can't comprehend the point. Someone might not intend to crash into a person but intentionally riding on the pavement means they have culpability. Just as someone might not intend for their drone to drop on someone's head, but flying it over a crowd in a built up area still means they are culpable and held liable.

As indeed was the case with the drone operator. It's not hard to understand really.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The decision to ride a bike down the sidewalk (which is illegal in the example given) is intentional, not accidental. If that decision had not been made, there would not have been an accident that injured a pedestrian. That's where the culpability comes from.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people that have a car crash when they drink and drive or text and drive don't intend to have a car crash either, do they get let off the hook for the things they were doing that caused it? Of course not.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a fairly good chance she's going to sue him in civil court, (and settle for doctor bills, time off work, maybe some pain and suffering compensation etc) and that alone could be quite punishing.

That's just an indictment of America's litigious society and reflected in the sort of advertising you see on TV. If some negative unexpected thing happens to you you can probably sue somebody and get some money and getting money is all that matters!

Pain and suffering? Cure that with some money. PTSD as a result of this terrible drone incident? Better get some money. Because of the incident she now has a fear of crowds? Oh you better believe you can get some money!

No shit I saw an ad on American TV about some catheter-type device that was inserted into the lungs to keep airways open and under certain circumstances they could fail, now this ad was trying to get the attention of people who had these devices that could be in danger and what did they suggest? Immediately go to your doctor? No no no, join our class action suit and get some money!

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's faux par to reply to your own post but I forgot to mention that I kind of agree with the post I originally replied to, except that it's backwards. The criminal proceedings should take care of doling out punishment, 30days in prison means an awkward conversation with your employer, a few thousand in losses for a leave of absence and a short stint in jail. Then a good healthcare system will ensure the affected party is looked after.

Contrast that with the variety of civil claims that can then be made and "justice" is likely tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars in payments that they probably cannot afford in various compensation for things you really can't put a price on (yet lawyers will certainly try) like pain and suffering. Also probably a followup lawsuit against the city for not doing enough to prevent him from flying a drone there or against the drone manufacturer for a sharp edge on the end of a control stick that caused him to recoil in pain and crash the drone (of course then he can sue for pain and suffering of having caused the accident too!) by the drone operator to pay for the suit against him.

The only ones who really get anything out of America's system are the lawyers.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

And when you are properly trained you understand these risks during flight and make sure you maintain a safe distance from people and buildings. It's pretty basic stuff.

Re:Good.

[FormOfActionBanana]

If you were a licensed bicycle operator, I would feel comfortable seeing you jailed for a few weeks to punish you for willingly operating your vehicle in an unsafe manner.

If you are licensed to fly an airplane and run out of fuel, or negligently fly into unsafe weather you could also expect to see a little jail time, or lose your license/job. In my country you are not allowed to overfly gatherings of people, or anywhere over a populated area where you can't glide clear to a safe landing.

I really do think the UAV operator's punishment, if he is trained and licensed, is not that out of line. Personally, I would judge two weeks just from the information in the summary.

If on the other hand, he wasn't really trained or authorized to be flying that thing - it is either criminal negligence or negligence on the part of the licensing authority.

Re: Good.

[Zero__Kelvin]

The pavement is where you are supposed to ride a bicycle, so we can presume you would err and fail to do so, negligently rushing risking others. Please report to jail immediately per your own purported morals. M'kay?

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

He can sell his body for money.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The jail he's going to is well known for rape. He's going to get raped so much.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't, it's illegal to ride on the pavement. You're supposed to ride on the street.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no criminal intent, I didn't intend to be negligent but in the end I was.

By your own admission you would be breaking the law by riding your bike on the sidewalk, injuring someone during the commission of a crime (accident or not) in most states adds considerably to the penalties that may be applied during sentencing. This of course is irrelevant to this discussion since the drone operator was not operating the drone illegally (at least it wasn't mentioned in the article) but he was clearly operating it in an unsafe manner since he lost control and it ended up injuring someone. The prosecutor asked for 90 days, and the law allows up to one year. I think that 30 days is fair for a first offense. Drone operators need to learn that there are consequences for being careless around the public.

I do have to give the guy a whole lot of credit for turning himself in though.

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if you were talking to your friend and distracted, and ran someone over, you should go to jail. Especially as bikers - and I ride - incorrectly think peds should move for them.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are rules you must follow when operating a radio controlled copter. One of them is don't fly near people. He was negligent and broke the rules that are there to prevent this exact type of accident.

Re: Good.

[DrXym]

You call me a moron and yet you couldn't even be bothered to read the thread. Here let me toss you a clue to what I was responding to - "If I'm riding my bicycle down the sidewalk (which is illegal in this city btw, you're supposed to keep to the streets to avoid hitting peds) ". Riding along pedestrian footpaths is illegal practically everywhere which is why the analogy is a fairly reasonable concerning liability / culpability.

Want to triple down?

Re:Good.

[Askmum]

And yet, this is, in a way, very similar to just flinging a baseball bat (or whatever) towards a group of people, isn't it?

Doesn't seem similar to me. Drone pilot intended to fly near people, not hit them with the drone. Hitting the people was an accident. If you throw a bat at a group of people, you intended to hit them with the bat.

If I intend to shoot that apple on top of your head with an arrow but hit you squarly in the face, is that then also "just" an accident?

Flying a drone above a mass of people is waiting for an accident to happen. While it may certainly be unintentional and an accident when a drone falls from the sky, but it is as much an accident as shooting fireworks inside a crowd. I would call it reckless endangerment.

Re:Good.

[kelemvor4]

What about if you use that baseball bat to hit a baseball in a park, knowing that people are nearby, and are it hits one of those people and causes concussion. Your intention was to play baseball near some people, but you accidentally injured one. I suspect you'd get a milder sentence.

It's an interesting point that I can't quickly resolve in my mind. I guess that's why I'm not a judge, either!

Re: Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

We are responsible for our actions, period.

Re:Good.

[stoatwblr]

There are some actions which are just so stupidly reckless and can have such devastating consequences that they deserve heavy penalties on the first offence to ensure people don't even try it in the first place (Eg, lasing traffic, trains or aircraft - In many countries doing that will have you facing 15-20 year jail terms with a 5 year minimum period. If you've ever seen the effect on freeway or surface street traffic when someone starts pointing a laser at vehicles you'll understand why it's at least as dangerous as pointing it aircraft or tossing rocks off overbridges - the instinctive reaction of a driver is to duck & swerve and unlike trains or aircraft there are no large degrees of separation between cars and obstacles. Similar penalties are frequently applied to copper thefts which disable critical transportation safety systems - both to the thieves AND the people handling the stolen copper - it's not about the copper, it's about the danger to life that's been caused)

If you're (illegally) riding on the pavement, distracted and you knock a pedestrian over, then you'd deserve a _lot_ more than 30 days. I've seen people seriously injured and occasionally killed by cyclists. "Criminal intent" comes into it the moment you do something you know is both illegal and dangerous even if you didn't intend to knock someone over.

Only a narcissist or sociopath would try and deflect the consequences of these kinds of activities by claiming the penalties are too severe. If you deliberately put other people in danger and then "accidentally"(*) injure them, society is entitled to impose quite severe punishments in order to ensure that other narcissists or sociopaths get the message that this is _NOT_ an OK activity.

The starting point for flying a heavy drone over a crowd should be 30 days _for the act of doing it_ and then increased from there based on duration or if there is an incident. This kind of incident should attract a minimum term of 3 months, a lifetime flying ban and mandatory compensation orders.

There are federal regulations about flying things (drones, helicoptors, other aircraft) over crowds for a good reason - based on many years of cleaning up after things went wrong, NOT on "what if" scenarios. If he appeals he may find the FAA stepping in and escalating to _federal_ charges or that the appeal judge decides the sentence was clearly unduly lenient as the lesson didn't sink in and rules that an increase in the penalty. Dropping a 1 pound drone on a group of people is on par with throwing a half-brick out of a second floor window into a crowd and many Law enforcement agencies would put classify that as attempted murder even if it wasn't actively targetting any specific individual, or even intended to go out the window in the first place.

His life ruined? He should be glad he's not up on (attempted) manslaughter charges.

(*) Free clue: If the "accident" was avoidable by not flying over a crowd, then it's not an accident. if the "accident" was avoidable by the drunk choosing not to drive, then it's not an accident. If the "accident" was avoidable by not rolling boulders down a hillside, then it's not an accident.

Re:Good.

[hucker75]

Don't be so utterly clueless. If I strike you with a baseball bat, I meant to hurt you. If I hit you with a drone, I made a MISTAKE. Do you understand the concept of mistakes? He should get precisely ZERO punishment.

Re:Good.

[rtb61]

There is associative risk. How likely is a drone crashing into someones head likely to blind them. How far out of control could drones become. Keep in mind http://gawker.com/remote-contr.... So you are playing with a flying blender and as there is insuficient in defining the nature of the blades (hardness, sharpness, speed of rotation) and how will those blades are protected (to ensure inquisitive fingers or accidental eye balls, do not come in contact with the spinning blades).

So how fair are probability out comes. Some one dies, some one else losses their eyes, a car pool mum with a load of kids crashes, when it is you that is impacted playing with a toy versus when it is you impacted with death, blindness or loss of a child. You know it will happen, all of the above, just how often is the measure and you can reduce the incidence with regulation and penalties.

Drones for public sale to individuals without full training and licences, used in unregulated public spaces, should fit in the palm of your hand and weigh no more than a small bird. After all people do stress out about large birds, http://www.magpiealert.com/, and if that is considered a threat should no toys to be played with by children be designed as less of a threat to reduce the number of incidences (wont eliminate them, so suck up the probabilities, some idiot could blind you and there is nothing, not one thing you can do to stop it happening, just probability outcomes over time and idiots).

Re:Good.

[gzuckier]

There's a difference here between criminal and civil action. There's a fairly good chance she's going to sue him in civil court, (and settle for doctor bills, time off work, maybe some pain and suffering compensation etc) and that alone could be quite punishing. Don't think of this criminal sentence as the retribution for the crime, that will come later.

This is all about the criminal case. Try to keep in mind it is supposed to weigh things like criminal intent, deliberate as well as actual negligence with respect to the public, etc. There certainly was negligence here, but is the punishment appropriate?

If I'm riding my bicycle down the sidewalk (which is illegal in this city btw, you're supposed to keep to the streets to avoid hitting peds) and I am talking with my friend behind me and don't see that ped on the sidewalk and run into them, knock them down, I'm likely to do more damage to them than most drones. Maybe I even give the 'ol gal a mild concussion when she hits the sidewalk. There was no criminal intent, I didn't intend to be negligent but in the end I was. (and in this case I was even breaking a law, which here is used primarily simply to make the collision undeniably my fault, rather than to ticket or arrest me) Now, in addition to any civil case she may file against me, do I deserve a month in jail?

I think his chances on appeal are quite justified, and quite good. That judge needs some perspective rather than a knee-jerk response. He will probably get his sentence replaced with some sort of citation, pay a $350 ticket or so for some related offense. And that makes a heck of a lot more sense than jail time. (I'm assuming this is his first offense - obviously jail time starts becoming appropriate on repeat offenders in cases like this)

Don't know about Seattle, but in the various states and municipalities where I have been actually mugged (with physical assault), the police have informed me that such behavior, without the perpetrators having actually robbed me of anything, is a mere misdemeanor, and that even if they caught the guy the court would undoubtedly just give him a slap on the wrist. Ironic.

Re:Good.

[gzuckier]

And yet, this is, in a way, very similar to just flinging a baseball bat (or whatever) towards a group of people, isn't it?

Doesn't seem similar to me. Drone pilot intended to fly near people, not hit them with the drone. Hitting the people was an accident. If you throw a bat at a group of people, you intended to hit them with the bat.

More than that; I believe we can assume that the guy had no intent whatsoever to crash his drone and presumably whenever flying made efforts to avoid crashing; in contrast to situations where somebody actually makes an effort to do something which would cause harm to a person, if one happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; shoot an arrow down an 'empty' street, for example, or toss the inert drone off the top of the building, or, dare I say it, fire a gun in the air.
By and large, there don't seem to be many prosecutions of pilots of actual airplanes who crash without a serious case of negligence involved; there doesn't seem to be any presumption of reckless endangerment by just flying above people on the grounds that if the plane were to crash, bystanders would be hurt.

Overboard, Sad!

[negRo_slim]

If it truly was an accident and everyone was acting in good faith I think this is a rather severe overreach by the sentencing party.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[tlhIngan]

If it truly was an accident and everyone was acting in good faith I think this is a rather severe overreach by the sentencing party.

Even if it was, it was highly preventable. The risk of failure of these things is well known - the battery can run out and it can plummet and fall on someone's head. Or in this case, a poor pilot can crash the thing into a wall and have it fall on someone's head.

In other words, avoid flying the things above crowds of people because the high risk of injury. The FAA and the drone's instruction manual should make that pretty damn clear.

It's one thing if it was an open park and it happened it hit the only person there. But the guy was flying it over crowds of people where if it failed, it would've definitely hurt someone. The risk was entirely obvious.

And he was lucky the girl didn't suffer more for her boyfriend caught her falling and thus prevented her from hitting her head on the ground.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[dunkelfalke]

The drone operator got lucky that the boyfriend of the injured woman acted quickly. People routinely die when they fall to the ground and hit their heads. Hence only 30 days, not a few years of prison. A car driver losing control and injuring a pedestrian would serve more time.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

If it truly was an accident and everyone was acting in good faith I think this is a rather severe overreach by the sentencing party.

Someone texting while driving hardly does so with the intent of running someone over either.
"I didn't mean for this to happen" is a bad defense if you consistently acted recklessly and caused an accident that hurt someone.
It's not like this was the first time the guy flew a drone over a crowd. It was going to happen sooner or later so while maybe not intentional it is hardly an unpredictable accident.

The main problem I have with the sentence isn't the time in jail, but rather the quality of the jailtime.
If the jail focused on education and rehabilitation rather than a punishment I think the time would be acceptable.
With the current way jail works I'm reluctant to even put people guilty of manslaughter in them unless they are likely to commit the act again.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. I don't have 18x18 drone so maybe I don't know. But I do have a couple small toy drones. I slam them into the walls all the time. They have fully manual controls except they do keep themselves level unless I tilt them. Anyways, they don't crash from slamming into a wall. They just bounce off and level out. But then again my drones are toys. Adding them both up doesn't even weigh half a pound. I just thought the bigger better drones were supposed to be better than toys. More stable and stuff.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[rsmith-mac]

If it truly was an accident and everyone was acting in good faith

It wasn't in good faith, hence the reason he was found guilty of reckless endangerment. Negligence is the charge for "good faith". Reckless means that the accused knew it was dangerous to others and did it anyhow, thereby disregarding the safety of others.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Jail quality really depends on your state. Where I live, a 30-day jail sentence is just really boring. In other places (e.g. California currently) it could be very dangerous.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ls671]

You are correct, the bigger toys are usually "more stable and stuff".

For example, we regularly see these babies slamming into building walls without any problems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he would not. You'd have to proove negligence.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[dunkelfalke]

It is negligence per definition in absence of a technical problem or driver falling unconcious due to a sudden medical problem. How else one is supposed to lose control of the car?

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[jandersen]

If it truly was an accident and everyone was acting in good faith I think this is a rather severe overreach by the sentencing party.

Two pounds is about 1 kg, the weight of an average iron mallet, I'd say - more or less. Being hit on your head with a falling mallet could very easily kill you - it is only luck that saved this woman. Also, flying a drone is a deliberate act that does in fact carry the risk that it might fail for whatever reason and drop out of the air, which is why there are very clear rules banning you from flying near to people - not to mention near to buildings, overhead cables, and other things that the drone might hit. As it stands, this is not all that different from hurling a mallet or brick out over a crowd "just for a bit of fun"; it doesn't really matter that you were too dim to realise that it is wrong - the damage is the same.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[JaredOfEuropa]

It seems that he broke FAA rules (I'm not familiar with those, but most countries' rules for model aircraft don't allow them to be flown over crowds). Because of the resulting injury, a stiff sentence would be in order. But in this case, as opposed to violent crimes and the like, there is no benefit in removing this guy from society for a bit, other than making an example out of him. Wouldn't justice be better served with community service? Especially since I'd think the guy is also on the hook to pay a substantial amount in damages to the girl, even if he's only ordered to pay actual damages.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

amateur operation of a drone over a crowded public event? if that isn't "reckless endangerment", i don't know what would be. it was not operating for event organizers or for government purposes. the drone did not have to be there, it had no purpose to be there.. don't know why it was -- in probably capturing footage of boobies barely contained in loose tops to later be plastered on the internet.way too lenient. should have got at least the 90 days that the prosecutor was going for.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Goaway]

Depends on if you have guards for the props. If you don't, like is often the case with many big drones, you can easily trash the propeller blades, which will cause a pretty instant crash.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

You ignore the fact that people can just build guns and ammo out of common things. So if guns are outlawed and even destroyed, people will still have a way to get guns.
You also ignore the fact that people less able to defend themselves need something like guns to defend themselves from any serious attack(like some whacko with a knife stabbing seniors.)

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

> If it truly was an accident

It was

> everyone was acting in good faith

That's the point. Think for yourself: is flying a drone over a crowd, with lots of buildings and other stuff around "acting in good faith"? I'd say "no".

I don't believe in punishments. But by now people should be getting this message, and very strongly: drones aren't toys. If you fly such a thing around, you better know what you are doing.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they've admitted that the more drugs are available, the more drugs they'll take so attempt to limit the availability of said drugs

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not entirely sure what an "iron mallet" is, but 2 pounds is like 2 blocks of butter. It's pretty heavy weight to fall on you from a tall height, but it really depends on the density, shape and elasticity of what is hitting you. 1 kg of feathers landing on you probably won't do a lot of damage, a 1kg cube of lead would likely kill you. The average shape and materials of drones, being plastic which is usually somewhat springy, will fit somewhere in the middle between lead and feathers. Anyway it's not immediately obvious that a 1kg drone falling from a height would be particularly legal on average.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Waterboard, happy!

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[AmiMoJo]

It's unfortunate that a lot of the marketing for drones highlights their ability to fly in risky places. Over water, over cliffs, over crowds, through fireworks, around tall buildings.

Even if the manufacturers don't advertise that way, there are huge numbers of videos on YouTube and Facebook demonstrating that kind of flight, and those are the videos that encourage people to get one. The manufacturer's claims are usually wildly optimistic in terms of flight time, ease of use and features like voice control.

It's not even a new thing. I knew a guy who had a big pay day, so he bought a Lotus sports car. Within a week he had crashed it into the back of a truck. Insurance decided to fix it, replaced a lot of the bodywork. Three days after getting it back he lost control on a roundabout and slammed the rear axle sideways into the kerb and completely trashed it. Apparently even needing a licence and facing stiff financial penalties is not enough to discourage some people.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Bongo]

Even if it was, it was highly preventable. The risk of failure of these things is well known...

The risk was entirely obvious.

Very true.

Plus it was an unnecessary risk. Cars and planes and phone batteries and things, all have a balance of risk to benefit, which kinda set the "accident" threshold. A truck driver who knows he has a health condition which may cause him to pass out, is not "accidental". A person who knowingly transmits AIDS is not accidental. And so on. Otherwise it starts to sound like something out of Goodfellas, "hey there wasn't anything we could have done about it."

A person who is trying to be careful isn't going to fly drones over a crowd. And as for that TV company which dropped a drone on a skiier's head...

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[thegarbz]

the battery can run out and it can plummet

I know it's stupid to fly things over people, but those scared of drones come up with an incredible number of just baseless risks, such as battery running out. If your drone is cheap and nasty it will likely land in place. If your drone cost more than a few hundred $$ then it will likely return to where it was launched from. Either way it won't simply say I'm flat, let's see if I can plummet onto someone.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[thegarbz]

A car driver losing control and injuring a pedestrian would serve more time.

Are we still talking about America here? You think a car driver would serve a prison sentence for causing a concussion? What kind of weird world are you living in? Most car drivers are lucky to get a prison sentence after driving drunk and drugged through a children's playground trying to score as many points as they can.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ls671]

I thought mass and speed (inertia) might have something to do with it.

For example, mosquitoes and other flying insects can bounce off my building windows without harm but birds usually die doing it. Similarly, it is easy for a tiny toy drone to bounce off a wall but will be much harder for any bigger drone, propeller guards or not.

Try putting propeller guards on this to see if it is going to help it slam into wall as OP suggested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[thegarbz]

Two pounds is about 1 kg, the weight of an average iron mallet, I'd say - more or less. Being hit on your head with a falling mallet could very easily kill you

The ability for something to do damage depends on it's momentum, and that is highly dependent the mass and centre of gravity of the object as it applies force against something. You do a 1kg drone a serious disservice comparing it to an iron mallet. A drone is a complex shape and its weight is distributed over a comparatively large area. While crashing it will be taking a complex path to the ground.

When comparing the likelihood of it killing you remember it's far more likely to be the same as a falling iron mallet, horizontally, hitting a person by the handle rather than the iron centre part. You're far more likely to get a bruise from the mallet's handle.

Comparing it to a rock with all weight centred, and with jagged surfaces, and likely to inflict the same force regardless of how it hits, ... well that's just completely silly.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people don't know that, but concussions are often life-threatening. People can appear to be normal at first and die of a seizure days later. That woman was lucky.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

You hurt someone, you pay the price. You use dangerous equipment in an unsafe way, you pay the price.

You aren't ready to pay the price? Don't fly dangerous things above someone's head.

Welcome to the real world.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep an eye on New Orleans and the guy that just ran into a crowd there.

Yes, you pay for mistakes.

Especially when your mistakes directly hurt others.

Welcome to the real world.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[smallfries]

Was the guy a telecoms guy in the UK - or does the Lotus on a roundabout thing really keep happening?

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideally, a drone detect a low battery condition and lands/returns.

The world is not ideal. Even if low battery is detected, a bad/worn battery may reach low status and then proceed to fail before the sophisticated controller have time to land. Hobbyists build their own drone and may fly with a small battery pack. Anyone may have a worn-out battery. The drone won't think "lets plummet", it will simply fail to maintain control when there is not enough power left to spin motors or even power the controller.

Also, there may be no room to land safely if the drone descend slowly into a densely packed crowd with spinning propellers. A not so dense crowd may still not hear the falling drone, especially if it powered itself off when the propellers broke against the wall. The crowd may be watching something noisier than the drone anyway, and who looks straight up when there is unexpected noise?

But this wasn't a case of hardware failure. This idiot ran the drone into a building and lost control that way. Most people aren't that good pilots - which is why there is a blanket rule "no flying over people". Drones crash now and then, more so than computers. We can discuss if a month inside is "right", but there should definitely be some kind of punishment here. What if it was your girlfriend?

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we still talking about America here?

Yes. 7 years for driving against a one-way street, because people found it 'threatening'.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/27/norwegian-driver-wrong-turn-leads-to-az-prison.html

I'd expect less punishment for a car accident with a concussion only. Driving is legal, flying drones over people is not.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[gravewax]

I both agree and disagree, the problem is community service is hardly something that is going to prevent other idiots from doing the same braindead thing and in the long run the public in general are probably better served by being severe on this sort of thing. Once you set a precedent for treating this highly stupid and dangerous act as just a slap on the risk it no longer represents a deterrent for others.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[stephanruby]

Lithium batteries can act really weird after a number of years. Do not count on people replacing those batteries when they need to.

Also, many settings on a drone can be overridden, and all it takes is a stupid parent giving control to a child, or simply an adult getting intoxicated and flying the drone anyway.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[stephanruby]

A car driver losing control and injuring a pedestrian would serve more time.

It would depend on the context.

For instance, a car driver losing control and injuring a pedestrian during an illegal sideshow in a crowded street would probably serve more time, but a ninety-year-old with a valid drivers license losing control when driving to the farmers market, or someone losing control because he didn't install his tire chains during a winter morning before going to work, would probably get a more lenient sentence.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

But that would require not only a lot of knowledge about guns but also a genuine interest in them.
Someone who builds his own guns aren't going to leave them around for the a toddler to play with.

Now, I'm not an American so my view of the average American might be a bit skewed, but from where I stand the gun problem that the US has isn't so much about the quantity of guns but rather the attitude towards them.
If someone left a gun unattended where I live that would be considered a big red flag. A gun isn't a toy, when not in use you put it away in a safe or a gun cabinet.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you are trying to place yourself in the situation of a negligent driver. Empathy isn't a bad trait but it can sometimes be very hard to figure out how some people think.
I've seen a woman completely letting go of the steering wheel and turn to the passenger to show something with her hands.
There are people that just panics when the phone rings and they start wiggling and try to fish out that phone from their pocket instead of focusing on the road.
There are even people out there who already have the phone out because they are texting instead of looking at the traffic and in some rare cases they are reading a traditional book instead of looking at a phone.
Just failing to drive properly is fairly responsible compared to those cases.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

People die from that, but not routinely. Most people who hit their head will be fine.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

"acting in good faith"

Acting in a way that can predictably cause someone serious bodily harm is not acting in good faith.
If causing harm due to acting like that can warrant up to a year in prison, he got off lightly with 30 days.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Kjella]

The ability for something to do damage depends on it's momentum, and that is highly dependent the mass and centre of gravity of the object as it applies force against something. You do a 1kg drone a serious disservice comparing it to an iron mallet. A drone is a complex shape and its weight is distributed over a comparatively large area. While crashing it will be taking a complex path to the ground. When comparing the likelihood of it killing you remember it's far more likely to be the same as a falling iron mallet, horizontally, hitting a person by the handle rather than the iron centre part. You're far more likely to get a bruise from the mallet's handle.

Not really. The primary cause of momentum is the acceleration from gravity which is essentially constant for a falling drone, air resistance is just a counter-force proportional to the velocity squared. That is to say, the reduction from air resistance only becomes significant when you're falling very fast. A skydiver has a terminal velocity of about 195 km/h, but already a high diver from a 30m height will be close to 100km/h. I know my buddy's DJI Phantom goes up to 120m by default, at that height you'll be at 90% of terminal speed. Unless it's extremely small or light like a feather or a coin, any object dropped from a big height is a lethal weapon. When the rotors stop the body of a drone is quite compact and holds a heavy battery, it'll fall pretty much straight down. You can see a good example of a drone coming down after a complete power loss here.

As for the actual impact the higher the velocity, the less it matters how it hits you or how soft or elastic it is, a stick of butter dropped from a skyscraper will still hit you like a brick. We have a pretty thick skull but the sheer momentum will be like being hit in the head with the full swing of a baseball bat, your brain will bounce around in there like the ball in a pinball game. Sure there are arguably worse things to be hit by, but for the most part we secure tall objects. There's falling coconuts and big icicles and such we can't fully control, but drones are a new threat in the hands of idiots. They're not very dangerous, but in the hands of idiots many things are dangerous.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[jabuzz]

The most famous case I can think of being Natasha Richardson. Fell from standing still on a beginners ski slope, got up and was fine, even rang her husband (Liam Neeson) and was dead less than 24 hours later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[squiggleslash]

A car driver losing control and injuring a pedestrian would serve more time.

In the US, generally not. I've heard of cases where pedestrians have had some fairly grievous permanent injuries after being hit by a car while they were walking on the sidewalk, and the driver hasn't faced charges. This taxi driver, who hopped onto the sidewalk and severed the leg of a pedestrian, is still driving his cab, as an example.

I'm not sure what I think of that. On the one hand, reckless behavior causes tragedies. On the other, pretty much by definition tragedies caused by reckless, rather than deliberate, behavior are accidents - the fact they're avoidable accidents doesn't mean the perpetrators ever intended them to happen. There needs to be consequences, but destroying someone's career seems to be spreading the misery, not preventing more.

A better focus would be on creating systems that make such accidents more difficult. The same, ultimately, is true of drones.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[jabuzz]

I think the test is "should have known" rather than actually know it is dangerous. Some people unfortunately have no concept of danger and as a result do stupid things all the time.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[msauve]

"If it truly was an accident... "

"Accident" isn't a legal term, and has a wide range of connotations. This incident was due to reckless behavior. If you're flying a 2 pound drone over a crowd, you're assuming much greater responsibility than if you're flying it in an empty field. Not only is reckless behavior itself punishable, in this case the behavior resulted in actual injury. 30 days is appropriate.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[CrimsonAvenger]

slap on the risk

Slap on the wrist.

That aside, we've got too many people incarcerated now. We don't need to waste space/money on (relatively) trivial shit - fine him heavily, and be done with it....

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, read the article. Jeez.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil on the road. Happened to me years ago, fortunately the only casualty was a road sign. The next car passing was pretty close to lose control also, even though he could see that I'd just had an accident.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[nightfire-unique]

As it stands, this is not all that different from hurling a mallet or brick out over a crowd "just for a bit of fun"

Hyperbole much?

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[lxrslh]

Most "accidents" are the result of a human being making a decision to do something irresponsible, including the decision to not think about the consequences of their action. I've noticed that news broadcasters now talk about automobile crashes, not accidents.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[AmiMoJo]

Funnily enough he was in telecoms as I recall.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[ATMAvatar]

The deterrent here would probably stem from what I expect to be a pretty high-sum civil case.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Implies that one form of simplicity is unreal, while making equally oversimplified claims. Ironic.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[thegarbz]

I invite you to start again and re read my post. If you want to post something oriels to what I said then start a new thread.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[nedlohs]

Often is a rather large exaggeration. Yes, people die from concussions - however, there are four million concussions annually just in sports (and training/practice) in the US. There'd be a lot fewer high school students if it was "often".

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[kelemvor4]

It seems that he broke FAA rules (I'm not familiar with those, but most countries' rules for model aircraft don't allow them to be flown over crowds). Because of the resulting injury, a stiff sentence would be in order. But in this case, as opposed to violent crimes and the like, there is no benefit in removing this guy from society for a bit, other than making an example out of him. Wouldn't justice be better served with community service? Especially since I'd think the guy is also on the hook to pay a substantial amount in damages to the girl, even if he's only ordered to pay actual damages.

Well.. he'll be ordered to pay damages. Since he's now been convicted of a crime he won't be able to secure a job. Unless he's already independently wealthy, I doubt he'll be able to pay. Luckily for him, in some parts of the world mcdonalds is paying huge amounts. However that probably also means they don't have to deal with hiring someone that's convicted of a crime due to sufficient applicants with clear backgrounds.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if a real aircraft malfunctions and falls out of the sky, are the same labels and punishments applied ?

Is the pilot jailed for ' reckless endangerment ' ( assuming they lived ) because their flight path took them over populated areas ?

How about the mechanic who worked on the aircraft ? Obviously incompetent if the aircraft suffered some sort of mechanical failure. :|

The flight controller who gave them the flight path to follow ?

Accidents happen, though sometime in the recent past we quit realizing it and just blamed folks for being ' reckless '.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ChrisMaple]

Carlyon said John Larsgard has a history of aggressive behavior that received police attention in Alabama, Illinois and California, including a case in which he was accused of running over a man's bicycle in a fit of anger.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

A gun isn't a toy, when not in use you put it away in a safe or a gun cabinet.

When I was a kid, the guns were upstairs, propped against the wall. When dad needed one, one of us kids ran up and got it.

There was never an accidental shooting at our house.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[neilo_1701D]

If it truly was an accident and everyone was acting in good faith I think this is a rather severe overreach by the sentencing party.

Even if it was, it was highly preventable. The risk of failure of these things is well known - the battery can run out and it can plummet and fall on someone's head. Or in this case, a poor pilot can crash the thing into a wall and have it fall on someone's head.

In other words, avoid flying the things above crowds of people because the high risk of injury. The FAA and the drone's instruction manual should make that pretty damn clear.

As a drone pilot, I know that the danger of a decent camera machine simply running out of juice and falling out of the sky is minimal. The pilot gets multiple warnings, and the machine will auto-land if necessarily: just have a look on YouTube for people racing into rivers, lakes and oceans to save the machine as it descends.

However: a decent camera platform is GPS stabilized. Think for a moment how well your stand-alone GPS unit functions with moderately tall buildings around: I can see my position jumping around by half a block at times. So the machine thinks it is hovering at a certain location, and the GPS suddenly says it's much further away. The machine will try to get back to it's position, and that's when you get a building hit, which trashes your props and causes the machine to fall to earth.

So: You DON'T fly over people; you DON'T fly where GPS / GLONASS is sketchy.

He should have known better.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

This was no accident. The retard drone guy INTENTIONALLY flew it over people. I'm gonna say that there was at least warning in the manual NOT to do this? And a semi intelligent person would think: gee, I wonder what would happen if the drone fell out of the sky? Or I hit something and it feel out of the sky?

But the drone retard thought only of himself and not the potential danger HE WAS WARNED ABOUT (again, that pesky manual).

So screw the operator. He did something COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE and should pay.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[TheRaven64]

Concussion covers a multitude of injuries. I've had a few, the worst when I was a child and decided to swing from some scaffolding that turned out to be less stable than I thought. I fell backwards and hit the back of my head on the corner of a doorstep (the concrete - the softer wooden step hadn't been installed yet). I spent the night in hospital, but was fine the following day. In the more mild instances, I've had a brief response check at the time and otherwise continued (though with a splitting headache).

A concussion just means that your head has been hit hard enough that your brain bounces off your skull. That can be fatal, or can be something that you shake off immediately, depending on the amount of force and the angle (and, presumably, how bouncy your brain is).

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[jittles]

It seems that he broke FAA rules (I'm not familiar with those, but most countries' rules for model aircraft don't allow them to be flown over crowds). Because of the resulting injury, a stiff sentence would be in order. But in this case, as opposed to violent crimes and the like, there is no benefit in removing this guy from society for a bit, other than making an example out of him. Wouldn't justice be better served with community service? Especially since I'd think the guy is also on the hook to pay a substantial amount in damages to the girl, even if he's only ordered to pay actual damages.

Most jurisdictions will let you do a 30 day stint like this on weekends. He'll show up after work on Friday and get out to go to work on Monday bright and early. So we're not preventing him from being a productive member of society, but we are preventing him from having the free time to crash a drone into people for a quarter of the year.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[neilo_1701D]

A drone is a complex shape and its weight is distributed over a comparatively large area.

For anything other than a toy-grade drone, the primary mass is the battery, which is concentrated in one area.

While crashing it will be taking a complex path to the ground.

Complex path? They fall straight down. My worst crash came from an in-air propeller failure: it disintegrated. The three remaining propellers and the flight controller worked hard to stabilize the machine, but even with all those forces working hard it dropped like a rock.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

On the Oregon Cost born and raised

Your sig has a misspelling. It says Oregon Cost, and I assume you mean to say Oregon Coast.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[ChrisMaple]

Thanks for the video, it helps a great deal in understanding the potential for harm. The drone lands hard on snow, smashing itself to bits. The center portion appears relatively massive, and it's easy to see that a direct hit from the center portion could cause substantial harm.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ScentCone]

Guns and shootings are also highly preventable. Problem is Americans don't want to grow up and admit the more guns the public has the more gun violence occurs...

All SORTS of violent crime is highly preventable. Far more people are killed every year, for example, using pipes and clubs or other objects than are killed using "assault" rifles or ANY sort of rifle, shotgun, or other long gun. More people are killed with BARE HANDS than are killed by someone using any kind of long gun.

In fact, one of the most common ways to PREVENT someone from being violently killed by an attacker is: pointing a gun at the attacker. Defensive brandishing (and much less often, actualy shooting) of guns - usually handguns - happens hundreds of thousands of times a year. In places where people are allowed to carry, violent crime GOES DOWN. The "more legally owned and used guns equals more crime" meme is demonstrably false.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[drinkypoo]

I both agree and disagree, the problem is community service is hardly something that is going to prevent other idiots from doing the same braindead thing and in the long run the public in general are probably better served by being severe on this sort of thing.

Wrong. Criminalizing this will not have any effect on others because they think they are smart, and it won't happen to them. Even the death penalty is not enough to prevent people from committing murder, you think 90 days will stop people flying drones over crowds?

Once you set a precedent for treating this highly stupid and dangerous act as just a slap on the risk it no longer represents a deterrent for others.

And yet it's already not going to serve as a deterrent to others. Meanwhile, we know that incarceration increases criminal activity. If we're trying to radicalize drone pilots, throwing the book at them is a good way to do that.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[drinkypoo]

Two pounds is about 1 kg, the weight of an average iron mallet, I'd say - more or less.

The weight of the head of the average iron mallet is somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds. A two-pound hammer is not unusual.

Being hit on your head with a falling mallet could very easily kill you - it is only luck that saved this woman.

A drone is not a mallet. It is more spread out. It's still dangerous, but stop with this mallet nonsense. You started from a bogus assumption and are now proceeding on that basis, and you cannot prove anything in this way.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's one thing if it was an open park and it happened it hit the only person there. But the guy was flying it over crowds of people where if it failed, it would've definitely hurt someone. The risk was entirely obvious.

By your reasoning nobody should ever drive or fly because of the obvious risk to other people.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish there was some feasible way of preventing people who don't know what they're talking about from talking, or at least force them to think about what they're saying before they say it.

A crime requires intent. Without intent there is no crime. That's how our justice system works. If you don't like it, lobby your Congressman. In the meantime, without the intent to commit the act there is no crime. It's as simple as that.

Just think about how ridiculous our justice system would be if intent were not required. That would mean a person who had a heart attack and crashed their car into a bus and killed someone would be just as guilty as a drunk driver who did the same thing.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[JaredOfEuropa]

So basically he'll be grounded (just like his drone)... I actually quite like that policy: refrain from completely upsetting his life in order to serve a relatively short sentence, just make him give up his free time for a bit, if the judge thinks community service is too lenient.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[tsqr]

Jail quality really depends on your state. Where I live, a 30-day jail sentence is just really boring. In other places (e.g. California currently) it could be very dangerous.

Unlikely he'd spend any time in jail for this in California. We don't even keep violent felons in jail for long these days. And in LA, when they get out we thank them for their service.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[sjames]

I would suggest that 15 weekends of community service so he can keep his job in order to be able to pay the woman actual and punitive damages would better serve all concerned. I sincerely doubt that after all thet he will be wanting to fly a drone over a crowd again any time soon.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! The drone operator was being a twit and showed absolutely no thought what-so-ever regarding the safety of the crowd of people that he was flying over. 30 days in jail to tell him to stop being a twit and endangering people seems perfectly reasonable to me. After all, he did in fact knock someone unconscious and give them a concussion (which is no laughing matter from a health perspective).

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most murders are crimes of passion, or by mentally unstable people, that is the perpetrators don't consider the consequences when committing the crime. That isn't a valid comparison to someone who likely is in their right mind and is just pursuing a hobby.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[sjames]

Of those, flying over crowds is a problem, and if there are bystanders (admittedly likely) around tall buildings as well, but the others are risks of losing the drone only, not a problem for the rest of us.

Wildly optimistic manufacturer claims are a problem in general, not restricted to drones.

And yes, some people are deeply resistant to learning from their mistakes. That's why things are generally more harsh for repeat offenders.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[drinkypoo]

That isn't a valid comparison to someone who likely is in their right mind and is just pursuing a hobby.

First, it was not a hobby flight. He's a photographer and he was working. Second, if they were in their right mind, they would be responsible enough not to fly their craft over crowds.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[GLMDesigns]

You ignore the fact that there are more guns now than 20 years ago and yet shootings are down.
You also ignore the fact that there are many areas with lots of guns without violence.

Interesting, isn't it, that the most violent areas are the ones in which guns are already banned.

Just keep ignoring facts and expect to be paid attention to. See how far it gets you.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[tlhIngan]

It's unfortunate that a lot of the marketing for drones highlights their ability to fly in risky places. Over water, over cliffs, over crowds, through fireworks, around tall buildings.

Well, drones are GREAT for flying into risky places. Places in general where you don't want to send a human because of the risk in either traveling to the location, the risk of photographing at that location, or other issues.

But those risky places are places where if the drone fails, you lose a piece of hardware - it falls into the woods and maybe breaks a branch of two. There's generally no risk to people underneath (because there aren't any).

Flights over crowds and fireworks aren't "risky flights", they're flights meant to attract people to the hobby without considering risk ot people on the ground.

Manufacturers prefer to show their drones doing things that human normally can't do - like take video of people doing stunts, but this video is done safely away from crowds so failure is just loss of hardware.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two pounds is about 1 kg, the weight of an average iron mallet

So about two pounds, then?

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Rick Schumann]

Well if you're going to be like that about it then you may as well advocate for banning any object that can be used as a weapon, which is essentially anything that's not nailed down to a stationary object. Additionally you'd have to outlaw people's bodies, since there are dozens of different martial arts that can be used to injure and kill people -- including just hands around someone's throat, preventing them from breathing.

I want to stop violence!

That's nice, Viriginia; but face it: You have to change hearts and minds to get people to stop treating other people like shit; taking away the implements that can be used for violent acts does nothing, and is just a knee-jerk reaction to the problem, not a well-thought-out solution. Try working to get people to not want to commit violent acts, and to identify people who might be prone to violent acts (mentally/emotionally ill, for instance) and devise ways to 'fix' them or at least prevent them from doing so, because people intent on committing violent acts will find ways and means to do so, regardless of banning any sort of ostensible 'weapons'. Otherwise you live in a world like at the top of this comment, where anything and everything is banned (and everyone is likely watched and guarded like convicts in prison, 24/7/365) just in case someone decides to do something violent against someone else.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Khashishi]

On the other hand, most accidents are avoidable, and we do want people to actually care enough to avoid them.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Rick Schumann]

All SORTS of violent crime is highly preventable. Far more people are killed every year, for example, using pipes and clubs or other objects than are killed using "assault" rifles or ANY sort of rifle, shotgun, or other long gun. More people are killed with BARE HANDS than are killed by someone using any kind of long gun.

Exactly. Gun violence makes for better viewer ratings of the news shows, though, because it's more sensational. People who want to commit violent acts against other people will find ways and means to do it, up to and including their bare hands, regardless of how many 'weapons' you ban.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[luis_a_espinal]

I'm not entirely sure what an "iron mallet" is, but 2 pounds is like 2 blocks of butter. It's pretty heavy weight to fall on you from a tall height, but it really depends on the density, shape and elasticity of what is hitting you. 1 kg of feathers landing on you probably won't do a lot of damage, a 1kg cube of lead would likely kill you. The average shape and materials of drones, being plastic which is usually somewhat springy, will fit somewhere in the middle between lead and feathers. Anyway it's not immediately obvious that a 1kg drone falling from a height would be particularly legal on average.

I'm pretty sure a 2lbs drone is a lot more solid than 2lbs of butter or 2lbs of feathers. Not as dense as a mallet, but dense enough to transfer enough kinetic juice to kill you if it hits you in the right place.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone putting a parachute on these things?
What if a drone is losing altitude quickly (sudden system-wide crash), a device could pop the parachute and arrest the quick descent.
It would avoid bodily damager if it was flying over people, or if not, would avoid damaging your drone.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

It probably happened at a hundred thousand other houses that year, but not your house, so it's ok.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

All SORTS of violent crime is highly preventable. Far more people are killed every year, for example, using pipes and clubs or other objects than are killed using "assault" rifles or ANY sort of rifle, shotgun, or other long gun.

Did you think nobody would notice what you're leaving out, ScentCone? Handguns. Hmm.

I wonder why. Is it because Handguns make up well the vast number of firearms homicides?

More people are killed with BARE HANDS than are killed by someone using any kind of long gun.

That's a bit harder to show since the FBI doesn't separate hands and feet. It even includes "pushing" which means...yeah, that's not so help, since you could push somebody in front of some other idiot with a shotgun!

In fact, one of the most common ways to PREVENT someone from being violently killed by an attacker is: pointing a gun at the attacker. Defensive brandishing (and much less often, actualy shooting) of guns - usually handguns - happens hundreds of thousands of times a year.

Claims of such are rampant, but the methodology to collect that data is sketchy at best, though at least you are no longer citing the very discredited Kleck-Gertz study that got into the millions. It was a joke.

In places where people are allowed to carry, violent crime GOES DOWN. The "more legally owned and used guns equals more crime" meme is demonstrably false.

Yet we have a president claiming criminal violence has resulted in a country full of carnage, and promising to send Federal troops into Chicago to disarm the population. Are you going to tell him no?

That'll be a first. Of course, you should get him to look at the Chicago PD, and its demonstrated failings, but perhaps you can work up the courage to do so.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

So if we want to make a significant dent in violent crime, we can:
A) Prevent a few bad people from using a gun, or
B) Prevent thousands of people from using clubs, etc.
Hmm...

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[T.E.D.]

In places where people are allowed to carry, violent crime GOES DOWN. The "more legally owned and used guns equals more crime" meme is demonstrably false.

Got data for this assertion?

My attempt to find backup for it produced a couple of lists. The list of states with the highest level of gun homicides (suicides not counted) are mostly Southern states, which are also all very pro-gun. The list of states with the lowest level of gun homicides are almost ALL rural Western and New England states, (most of which are also very pro-gun). So basically there's no evidence gun laws have any impact at all. It looks a lot like the difference is more cultural than legal.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

That's great, but I'd much rather someone come at me with a knife or a bat than with a gun. Because with a gun they didn't have to come at me at all and I'm probably already dead. So, in closing, proposing to do something that is impossible and will never happen in society is not much of a solution at all.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

*cough* 10 hour battery life *cough*

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[T.E.D.]

A car driver losing control and injuring a pedestrian would serve more time.

...or someone caught engaging in celebratory gunfire that hit someone. Had this happen to a kid of a friend recently. Yeah, the guy probably thought, although it was dangerous to do in a crowd, the bullets most likely wouldn't hit anyone, and he'd like to do it. A short amount of jail time is entirely appropriate for that. This guy should feel fortunate it wasn't longer.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

you do know that your letters to penthouse NRA delusions do not match reality don't you kid. Your little penis replacement does nothing to improve your safety. It endangers everyone around you and your attempts at improving your manhood with it don't actually work.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ScentCone]

Put it in context. The states with the highest level of "gun" homicides are also the states with the highest rates of ANY kind of homicide, including stabbings, beatings, etc.

Yes, it IS cultural, not legal. Which is why a place like Chicago - which has absolutely draconian gun laws - none the less has extremely high murder rates. But we're not talking about illegally possessed guns. We're talking about what happens to the rate at which the average innocent person is violently attacked before and after the place they live makes it legal for them to defend themselves, especially outside their homes. None of that has anything to do with hundreds of gang members in Chicago or New Orleans killing each other with (mostly) stolen or illegally owned guns.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

Perhaps drones of over a certain size should have an extra propeller for safety, at least to be flown over crowds.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ScentCone]

Did you think nobody would notice what you're leaving out, ScentCone? Handguns. Hmm.

Of course I'm not "leaving them out." They weren't the point I was making. The press loves to go on breathlessly about "assault weapons," and not only has no idea what they're talking about (technically, spec-wise), but mostly they have absolutely no willingness ot be honest about the actual numbers involved.

Claims of such are rampant, but the methodology to collect that data is sketchy at best, though at least you are no longer citing the very discredited Kleck-Gertz study that got into the millions. It was a joke.

Let's say that the most conservative interpretation of such studies are coming in ten times too high. That still means that defensive use of guns to prevent injury and death hugely eclipses the rate at which criminals use guns to hurt and kill. Still true of those studies over estimate by 20 TIMES.

Yet we have a president claiming criminal violence has resulted in a country full of carnage, and promising to send Federal troops into Chicago to disarm the population. Are you going to tell him no?

Why are you lying? I mean, really? What do you hope to achieve by spouting off stuff that's demonstrably not true? I guess you're hoping it'll score rhetorical points with lazy, low-information readers who pay attention to anonymous cowards, but ... really?

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[budgenator]

Some how I suspect the lady's injuries were exaggerated, 18 X 18 weight 2 lbs, doesn't seem like the terminal velocity would be high enough for a concussion.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[khallow]

But in this case, as opposed to violent crimes and the like, there is no benefit in removing this guy from society for a bit, other than making an example out of him.

Which let us note, is a considerable benefit. I'm not seeing the cause for complaint here. The operator did act in a way that was likely to cause injury. That's one of the big reasons why violent crimes are punished as well.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

You ignore the fact that there are more guns now than 20 years ago and yet shootings are down.

You ignore the fact that there is far less crime now, across the board. Which is better than the President, who is insisting we're suffering from an explosive growth in crime.

You also ignore the fact that there are many areas with lots of guns without violence.

Yes, military bases have lots of guns, but a lot more gun control.

Interesting, isn't it, that the most violent areas are the ones in which guns are already banned.

Interesting, isn't it, that the most violent areas don't have an actual paucity of guns, for some reason.

Just keep ignoring facts and expect to be paid attention to. See how far it gets you.

Facts are slippery things, and are often changed to suit a political or monetary agenda. Like the Gun Lobby's.

They've been frenetic to increase gun sales and enrich themselves for years. That's also why they're supporting this military expansion.

Besides, haven't you noticed the fact deficient buffoon in office? Facts don't matter, feelings do, and far too many people FEEL they need a gun.

Even if it's not logical.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[budgenator]

If they were really serious about stopping gun violence the +5 years for a gun makes sense, add another 5 for from a vehicle, and make it sequential not concurrent.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[budgenator]

First, it was not a hobby flight. He's a photographer and he was working.

That alone makes the operation of the drone totally illegal, all that are allowed are hobby flights without special approval from the FAA.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[budgenator]

Ours lets inmates work their jobs while in jail, within limits.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[HornWumpus]

Just pull bullshit numbers out of your ass. It's what we expect from you.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Registered Coward v2]

I think the test is "should have known" rather than actually know it is dangerous. Some people unfortunately have no concept of danger and as a result do stupid things all the time.

That's why we have the concept of the "reasonable person" to determine if an act is negligent. Just because someone is too stupid to realize they are acting unreasonably doesn't absolve them of liability for their actions.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Rick Schumann]

I know it's a cliche to say it, but if you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns. People who want to shoot someone bad enough are going to get them anyway. It's a moot point regardless because everyone has a constitutional right to bear arms and the day that the Constitution is changed is the day we'll have bigger problems in this country than who does and does not get to own guns.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you think nobody would notice what you're leaving out, ScentCone? Handguns. Hmm.

Of course I'm not "leaving them out." They weren't the point I was making.

Yes, ScentCone, you left them out. You didn't mention them in your recounting, that means you left them out. You do have to admit, you did exclude them.\

If you want to be honest, and not disingenuous.

The press loves to go on breathlessly about "assault weapons," and not only has no idea what they're talking about (technically, spec-wise), but mostly they have absolutely no willingness ot be honest about the actual numbers involved.

Oh, so you are now claiming there was a purpose for excluding them. Odd that you're trying to claim intent with your actions while denying that you took them.

But if you wanted to make that point, you'd have included the handgun data. That would show something. But you didn't. You left them out. And I noticed.

Not that the post to which you replied made a point about assault weapons, it was rather generic. You're only leaping to this distinction because, of course, you don't actually support dealing with handgun violence, so that's why you left them out, but you're so glad to attack the press. They are your perennial nemesis.

You forget to mention, though, that it's actually the police that want the "assault weapons" banned, as those are a threat they don't want to deal with. They really don't.

Let's say that the most conservative interpretation of such studies are coming in ten times too high. That still means that defensive use of guns to prevent injury and death hugely eclipses the rate at which criminals use guns to hurt and kill. Still true of those studies over estimate by 20 TIMES.

Let's say you're already willing to admit that the data could be off by 10-20 times. Those are your own words, so you are. Why not 50? Why not 100? You have no way of proving it isn't completely and utterly off by huge amounts, and that the effectiveness is unprovable. That takes you a long way away from actual reliability. Basically, you have zero demonstrable proof, and are stuck with mere conjecture.

The fact is, defensive gun use is a conjectural argument. It might well amount to less than the number of people shot by a toddler in the backseat of a car.

Why are you lying? I mean, really? What do you hope to achieve by spouting off stuff that's demonstrably not true? I guess you're hoping it'll score rhetorical points with lazy, low-information readers who pay attention to anonymous cowards, but ... really?

That's what I wonder about you. Maybe somebody is paying you, but if so, you should give them a refund.

It's ok though, Trump is a punk, he doesn't know when somebody is lying to him, he himself just LEARNED that healthcare is complicated. He still believes that the Central Park 5 were guilty, even though they've actually been exonerated.

Watch him try to justify disarming the American people. He doesn't care about your civil liberties at all.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump said the murder rate is the highest in 47 years, so you must be wrong. As far as how far it gets you, he's President witha tremendous victory over the failing US. Sad!

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

As an American who grew up shooting (yes, it is a sport), I had my first bb gun when I was 5 and my first rifle when I was 9. I was only allowed to shoot them supervised until my parents were satisfied that I was competent and responsible enough to shoot it safely on my own in both cases.

From what I have seen, the issue with accidental shootings (which by the way is about .1% the number of fatalities from medical mistakes and about 1% of the fatalities from preventable, hospital acquired fatal infections) is this. There are two types of people out there. 99.99% of the 55,000,000 gun owners are extremely responsible and dependable. Around half of households own guns in the US, meaning that about 175 million people have access to firearms. This means that at any given time, there are a few thousand irresponsible gun owners who likely did not grow up with guns and bought one because they thought it would be "cool". Rather than educating and training themselves (this can easily be done through the local gun range, most of which are run by retired LEOs or retired military), they illegally chuck their gun in the closet, sometimes loaded, and forget about it.

They don't teach their kids about guns or show their kids videos of people shooting watermelons or take them to the range and show them how to shoot and what happens to anything that gets shot. So one day their kids find the gun and play with it and someone sometimes gets shot and die (around 600 per year in a country of 360,000,000).

The vast majority of shootings are intentional. The solution is to execute violent criminals who use a gun in the commission of a violent crime. We used to do this, and the repeat offenders were very infrequent and the crime rate was far lower. Now we pay to store these irredeemable scum for 20 years so they can learn how to be better criminals and not get caught and then we turn them loose back into society, and they frequently do worse crimes.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

Or cut the violent crime by 70% by executing violent criminals like was done 100 years ago. Murder, attempted murder, violent rape etc should be punishable by death. Rope is cheap, hang em by the neck until dead. No more violent re-offenders. Problem solved.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

Factcheck.org are currently a bunch of progressive shills and liars. Their name is currently an oxymoron. They should be called conflate_and_confuse.shill. You fell into their trap of conflating gun homicides with homicides (GUN HOMICIDES != ALL HOMICIDES). If you get murdered, you don't care what killed you, you are just unhappy because you were murdered. I will say it slowly for all the libtards in the audience. In all of the concealed carry states, when gun ownership/legal carry was made more/available, the TOTAL HOMICIDE RATE AND TOTAL VIOLENT CRIME RATES WENT DOWN, A LOT (25-35% OR MORE). CONCEALED CARRY BY LAW ABIDING CITIZENS DETERS CRIME EFFECTIVELY, USUALLY WITHOUT THE DISCHARGE OF THE FIREARM...

http://www.washingtontimes.com...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015...

Conversely, when the UK/Ireland/Jamaica/Washington DC/Chicago banned firearms, their murder and/or violent crime rates all spiked up markedly... Progressives, put down your reality distortion field. No one is buying your bullshit anymore. Citizens should be able to concealed carry as spelled out in the constitution for the same reason that police officers carry: firearms are very good at projecting superior force over a distance.

http://crimeresearch.org/2013/...

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[ScentCone]

I don't have to "admit" I left them out, because I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT THEM. I also left out deaths by arson, and deaths by insane jihaddis running people down with stolen trucks. Should I "admit" that, too?

Including handgun data doesn't change the point at all. In fact it makes my point stronger. Because most life-saving, crime-stopping use of guns is performed with handguns, not long guns.

Let's say you're already willing to admit that the data could be off by 10-20 times. Those are your own words, so you are. Why not 50? Why not 100? You have no way of proving it isn't completely and utterly off by huge amounts, and that the effectiveness is unprovable. That takes you a long way away from actual reliability. Basically, you have zero demonstrable proof, and are stuck with mere conjecture.

So what you're saying is that you've never actually looked at any of the research in question, and you're willing to wave your hands and say that the thousands of routinely police-reported uses of guns in personal defense never happen. None of them. There's no way that research can be even 5% true, you're saying. Why didn't I say "let's assume it's off by 50%?" Because I have no reason to think that's true. For purposes of showing how silly the conversation is, I allowed for the sake of argument that position that the numbers are off by even 20 times. I don't think that's even remotely the case. But even if we were to absurdly assume that all of the state, local, and federal law enforcement reports on the subject are over-reporting by 20 times, the defensive use cases are still wildly larger than the criminal murders. How are you not following this?

The fact is, defensive gun use is a conjectural argument.

No, it's not. LEOs, every day, report on exactly such things. "Mr. Jones shot his assailant, wounding the man." "The pharmacist, fearing for the safety of his customers, brandished a pistol, causing the robber to flee."

I understand, you think that both Mr. Jones, and the pharmacist, and the police who do things like review video of such events are all lying. It's not a question of whether or not these things happen, it's a question of why you think that wishing them away is somehow intellectually meaningful. Do you also wish away lives saved by airbags in cars, or the effectiveness of commercial alarm systems, or other things that for some reason annoy you?

That's what I wonder about you.

Why? You're the one making up stuff. Hard not to miss your unwillingness to link to a discussion about "sending the military into Chicago" (you do understand, right, that it's the Governor of that state that has to request the activation of his state national guard, right? do you get how this works?). You're the one trying so very hard to pretend that Trump didn't routinely, explicitly refer to the carnage taking place in crime-ridden inner cities (you know, like Chicago - where the local slaughter rate is, incredibly, even higher so far this year than it was last year - which is astounding). He hasn't said anything about "disarming the population," he's said precisely the opposite - he'd prefer that law abiding citizens be allowed, if they see fit, to defend themselves. And that the criminals who infest places like Chicago and who are responsible for dozens of murders in any given weekend are the ones finally subjected to law enforcement for what they do. But no ... you fantasize that's he's talking about sending in the military to disarm the public. Do you even listen to yourself?

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

I think you mean negligent injury? Violent crimes are typically categorized as containing intent, while negligent crimes, regardless of level of injury, do not require or contain intent.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Oligonicella]

Having people already in jail is of no consideration when sentencing the next, else you're effectively rolling back crimes. And this wasn't trivial shit, relative or otherwise. You now have no argument.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone was harmed. You may want an Open Skies! policy with respect to drones, but what about drone operators respecting the rights of others?

Some of these drone operators are irresponsible jerks. This particular irresponsible jerk harmed someone. Some sort of penalty is warranted here and I just don't buy that a bylaw ticket and a fine cut it. I have no problem with 30 days in jail to contemplate being an irresponsible jerk. Remember when a drunken display down main street would get you 30 days? So why is it exactly, that when you harm someone, that is a simple bylaw offense that you can brush off as "equipment failure, no one could see that happening"?

We should not have to walk around with hard hats and fearful glances into the sky.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[twebb72]

More people are killed with BARE HANDS than are killed by someone using any kind of long gun.

Maybe so, but your hands can do lots of things, where as hand guns and assault weapons are designed specifically with only one purpose in mind.

By applying that same logic, those types of firearms are simply not needed since your hands are equally or more effective than guns

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

30 days overkill? Not sure I necessarily agree. Why you might ask?

Risk. As the drone operator, in this case, during a parade with copious amounts of attendees below where he would be operating the drone, he carries the risk associated with anything that happens to the drone he is controlling.

In this case, he lost control of his drone, other, whatever... the result of which knocked a woman unconscious, bruised a second person. I won't onto other potential worse comparisons of hitting children or even a baby, the standing point is that he accepted any and all risk, of the events that transpired. HE, is the one controlling the device.

Now, is 30 days an overreach, as you say? Maybe, but also not necessarily. He'll likely not be able to fly a drone anytime soon, maybe ever, and I'm sure the civil lawsuit incoming will hurt financially, but would 30 days be just sentence for assault on 2 people despite showing lack of intent? He obviously didn't intend for that to happen, but nevertheless, it did. It being an accident DOES NOT absolve one of the social/civil responsibility that he caused injury to other people in a public setting.

Would 30 days in jail be enough of solidify the memory that his actions, despite no harmful intent, had negative consequences. And more importantly, is he type of person, stupidly enough, to break whatever future restriction is coming his way with regard to operating drones?

Perhaps a better way to look at this from a regulation standpoint, and thee FAA and commercial drone licensing. If this was for 'commercial' use, over a parade to capture video, perhaps there should be 'licensing' here, and more importantly, the requisite professional/personal insurance that would go along with in, in the event a situation like this occurs. Like cars, as we see here, personally operating drones in circumstances can cause injury. We aren't there yet, but it would certainly cover this scenario. If 'malice' is shown, as we see with car accidents, intent, then authorities would necessarily step it.

So 30 days in jail? Not entirely unrealistic, however I'd certainly expect with time, and prevalence of these type of events, the public being injured by drones, to start taking a more thorough look at law, regulation, and justice. Perhaps he is in that awkward position of being one of the first. That's too bad, but if he didn't know or accept the risks involved, he shouldn't have taken this activity on.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[T.E.D.]

So I take it the answer to my question is, "No, I don't have any actual data to back my statement up."

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have to "admit" I left them out, because I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT THEM.

Yes, I noticed you left them out. That you're having a problem admitting it is a very telling sign.

I also left out deaths by arson, and deaths by insane jihaddis running people down with stolen trucks. Should I "admit" that, too?

Yes, you left them out too, and that would be bad if the conversation had been about violent deaths in general. It wasn't though, it was about "guns" in a more generic sense. Of course, if you were including them, you'd have to admit they're almost inconsequential. So go ahead, include their numbers.

Of course, if you want, you could also look at the actual deaths by fire and the deaths by vehicles, but I know you won't, because you'd rather not look at that and admit that insane jihadists are not a significant problem in the US.

Including handgun data doesn't change the point at all. In fact it makes my point stronger.

See, this is the problem, you're being inconsistent. You refuse to admit you left them out, yet you claim they're relevant to your point, and make it strong.

This is a losing game for you ScentCone, because you keep assassinating your own character.

Because most life-saving, crime-stopping use of guns is performed with handguns, not long guns.

Except you left them out. You tried to reduce the conversation about violent use of firearms to the exceptional patterns, while leaving out the far larger number caused by handguns, a deliberate and willful omission that you're refusing to admit, while disingenuously trying to distract us from your choice to do so.

So what you're saying is that you've never actually looked at any of the research in question, and you're willing to wave your hands and say that the thousands of routinely police-reported uses of guns in personal defense never happen. None of them.

What I'm saying is that I've looked at the research in question, and no, there are not thousands of routinely police-reported uses of guns in personal defense.

In fact, I've looked at some of the research, and I see them claiming that the police don't take reports enough, so they have to increase the numbers to reflect what they think is true.

There's no way that research can be even 5% true, you're saying. Why didn't I say "let's assume it's off by 50%?" Because I have no reason to think that's true. For purposes of showing how silly the conversation is, I allowed for the sake of argument that position that the numbers are off by even 20 times. I don't think that's even remotely the case. But even if we were to absurdly assume that all of the state, local, and federal law enforcement reports on the subject are over-reporting by 20 times, the defensive use cases are still wildly larger than the criminal murders. How are you not following this?

I'm pointing out that there aren't state, local, or federal law enforcement reports on the subject that are definitive and provable. In fact, the range of claims ranges from under 75,000 (Hemenway) to over 4.5 million (NSPOV). That's a wide band to cover. In fact, it's 60 times from one to another.

Sorry, but the more you try to make your case, the more you dig your own hole.

No, it's not. LEOs, every day, report on exactly such things. "Mr. Jones shot his assailant, wounding the man." "The pharmacist, fearing for the safety of his customers, brandished a pistol, causing the robber to flee."

Every day? That's 365 a year! But they also report things like this:

Houston police officers were called to a shooting at an apartment complex in west Houston where the body of a man in his early 20s was discovered with a single gunshot in the upper torso.

A teen is dead after he's accidentally shot by a 12-year-old Sunday afternoon.
Pe

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

FBI says: false.

From 2007 to 2011, 4058 people were killed with "personal weapons (hands, fists, feet etc.)", and 3918 with rifles and shotguns. However: there are also 9361 killed with "other firearms" or "firearms, type not stated". If we assume that the types of these are divided in the same proportion as those where the weapon is more precisely described, then over 900 of these would be with "long guns" - bringing the total to over 4800.

The total for "blunt objects" is only 2918, so that claim is comprehensively wrong.

I don't know of any reputable statistics on "defensive brandishing". I know it gets talked about a lot, but nobody seems to have come up with a plausible way of working out how often it really happens. If you know of some, I'm all ears.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

Everyone knows accidental deaths due to firearms is out of control in the US. I didn't see the need to feed baby his formula.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great, but I'd much rather someone come at me with a knife or a bat than with a gun. Because with a gun they didn't have to come at me at all and I'm probably already dead.

The typical mortality of a thoracic gunshot wound is only around 20%, compare to 15% for a stab wound. So while you most likely wouldn't die from either, you'd be better off avoiding both.

Unless you've got some serious training, avoiding a knife lunge or bat swing is not really going to happen. You'd be better off getting out of the local gang or illegal drug trade, which would drop your chance of being stabbed/shot/beaten by orders of magnitude (and down to European/Australian levels).

So, in closing, proposing to do something that is impossible and will never happen in society is not much of a solution at all.

Removing guns from the US would require such a huge change in the cultural and legal landscape that it's really a similar solution.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

The career criminals who would still have the guns aren't the ones killing most of the innocents. Make it harder for the average person to get a gun and at least the crazies might not be able to figure it out. Maybe they get a gun that they have to reload and can only kill three people instead of fifty. That is who you want to keep the guns away from. Plus it doesn't hurt that you will make it much more difficult for the career criminals to get guns.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[chihowa]

His reckless disregard for the safety of others put somebody in the hospital! That's the sort of thing that gets you a little jail time (note: we're not talking prison here). That's real, demonstrable threat-to-others sort of behavior.

Let out the pot smokers and publicly intoxicated, but the people who hurt others shouldn't be the ones who get off with just a fine.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's been convicted of a misdemeanor. That's not going to hurt his chances of a job and most places don't even ask about anything but felonies.

Your levels of over the top hysteria would impact your job prospects more than a misdemeanor would.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

He was charged with reckless endangerment, which is more severe than simple negligence. He didn't intend to hurt anybody, but his actions were likely to hurt somebody and he did them anyway.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[HornWumpus]

Double down on stupid. Good job.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of "innocents" killed by guns in the US is very small. The amount of effort (and money, and all of the follow-on effects of trying to make such a fundamental change to the culture) required to remove guns from the US is not worth the return.

We'd get a much better ROI by just medicating the hysterical people who can't do proper risk analysis.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Etcetera]

Most murders are crimes of passion, or by mentally unstable people, that is the perpetrators don't consider the consequences when committing the crime. That isn't a valid comparison to someone who likely is in their right mind and is just pursuing a hobby.

Begging the question a little. Most jurisdictions distinguish murder from manslaughter by whether there was premeditation.

A true "crime of passion" usually gets manslaughter. Murder is when you're planning ahead and are shown to have fully considered your actions in advance.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

The point is that I would almost definitely have a gun wound at that point but still have a chance to avoid being stabbed by a knife. So into the 15% for a knife wound factor in the likelihood of being able to physically defend yourself against a bullet versus defending yourself against a knife.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the OP said "guns", not long guns, but the majority of your argument was restricted to long guns only. Far more people are killed by guns than any other method you mentioned. Rifles and other long guns aren't the gun of choice for carrying around, and are less likely to be used that a handgun. In 2014, for example, 510 homicides were committed by long gun, 435 by blunt objects, 660 by hands/feet, etc., and 5,562 by handgun. Also, there were an additional 1,959 murders by firearms of a type not stated in the reports. Firearms were the weapon used in 8,124 homicides out of 11,961 total in 2014. If a gun wasn't available, the vast majority of these homicides were unlikely to have occurred at all. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2010-2014.xls Source: FBI

Also, violent crime went down everywhere, including those areas that didn't allow concealed carry. It's incomplete information when you state it the way you did.

No one argues that legally used guns equal more crime, as you stated. If a gun is used legally, then a crime didn't happen by definition. However, it is absolutely true that the more guns that are available, a higher opportunity for violent crimes exists. And the more guns that are available, with a loophole that allows purchasing without a background check, the easier it is for violent criminals to acquire them.

You really need to back up the claim that defensive brandishing happens "hundreds of thousands of times a year", as that estimate sounds, on the face of it, completely made up.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[FormOfActionBanana]

http://capslockcheck.com/

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[FormOfActionBanana]

If he was flying that thing he should have had liability insurance. I flew and I had $2M liability cover. Thankfully, I never hurt anybody.

I also did not overfly crowds of people, because that is illegal and I followed the rules!

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[FormOfActionBanana]

Yes! On all counts. Professional licensed people in aviation follow procedures and rules that, increasingly, are standing the test of time. Those who are reckless and deviate from the rules are held accountable for their mistakes when it harms someone.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[fluffernutter]

Canada and the US. One of them has a per capata rate of accidental deaths due to firearms NINE TIMES the other. I'll let you guess which one is highest.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have used a tether. I have seen drones operated safely over crowds of people, and it's always with a retractable tether so the craft can't crash into the crowd if it fails.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Someone who builds his own guns aren't going to leave them around for the a toddler to play with."

That was kind of my point. They certainly won't do that as they'd be in trouble for having a banned weapon.
But what they will do is create a black market.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw this thread while reviewing with mod points. Decided that an AC tip was more valuable than moderating the thread.

IMO, the AC is trolling you. You should have clarified that people scream about long guns, while hand guns are used for most crimes, and then left it alone.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, the AC is trolling you. You should have clarified that people scream about long guns, while hand guns are used for most crimes, and then left it alone.

ScentCone's not even interested in that distinction, it's just a desire to scream and rant, over imagined slights and offenses.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the point is that your obsession with guns is silly and the likelihood of a non-gang member dealing with being shot/stabbed/beaten is very low.

The fact that you're making this comparison with a straight face and as guidance for your recommendations regarding other countries making fundamental changes just speaks to your hysteria.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Disagree, too many of these idiots going around buying drones and thinking they're a professional that can disregard all the FAA rules, fly over people's heads and are genuinely ruining things for everyone. They need to come down hard on this guy, and he deserves longer than 30 days in jail IMO for what he has done.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

Sorry, you must be new to the interwebs. All caps is shouting, used for those with denser cranial structures.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[smallfries]

It could almost be a stereotype.

The guy that I'm thinking of had turned his bonus cheque into something fast and sporty. After a minor scrape with a truck he had blamed the car, the road and the other driver. A week later when lost it at a roundabout he didn't admit the reason straight away - but after a few beers it was gently teased out of him that it was just too much power for his level of skill. He traded it in for something much slower.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[T.E.D.]

Sorry, you must be new to the interwebs. All caps is shouting, used by those with denser cranial structures.

FTFY

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[GLMDesigns]

The murder rate is "increasing" at the highest rate in 47 years. This is due to violence in places like Chicago.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[GLMDesigns]

There are many counties with large gun ownership and low crime rates. Crime rates as low as in Europe.

I'm blocked at work from getting these stats.

The point I'm contesting is that gun ownership leads to murder. It does not.
If gun ownership lead to more murders we would see a correlation even if the overall murder rate went down.

Even in a broad sense we know this to be true. There are more guns today than 20 years ago. If there was a correlation between gun ownership and murder than we would see that those areas with a higher percentage of gun ownership would have more murders. We would see a correlation between the rate of growth of gun ownership and murders. We don't see that correlation.

It is foolishness, a lie in fact, to assert that more guns equals more murders.

As far as the gun lobby is concerned. I am the gun lobby. The gun lobby is not evil corporations. It is millions of people who pay GOA and NRA dues; who fund raise. The amount of monies provided by gun manufacturers to the total amount is small (less than a 1/4 of the monies received).

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

Sure, because under no circumstances where people are conflating the issue and confusing people is it appropriate to put extra emphasis on your response...

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[stoatwblr]

I'll point out that the violent death rates in comparable western countries which don't allow carrying of handguns in public is around 1/10 of the rates seen in the USA.

And that's AFTER stripping out self inflicted gun deaths (which are 50-100 times higher in the USA than any other western country)

Even with those stripped out, the risk to a USA gun owner of being killed or injured by an attacker is three to five times higher than that of someone who _doesn't_ carry a gun - and more often than not, that death or injury is carried out with the victim's own weapon.

I grew up in a country with per-capita gun ownership rates 5 times higher than the USA - but with strict licensing and a total ban on handguns outside secure target ranges (when transported they must be disassembled and in a locked safe - even then only for transport between the range and a gunsmith. Personal possession of a handgun at home is completely prohibited). The violent crime rate in that country is less than 10% of the USA and non-accidental firearm deaths are so rare as to be national headlines for weeks. Cops have guns in their cars, but the act of unlocking them requires 5 pages of paperwork and they are not allowed to wear or carry siderams on patrol unless thery are a member of a response team, on a response job. The rate of civilian deaths from police is less than 0.5% of the USA and the rate of deaths _of_ police is less than 1% of the USA. (Shooting someone's dog requires a court order unless it happens to be attacking farm animals or people at the time - and attacking means "drawn blood")

But sure, let's rave on about how much safer you feel when carrying a sidearm, instead of looking at actual stats on the issue. It's like how USA media is screaming about school shootings when they were so common 40-50 years ago that they seldom made state news, let alone national media.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[stoatwblr]

The problem with "assault weapons" (carbines) is not the weapons.

The problem is the mindset kind of people who are attracted to them, mainly based on how they look.

Carbines are _soley_ intended for military use. Accuracy isn't important so much as being able to make the opponent keep his head down and stationary whilst someone else with an accurate weapon is targetting the opponent.

Wannabe play soldiers carrying around AR15s and their ilk are generally regarded with distain by REAL trained soldiers, especially those who've actually had to deal with the consequences of being on the receiving end of the things. Guns are not shiny toys and play soldiers should stick with wooden guns and bang bang noises.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[stoatwblr]

" deaths by insane jihaddis running people down with stolen trucks"

You are statistically far more likely to be shot by a toddler holding a handgun in any given year than to ever see the event you described, let alone be targetted by one (For that matter apart from 9/11 you've been more likely to be killed by a domestic terrorist like Tomothy McVeigh, a white supremicist - or even a simple stray bullet(*) than by any kind of foreign terrorist, since the 1960s)

The actual number of people killed by any kind of terrorist action in the USA since 9/11 is an easy one: Zero

And the saudi arabian aircraft hijackers used box cutters to gain control - not guns. Not only that but they assumed that they'd need months of special training to fly such an aircraft, when flying into a building only takes enough knowledge to keep the thing straight/level and not crash before you get there.

(*) "Stray bullets" kill at least 100 people per year in the USA. That's another cost of your obsession with self protection, seeming inability to realise that what goes out of a gun barrel doesn't magically become harmless unicorn poop if it misses the target and the target isn't in front of a large solid object and fixation with trying to shoot at anything without thinking about the consequences. Perhaps if bullets had trackable serial numbers and there were harsh penalties for this kind of thing, death rates might decrease somewhat. A typical handgun bullet fired at a police helicoptor or power pole insulator will land 2-7 miles away and be just as deadly as when it lands as when it was launched.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[stoatwblr]

Let's see, violent crime rates were 30 times higher 100 years ago than they are now and total murder rates in the USA are at their second lowest point in the last 50 years (they climbed a fraction since the 2011 low point). When you look at overall violence rates they're at the lowest overall level since accurate records began about 150 years ago.

That violence peak 50 years ago was still lower than murder rates pre-ww2, which was in turn lower than the average rate in the late 19th century, when "hang 'em high" was the order of the day.

Do you really think reinstating violent retributive punishments will reduce violent offending from an already historic low?

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[hucker75]

Why the hell would you fly an expensive drone around without guards to prevent severe loss of money?

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[hucker75]

Indeed. If I knocked someone off his bike with my car by driving carelessly, I'd get less sentence than he did!

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad you mentioned the FAA, I'm not sure Seattle has jurisdiction to charge him with anything.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[LeftCoastThinker]

It is not retributive, it is preventative. Within 5 years of release from prison, over 75% of criminals are re-arrested for another crime. Certain crimes are so bad for society that those criminals should be permanently be removed from society: murder, violent rape, etc. If you want to pay out of your personal pocket to keep these dirt bags incarcerated for their entire lives, great, but don't force me to, and don't release them because you ran out of room or money.

https://www.nij.gov/topics/cor...

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[gzuckier]

It seems that he broke FAA rules (I'm not familiar with those, but most countries' rules for model aircraft don't allow them to be flown over crowds). Because of the resulting injury, a stiff sentence would be in order. But in this case, as opposed to violent crimes and the like, there is no benefit in removing this guy from society for a bit, other than making an example out of him. Wouldn't justice be better served with community service? Especially since I'd think the guy is also on the hook to pay a substantial amount in damages to the girl, even if he's only ordered to pay actual damages.

Then we got the kid in CT who likes to fly drones with firearms or flamethrowers mounted on them and disagrees with the FAA regarding the advisability of said behavior.

Re:Overboard, Sad!

[gzuckier]

slap on the risk

Slap on the wrist.

That aside, we've got too many people incarcerated now. We don't need to waste space/money on (relatively) trivial shit - fine him heavily, and be done with it....

slap on the wrist, blow on the head; what's the difference.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the correct answer.

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the exact opposite of a "left coast thinker".

Re: Overboard, Sad!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many counties with large gun ownership and low crime rates. Crime rates as low as in Europe.

I'm blocked at work from getting these stats.

Well, then you have made a claim without proving it, but it's moot anyway, unless you can establish valuable considerations to examine.

The point I'm contesting is that gun ownership leads to murder. It does not.

No, you weren't limiting your remarks to that narrow point.

Instead, we've got a lot of dialogue about history and statistics going on.

If gun ownership lead to more murders we would see a correlation even if the overall murder rate went down.

Even in a broad sense we know this to be true. There are more guns today than 20 years ago. If there was a correlation between gun ownership and murder than we would see that those areas with a higher percentage of gun ownership would have more murders. We would see a correlation between the rate of growth of gun ownership and murders. We don't see that correlation.

The important thing to remember is ALL crime is down. ALL crime. This means you've got a long up-hill battle to establish any correlations.

It is foolishness, a lie in fact, to assert that more guns equals more murders.

It is foolishness, a lie, in fact, to assert an argument against something that wasn't said.

As far as the gun lobby is concerned. I am the gun lobby. The gun lobby is not evil corporations. It is millions of people who pay GOA and NRA dues; who fund raise. The amount of monies provided by gun manufacturers to the total amount is small (less than a 1/4 of the monies received).

Then you're limited in your information.

The gun manufacturers are hugely influential in lobbying politicians.

PS, Chicago's incidents are not proof of a true trend, you should know better than to assert from limited information.

What does Jail achieve?

[Anonymous Coward]

Society is not made profitably safer by spending resources to remove this guy from public life.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[MightyMartian]

Justice is also about sending a message

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[tloh]

I would have thought caution & sensibility already sent a message loud and clear when that kid Roman Pirozek almost decapitated himself with an RC helicopter a few years ago. Things with motor driven whirling blades should go no where near where people and crowds gather.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[Anonymous Coward]

The message that society was a mistake, going by the current prison system

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[Aethedor]

Sending a harsher message to the offender than the unjust that was done to the victim will only make things worse. Law should be about punishment, not about revenge.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't, the 'justice system' is about sending a message. Justice would be applying a set tariff for a give offense. Anything else is grandstanding and power-tripping. Who would have thought that the type of people who want to become a judge would get off on either of those.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[stephanruby]

Punishment has four possible components

1. Protection
2. Deterrence
3. Rehabilitation
4. Vengeance

In this case, I think deterrence is the goal. This guy is likely never to do the same thing again, but many other drone owners are very likely to want to fly their drone over very large crowds. The temptation is there and it's very real. And in a way, the judge is not sending a message to the offender, he is sending that message to those other potential offenders.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is not. "Sending a message" is a violation of equal protection under the law. Sentencing more heavily to "send a message" is not even remotely ethical. Criminal sentences are supposed to be for rehabilitation (thus the "department of corrections") and deterrence from future criminal acts. If you want to "send a message" do it through the Postal Service.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[ChrisMaple]

A disproportionate punishment is unjust, and sending a "message to those other potential offenders" is no excuse for injustice.

In my opinion, this guy deserved 30 days.

As a side note, vengeance is a valid reason for punishment. By putting vengeance into a standardized and official form, the public can recognize that justice is being done. People are less likely to seek exaggerated vengeance when vengeance is legally performed in a controlled and appropriate manner.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[MightyMartian]

Wake me up when you find the supreme court rulings banning deterrence as part of a sentence.

Re:What does Jail achieve?

[MightyMartian]

Deterrence is very much part of any justice system, and always has been. When a court is confronted with antisocial behavior that is clearly becoming more common, he will often use his sentence to send a message to other potential offenders. The judicial system is not a binary yes/no machine.

Was a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

It could have cut up someone's face or a jugular vein or caused life altering damage. I understand why they imposed the sentence, as a deterrent to other UAS pilots to stay within the confines of FAA regulations otherwise face the consequences. He didn't abide but the rules and has to face the consequences of his actions. Toss the instruction booklet or don't read FAA regulations at your own peril. This is a small example of what could happen to you if you ignore the FAA.

Strict liability

[Anonymous Coward]

... said the punishment was "too severe."

If he punched the woman and KO-ed her, he'd be facing assault or possibly aggravated assault charges. Okay, he didn't mean to injure her but when someone loses control of a car or a plane, nobody claims that excuses injury. Americans do excuse losing control of a gun though, strange.

Re: Strict liability

[Anonymous Coward]

If you lose control of a car, but you weren't negligent, you will not be accused of a crime.

Re: Strict liability

[Goaway]

If you race a car for fun next to a crowd and crash into somebody, you will, though.

Re: Strict liability

[Anonymous Coward]

The law is fucked up. If you pull your gun on someone who was coming at you with something other than a gun and they back down. Then they can call the cops and get you a ticket for pulling a gun. So basically, you have to shoot the guy upon drawing to be on the right side. Everyone in the US has a 50/50 chance of getting a retarded cop that can only follow he said she said so you got to be the only one with a story.

Re:Strict liability

[91degrees]

Intent matters. If you punch someone, it's because you want to injure them. This guy presumably didn't.

In driving, there's a difference between running someone down deliberately (which is probably attempted murder, or at least GBH), driving like an idiot - dangerously fast for the conditions, for example - would be reckless. You should know there's a high chance of injury but act dangerously anyway. Careless driving is simply not paying enough attention. Being distracted by other things. Even though all of these could cause the same injury, the penalty will be greater if the intent is greater.

Large drones can be dangerous in the same way as cars, so it makes sense to make the same considerations.

Re: Strict liability

[tehcyder]

The law is fucked up. If you pull your gun on someone who was coming at you with something other than a gun and they back down. Then they can call the cops and get you a ticket for pulling a gun. So basically, you have to shoot the guy upon drawing to be on the right side. Everyone in the US has a 50/50 chance of getting a retarded cop that can only follow he said she said so you got to be the only one with a story.

But at least no one died, which is a good result. And surely if someone was coming at you with a knife or whatever they'd be prosecuted for something too?

Also, as a non-American, it seems logical to me to discourage people from drawing their gun every time someone looks funny at them.

Re: Strict liability

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American, I am highly amused by the news accounts in the U.K. after a "knife crime" incident where the reporter interviews a hand wringing politician who is bemoaning the fact that the government hasn't done enough to prevent young people from procuring knives.

Re: Strict liability

[ChrisMaple]

Gun laws vary by state and sometimes by city. In many places, if you are on your own property when you draw a gun to dissuade an aggressor, you're OK.

Re: Strict liability

[dave420]

"Hahaha! They *bang* have so *bang**bang* few murders this one person is *bang* complaining about *bang**bang* knives! Hahahaa!"

Re: Strict liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack the Ripper, the most notorious killer that terrorized London killed as many as FIVE people. We probably have someone committing their fifth murder right now, not even making the news. Maybe it is a bad time to be patriotic, but.. USA, USA, USA!

As Kyle Kinane joked...

big drone

[Anonymous Coward]

He did turn himself in, but the carelessness is still severe. I propose at least a $100,000 fine in addition to paying the hospital bill or 30-days of community work.

Re:Shoulda been executed

[Anonymous Coward]

The way society is breaking down, we'll soon finally be able to shoot people in the streets.

so shameful

[Anonymous Coward]

Woman attends Pride Parade with her boyfriend?! She deserves jail for being on the D team.

Parachutes available

[rkagerer]

Lightweight parachute systems are available for popular consumer drones (e.g. Skyfallx, Mars Parachutes, FruityChutes, Skycat.pro). Not endorsing as a substitute for good pilot judgement, but it might have helped here.

Re:Shoulda been executed

[Anonymous Coward]

Make dueling great again.

Federal Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Must fly under 400 feet*
Must fly during the day*
Must fly at or below 100 mph*
Must yield right of way to manned aircraft*
Must NOT fly over people*
Must NOT fly from a moving vehicle*

src https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/

Re: Federal Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Those rules were not in place in 2015. They came into being last year.

Re: Federal Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Must NOT fly from a moving vehicle*

Forty years ago when I was a kid, nearly every car ride I went on, I imagined that I was flying a remote controlled aircraft with a camera in it alongside the car.

Re: Federal Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Those aren't laws.

Re: Federal Law

[Anonymous Coward]

You're being pedantic, everyone knows the rules were/are under 500 feet, not over people. It's been that way for decades.

Re:Shoulda been executed

[tigersha]

Yes! Pistols at dawn! The last scene in once upon a time in the West was always one of my favourites of all time.

Plain stupid sentence

[Aethedor]

America's OCD of putting people in jail for even the most silliest things is very disturbing. Removing people temporarily from society should only be done when that person poses a threat to society. If the drone operator was being reckless, he should be punished for that. But putting him in jail for it, helps nobody. Not the operator, not the victim, not society. The operator is not a threat to society. This sounds more like revenge than punishment.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

If the drone operator was being reckless, he should be punished for that.

What would you consider to be the appropriate punishment? Can't put him in the stocks these days. What is the price you would to claim for knocking someone unconscious?

Some jail time is not unreasonable... perhaps just a day, but you can't cause someone that much harm and act like it's a parking ticket.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

In general I agree with the principle of not putting people in prison unnecessarily. But these tiny sentences (one week to one month) don't destroy anyone's life in the way that a longer sentence does. People can return to the same job after a few weeks in prison (unless the employer is stupid - but that's a separate problem). They're not a bad way of making it clear that a crime was committed.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Revenge is the most important thing in the American justice system.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

AC:
> What would you consider to be the appropriate punishment?

Curfew, community service, some form of restorative justice.

Something that brings home to the numpty the seriousness of his reckless action, something in which he gives something back to the community, something where rich privilege does not allow you to buy your way out, and where his loss of privilege (curfew, time served in the community) reassures the victim that the seriousness of their injury has been recognized by society.

(If the guy is one of those habitual offenders who skips curfew/community service - then jail time is an appropriate escalation).

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Aethedor]

Place yourself in the position of the operator. As far as I can see, I didn't do it on purpose. Sending him to jail for a month, putting him between a bunch of real criminals, how to you think he will feel afterwards? Think he feels he's been treated fairly? Law should be about making society a better place, for both the victim *and* the offender. How about community service in a hospital for a few days and not allowing him to fly his drone for a month? Let him see and understand what the results are of the risks he took. That's a message he can learn from. What possibly can he learn from sitting in a cell for a month, staring at four walls? Don't forget, he's just a man who made a mistake, not a criminal willingly harming other people.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Aethedor]

The operator made a mistake. A bad mistake, but just a mistake. While applying law, I think we should primarily took at someone's intentions, not only is actions. My point is; what do you think the operator feels like after that month jail time? Do you think it will be something like "Ok, that was a meaningful lesson. I'm a better person now" or more like "Yes, I made stupid mistake. But for that, I was kicked aside for a month like dirty trash. F*ck this shit". Personally, I think it will more likely be the last one. I think that man will leave jail with some anger. At least, not with positive energy. Now tell me, how is that going to make society a better place?

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul Skinner emerges from jail as a hardened criminal! Vowing revenge, he dubs himself Droneman, and uses drones to scalp women! Then he rapes their defenseless bodies!

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

The private companies to whom the operation of prisons is outsourced made some money. MONEY. MONEY!!!!$$!!!! hahahaha

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

A fine, a citation with a fine is actually appropriate. There was no criminal intent. He didn't crash it into her, it hit a building. So a ticket is appropriate for this kind of incident. A citation and liability to assist with any medical bills she experiences from the concussion.

AC to preserve moderation points spent on this thread.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[gravewax]

he ILLEGALLY flew the drone over a crowd, this was an intentional act and is illegal for exactly the reason that eventuated here.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if this event occurred at a Trump rally that you'd be advocating the exact opposite.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

To clarify above -- to a protester flown by a Trump supporter.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Aethedor]

But not with the intention to harm people. Yes, he took a big risk. But putting him behind bars so he can sit there and do nothing, is not the best way to point that out to him. Let him do community work at a hospital for several days. Show him what an injury can do to people's life. Confront him with the results of his actions. That's how he learns and will think twice before doing anything stupid like what he did again. Jail time doesn't do that.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Dorianny]

A concussion that results in the loss of consciences is *extremely* serious. Some Neurological damage is a given and it even increase the risk of (CTE) Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, especially if the person in question suffers another concussion (no-fault accidents do happen). He didn't simply make a unfortunate mistake, he intentionally broke FAA regulation in a situation in which even common sense tells you is there is high risk of injury to people.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Jail isn't where you find 'real' criminals, jail is for less serious crimes still requiring time served. He's going to find himself surrounded by drunks, prostitutes and johns, people who injure others through reckless driving, etc.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you consider to be the appropriate punishment?

Well he was willingly offering to pay her medical bills.
So along with that, take away and bar him from flying or having a drone for 30 days (or even a year or more)

However because of the attitude of those like you, now he will be sent to jail for 30 days, lose his job and means of income, not be able to afford to pay her medical bills let alone support his own life, and there is the very real possibility of more bodily harm happening to the guy.

How does this help the victim? She now has to pay for medical bills for something that wasn't her fault.

How does this help the drone operator? Instead of being prevented from doing the stupid thing he did in the future, you are assuring he has no future and possibly ending his career and life in the process.

How does this help *US*? Now our tax money may need to go towards paying for her medical bills if she can't afford them, and will need to go towards welfare to support this guy for who it may be impossible to support himself in the future.

A punishment that would actually aid the victim and ideally teach this guy the error of his ways at least has some chance of benefiting himself and thus those around him in the future, and certainly will benefit the victim.

A jail sentence will benefit no one and in the end cause more harm to both parties.
Arguably to us as a whole too (although it's not like the govt would take less in taxes from us, but my point is this creates more waste in govt spending than would be otherwise)

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

If he feels he didn't do it on purpose, then that's definitely part of the problem.

Although I agree with you jail these days is for hardened criminals and training of them.... But community service for a few days? I think more appropriate would be community service for a month and no drone for 3 to 6 months.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

His intention was to do something risky to other people and illegal (for a good reason), for a reason which we don't know, but certainly can't be justified. He intentionally committed an act which the law says endangers other people. Jail time is justified by his intention.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[blind biker]

Consider that such a head trauma will leave her with a lifetime decrease in cognitive capabilities. Then it's not such a joke anymore.
I speak from experience: being knocked out is severe brain trauma, and it does leave consequences that never heal.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Aethedor]

I did not intend to drive over people, I just wanted to drive through town blindfolded?

Then I would take away your driver's license and your car, because insane people should not be allowed to drive a car. If your insanity would pose a threat to society in a general way, then, but only then, I would lock you up. Not in jail, 'cause that wouldn't help you, but in an institution.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[mjr167]

If I choose watch a movie while driving my car down the highway and run a bus full of school children off the road, can I then say "but I didn't intend for anyone to get hurt!"?

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[mjr167]

Some mistakes you don't get to make. Mistakes have consequences. To real people. We can't just ignore them and pretend it didn't happen.

The other day one kid hit their sibling on the head with a toy truck. The hitter was yelling "Sorry!" at their crying sibling who yelled back "Sorry doesn't help!" You can be sorry. But "sorry" doesn't magically make it better. It doesn't roll back time.

Mistakes can cost you your job, your family, your reputation, and your freedom. That is why you have to think before you act.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Aethedor]

That's not what happened here, so I don't see why that story is relevant.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[tsqr]

Although I agree with you jail these days is for hardened criminals and training of them

No. Jail is for drunk drivers, shoplifters, wife abusers, and prostitutes. Prison is where you find the hardened criminals, though they may spend some time in jail while awaiting trial.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[ChrisMaple]

A person shooting a gun into the air does it without the intention of harming people. That act can kill regardless of intention, and deserves jail time.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[ChrisMaple]

If you seriously consider "putting him between a bunch of real criminals" a problem, solitary confinement is the answer.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Flying drones over crowds of people *is* a danger to society (not to mention specifically prohibited by the relevant laws). Jail time is entirely appropriate.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[ChrisMaple]

A consumer drone is a toy, and in no way is it an important enhancement to a life. Cause serious injury with a drone, you should be banned for life.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[dave420]

"Engaging in obviously dangerous behaviour with the expectation of it not leading to danger for anyone" is precisely what happened here.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Deterrence. You and I now know you can go to jail for this. We are far less likely to toy with drones over crowded areas now. That will lead to fewer injuries. One month sucks for him but is not totally unreasonable.

That said, I agree with you about our overzealous use of incarceration for things like drug possession.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Rick Schumann]

See this comment, for starters: https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...
Secondly, most people can shrug off merely paying a fine. Having to sit in a jail cell for a while has more impact and forces you to sit there and think about what put you there in the first place. This guy did something wilfully stupid and someone got injured because of it, and it was sheer luck that she wasn't killed because of it. That's why there's jail time involved. As someone else pointed out in another comment, he's damned lucky she didn't get killed, because if she had his life would be OVER, he'd be spending YEARS in prison. All because he couldn't be more responsible with his toy.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

The operator is not a threat to society.

Bullshit.

The drone operator flew his drone in a manner that could have resulted in the death of
an innocent human being who is part of society.

If you don't understand that this is an example of a person who absolutely IS a clear threat to society, it is your
thought processes which need evaluation, not the court system which handed down the reasonable punishment to
the idiot who was operating the drone.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget, he's just a man who made a mistake, not a criminal willingly harming other people.

You are the sort of idiot whose existence makes a good case for eugenics.

The drone pilot didn't make a "mistake", you stupid piece of trash, the drone pilot flew the drone
over a crowd of people, which was deliberate.

Do us all a favor and kill yourself today.

Re: Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if he is raped to death or penniless and homeless, either way, he can't afford to fly a drone anymore so we are safe. It can be like that STTNG episode where every crime is punished by death. Just don't allow exceptions for rich or powerful people, cops included.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

... But putting him in jail for it, helps nobody. Not the operator, not the victim, not society. The operator is not a threat to society. This sounds more like revenge than punishment.

Right. Got it. In the utopia of unicorns, no one is responsible.

In the general scheme of things, this type of compassionate elitist argument is why real criminals feel free to murder because they were "dissed"; rape because their hormones were raging and they can't be responsible for those involuntary hormonal releases; or childishly destroy property because they were angry or upset that someone disagrees with their unaccountable feelings.

Being "compassionate" with logic like this is why individuals who violate laws love progressive values.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

It being an accident, if this was indeed what it was, does not absolve him that it happened, people were injured, by his actions. More importantly, if you're operating a drone, you assume any and all risks by doing that. He IS responsible.

If you correlate the same results, knocked out person, bruised second party, by accident from a car, motorcycle, stumbling into people pushing them into wall/door, etc..... By the same measure, his actions were either negligent , or reckless. In this case, it was the latter.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[thegarbz]

To be fair you'd probably get a fine and even that you could probably contest in court.

Re:Plain stupid sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry may not make it better but vengeance doesn't either.

Re:Shoulda been executed

[Anonymous Coward]

hi donald, what's up?

In another development

[sonamchauhan]

Amazon filed an amicus curiae brief, arguing the supreme importance of drones to the wellbeing of mankind in general, and Amazon shareholders in particular.

With any luck...

[advocate_one]

they'll up his sentence...

Justice is not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, the name of the guy: Skinner. Maybe his parents could come up with a better name and avoid all that?

Second: how the h*ll is operating a drone (whatever its size might be) considered acceptable? A blow in the head does not end when the victim leaves the hospital walking...

Third: Though the dude deserves it (and maybe more IMHO, but then again who am I to throw a stone?), punishment won't fix anything. You can't just throw him in jail and be satisfied with it as if having reached some closure. This does not solve anything. The victim's health does not improve because the criminal suffers. What world are we living in? By logic, nothing can be fixed with his punishment -- and if we say the victim will feel better because vindicated, what are we? Monkeys?

Fourth: Whatever physical punishment this guy might endure, perhaps it would be useful to add a sentence to keep him from dangerous things for some longer period (say, 10 years). 10 years without hacking. That is as harsh as I can think and probably will yield better results than the conventional penalty. And hacking in this case is not figurative, it is literal.

Fifth: It matters what we do in the aftermath. Things could be much worse... maybe we should have better defensive equipment, maybe even Police drones for that...

Re:Justice is not enough.

[ChrisMaple]

Imagine this: "That guy KO'd my girlfriend with his drone. I'm going to KO him with my baseball bat."

Seeing physical justice done by a duly authorized organization removes a lot of the motive for escalating violence.

Re:Justice is not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. This has some social usefulness. The "eye for an eye" was already aimed at that in the beginning -- and we have come a long way after that.

But let's do something about the fact itself. I'm not against drones, or a control-freak wanting to prevent anyone from having fun. But the same rules we use for bow&arrow near people.

May we can make them safer -- in smaller sizes (like light as an egg) and with covert blades or with inflatable cushions...

Re:Justice is not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine this: "That guy KO'd my girlfriend with his drone. I'm going to KO him with my baseball bat."

With an attitude like that, YOU should be the one behind bars.

better handled by civil suits

[ooloorie]

Such incidents are better handled by civil lawsuits.

Re:better handled by civil suits

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? If I was a victim of his reckless behaviour, why should I be burdened with ensuring he is punished?

He deserves the whole year and then some

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to the misdemeanor state charges, he should also be charged with the federal crimes of operating an aircraft too close to people and buildings.

Good example re bicycle

[raymorris]

That's a good example, unlawfully riding your bike on the sidewalk and not being careful. 200 lbs of man and bike is much more likely to cause significant damage than 2 lbs of plastic. They guy did wrong by flying it over people - just like the guy next to him did wrong by running a stop sign.

A friend of mine shot at her ex-boyfriend with a shotgun. Because she didn't hit him, she did less than 30 days in jail.

Re:Good example re bicycle

[Wootery]

But got a criminal record and an 'interesting' story for future job interviews, right?

Re:Good example re bicycle

[FatdogHaiku]

But got a criminal record and an 'interesting' story for future job interviews, right?

"No sir, I would never pose a danger to anyone...
I have proof I can't even hit someone with a shotgun blast!"

And they put that quote on HR form OMG-911

Re:Good example re bicycle

[chihowa]

The difference here is that somebody was actually hurt by his actions. Being rendered unconscious by an impact to the head is not something to just blow off.

Reckless endangerment is a gross misdemeanor in WA. If the woman was actually knocked unconscious, then it seems like a pretty fair description of what he did.

How big was this thing and why did he feel ok flying it above bystanders? If the "guy next to him" ran a stop sign and hit a pedestrian and knocked them unconscious, he may end up with a little jail time, too.

Re:Good example re bicycle

[Anonymous Coward]

200 lbs of man and bike is much more likely to cause significant damage than 2 lbs of plastic.

200-lb man and bike traveling horizontally at maybe 10 mph, vs. 2-lb drone accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2?

Re: Good example re bicycle

[Zero__Kelvin]

Does your friend have a current boyfriend. I have always wanted to get shot to death by a disgruntled woman!

Re: Good example re bicycle

[Anonymous Coward]

Much more likely if you hit someone at the same speed. But you are in control of your bike, in theory braking or swerving. A falling drone is falling, hitting heads not abdomen. Probably with rotors turning.

Not a real comparison. Both can be dangerous.

And I know Hillary made this popular but there is no intent in negligence. It's sort of the point.

Re:Good example re bicycle

[stoatwblr]

"A friend of mine shot at her ex-boyfriend with a shotgun. Because she didn't hit him, she did less than 30 days in jail."

In most countries, she'd be facing 3-5 years.

In other non-news for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

In Germany, 2 morons did a car race in the city and killed a person in an accident. They both got life.

Reckless yes. Half the weight of a pillow, plastic

[raymorris]

It sounds like the guy was being reckless flying over people.

Drones are typically made from the same type of plastic that soda bottles are made from, they aren't iron. Two pounds is also half the weight of a pillow.

Prior to last year, same rules - different method

[raymorris]

Before the recent rulemaking, you were allowed to fly under Section 336. Section 336 says you can fly if you follow the rules of the Association of Model Aeronautics (or similar body). AMA rules include:
--
avoid flying directly over unprotected people, vessels, vehicles or structures

At all flying sites a safety line(s) must be established in front of which all flying takes place. (AMA Document #706.)
(a) Only personnel associated with flying the model aircraft are allowed at or in front of the safety line.

Must be 100 feet downwind of spectators
--

So before the new rules, operators were triple prohibited from flying over people.

You and I ILEGALLY drove faster than the speed lim

[raymorris]

Yes, what he did was careless and illegal. Yesterday, when the light turned yellow I didn't know if I could stop in time without slamming on brakes. I ended up ILLEGALLY going under a red light.

I'd be willing to bet that the last time you were on the freeway you ILLEGALLY drove faster than the speed limit. I know I did.

30 days seems harsh, but

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps a few nights in jail with work release would help the operator realize what he did

the civil stuff is yet to come

Re:You and I ILEGALLY drove faster than the speed

[Fly Swatter]

Yes things like that happen all the time, even as we type. However when it doesn't work out you are not absolved of the consequences.

Re:Reckless yes. Half the weight of a pillow, plas

[drinkypoo]

Drones are typically made from the same type of plastic that soda bottles are made from, they aren't iron.

That's nonsense. Professional drones which carry cameras are sometimes made out of plastic, but they're sometimes made out of carbon fiber, Aluminum, maybe some glass fiber board... My dead cat sk450 is both over two pounds (with the 4s 5AH battery) and extremely rigid. The bottom glass fiber deck was floppy so I reinforced it by CA gluing two 3mm CF rods to it. Now it will definitely break your fucking head. The solution to that problem is to not fly it overhead.

Two pounds is also half the weight of a pillow.

Oh yeah? What's a bullet weigh?

Re:Prior to last year, same rules - different meth

[drinkypoo]

At all flying sites a safety line(s) must be established in front of which all flying takes place. (AMA Document #706.)
(a) Only personnel associated with flying the model aircraft are allowed at or in front of the safety line.

Isn't that specific text only relevant for established fields?

Lots of factors go into sentencing

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

You can always find cases of unfair sentencing where small crime X is punished at level Y in one place but at level 2 times Y or 3 times Y at another place. I have a relative who got caught for DUI on a two lane (one lane in each direction - no median) surface road within 2 miles of his house while driving home when he came upon a police roadblock he could not avoid. First offense. He had a lawyer. Still went to jail for a week over it. No wreck. No injuries. Barely crossed the DUI threshold. My best friend is a lawyer and I've learned from him that all of the following can play a role in sentencing.

1) Judge might be a hard liner.
2) Judge wants to send a message that the incident in question is not acceptable and deter others from doing the same (ie. DUI incident I referenced).
3) Defendant might have used a public defender and this almost always leads to a bad outcome for the defendant. My lawyer friend sometimes does criminal defense work and he's told me that the DA will often completely back down and offer greatly reduced penalties if he simply shows up in court to fight for his client. Defendants with PDs don't get these sweet deals.
4) Defendant could be a combative jerk in court and that played a role in the sentence.

Re:Lots of factors go into sentencing

[MobyDisk]

Still went to jail for a week over it

Are you saying the penalty was too low? A DUI = a random dice roll to kill someone.

on a two lane (one lane in each direction - no median)

On a road with no median is about the most dangerous place to drive drunk.

within 2 miles of his house while driving home

The distance from his home is irrelevant.

I have a relative who is an alcoholic, and he got into many accidents "close to home." Each time, there was some excuse for it not being a big deal. It was only a few miles, he was driving slowly, it was the other guys fault, it was just a mailbox, nobody got hurt, that guy was pretending he got hit for money, etc. Don't take DUIs lightly. The police are trying to nip that in the bud.

Re:Lots of factors go into sentencing

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Judge wants to send a message that the incident in question is not acceptable and deter others from doing the same (ie. DUI incident I referenced).

ln the case of your DUI example, the judge would be correct. It is not acceptable.

Re:Lots of factors go into sentencing

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky to have been stopped by police before an accident, injury, and/or fatality occurred. Hopefully your relative understood the severity of their crime and it's potential. Many people see a DUI as "bad luck" and continue drive after consuming alcohol.

I don't see any indication of that

[raymorris]

The text doesn't say "at all sites used for flying on a regular basis" or any similar wording. Note however that "all flying sites" should have the line *established*, while competitions and exhibitions shall have the line *marked*. As I read it, I'm in compliance if I say "kids, stay on that side of the soccer field", while I fly in the other side of the field (preferably downwind).

Cycling Analogy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an aggressive cyclist and I ride in busy traffic and often into crowds of jaywalkers. I am not a pushover for dumb assholes that cannot compute that a (185 pound man + 16 pound bike) x 20 MPH is three times the energy of 9mm bullet.

Sorry, if you are too stupid to understand the risks, then you deserver the punishment. All you willies from Australia or the UK, can keep you hooligans cleaning highways and dog poop if you want.

Or a car. Maybe a bouncy house

[raymorris]

>> Two pounds is also half the weight of a pillow.
> Oh yeah? What's a bullet weigh?

Or a car? How about a bouncy house? Is a bouncy house thousands times more dangerous than a bullet, because it weighs so much more? I think we've established that weight and danger are two very different things. So pretending that getting hit by two pounds of plastic is the same as getting hit by a two-pound hammer is stupid.

> Professional drones which carry cameras are sometimes made out of plastic, but they're sometimes ...

Sometimes the professional models carry four Hellfire missiles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

The vast majority of drones are the Parrot / Syma etc type sold in stores. Once you move from toys to "professional", you can go all the way to the Reaper amd beyond.

If you ever visit Dallas, you're invited to come fly with us (North Texas Drone User Group). We have some good safe places to fly, and have a lot of fun.

Re:Or a car. Maybe a bouncy house

[drinkypoo]

So pretending that getting hit by two pounds of plastic is the same as getting hit by a two-pound hammer is stupid.

If I had claimed that it was, you would have a point. But you don't. In fact, I've claimed explicitly that it isn't. My point was that comparing it to a pillow is far more disingenuous than comparing it to a hammer. A standard pillow will not knock you unconscious no matter how high it falls from, because its terminal velocity is insufficient to the task. This drone did knock a woman unconscious, and she may well have died if she fell over and hit her head. While comparisons to hammers are unfair, comparisons to pillows are fucking retarded.

Ps 1 of mine is made of foam

[raymorris]

Ps, besides plastic and the materials you mentioned, foam is popular too. Two different types of foam are in common use. I have one made of the same type of foam used in packaging to protect things and prevent damage. (Think the big blocks of foam that have cutouts for the toy or whatever is in the package.) You could throw it at me with all your strength and it wouldn't hurt me a bit.

So yeah there are a variety of materials. The type in the stores, what 98% of people buy, is made primarily of semi-soft plastic for quads, rigid foam for planes.

I was glad the props on the mass-market drones are a fairly soft plastic two weeks ago when I snatched a quad out of the air and brought my hand *down* to the drone, fingers through the prop, rather than bringing my hand up to grab a leg. My finger hurt for a couple of minutes and a small dark bruise was visible for two weeks.

Bigger Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The bigger question is: Was the drone charged with a "hate crime"?

what thats all he got?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought drone stupidity was a manadatory 1 year..
what did this guy blow the Judge and or the Jury??
such stupid irresponsinile acts need to be viciously punished.
NHark do I see another revenue stream emerging?? drivers license for drones, and YOU MUST REGISTER THEM ONCE A YEAR link ur car..
DUDE YOUR STOOPID, YOUR ACTIONS ARE STOOPID, YOUR LUCKY U ONLY GO THAT..
Im also surprised chick did not file for some form of domestic abuse, and of course the bunch of beakers in blue would all love to jump on that shit..
Perhaps I missed it but what were his fines if any?

jandersen said "like throwing a mallet or brick"

[raymorris]

>> so pretending that getting hit by two pounds of plastic is the same as getting hit by a two-pound hammer is stupid.

> If I had claimed that it was, you would have a point.

You didn't, jandersen is the one who said that. Quoting jandersen:
--
the weight of an average iron mallet, I'd say - more or less. Being hit on your head with a falling mallet could very easily kill you - it is only luck that saved this woman. Also, flying a drone is a deliberate act. ...
  As it stands, this is not all that different from hurling a mallet or brick out over a crowd "just for a bit of fun";
--

jandersen's claim that flying a drone is 'not all that different from hurling a mallet or brick out over a crowd "just for a bit of fun";' is silly, and is based entirely on the *weight* of the object. Well, if he wants to pretend weight equals danger, the drone is half the weight of a pillow - which illustrates how ridiculous that reasoning is.

An even better video

[raymorris]

Speaking of "smashing itself to bits", if you liked that video, you'll probably appreciate this one too.

https://youtu.be/uowIviSx8nI

The drone operator got off light

[LeftCoastThinker]

The first of several huge differences here is that riding your bike is an activity that is known and understood by the public. The pedestrian in your example, while you were breaking laws, likely saw you and had a chance to avoid you. Your use of a bicycle has positive impacts on society (improved health, reduced carbon footprint etc.) Also, there are inherent motivators for paying attention while riding a bike in that you yourself are in personal danger from vehicles and other hazards, and you may have been injured in the collision.

The drone operator was operating his drone illegally above people in a reckless manner in direct violation of the law. The people who were injured didn't see the drone coming and had no opportunity to avoid being clobbered in the head by what amounts to a 18" x 18" falling brick. They are lucky they weren't killed. The drone operator was not at risk of being injured when his drone crashed, because there is virtually zero inherent danger in remotely operating a drone once it is in the air.

As you can see, there are unique differences between operating a bicycle and a drone that cause your argument to break down. Drone operators want to practice their hobby and they complain about all the constraint and regulation, but then you have a large segment (20%? go on youtube) of drone hobbyists who operate their flying camcorders/kinetic bombs as complete sociopaths and you wonder why society wants to regulate you. As a non-drone operator, my opinion of drone operation is that anything over around 16oz should be banned everywhere without a 16h or more training license that requires both demonstration of knowledge of the law, good judgement and expertise flying your drone, except at specifically designated areas in parks or other wide open spaces. Any drone flying around in neighborhoods or cities or other populated areas that weighs more than like 8oz should be required to have a fail safe parachute similar to a model rocket, or an airbag. All drones larger than 16oz or so should be required to have a license that is identified by a simple sequence of primary colors and shapes displayed on the drone for easy identification by LEO or concerned citizens. (If I'm close enough to read/record your license with my smartphone, you were probably breaking the law.)

Re:The drone operator got off light

[HornWumpus]

There is a name for cyclists that operate like complete psychopaths: Critical mass. They are _proud_ of being psychopaths.

Bikes over 16 oz should also require a license and numbered plates.

Re:The drone operator got off light

[LeftCoastThinker]

Except they don't hit pedestrians 99% of the time, they typically are going toe to toe with 2000lb cars, and if they are too crazy, they get crushed, so kinda natural selection.

I think it is probably a good idea to license cyclists/bikes who ride on public roads, especially if they are over 18. That way, if they are violating the rules of the road, my dashcam will record their stupid asses and license numbers and they could get a nice $300 fine in the mail.

Re:The drone operator got off light

[stoatwblr]

"The pedestrian in your example, while you were breaking laws, likely saw you and had a chance to avoid you"

Not so long ago in my country, there was CCTV footage posted on TV of a 3 year old child running down the path from her front door and out her front gate towards her parents car parked directly outside the gate (door open, parents waiting). As she exited the gate, she was struck by a cyclist riding on the footpath who knocked her down resulting in her head striking the pavement. Her body then tangled on his pedals and she was dragged about 50 feet along the pavement before falling free.

The cyclist didn't stop. A 30-something man was subsequently arrested and charged with a number of traffic offences, including failing to stop, dangerous driving causing serious injury and riding on the footpath. He got 3 years when convicted and it would have been a MUCH higher sentence except he handed himself in and pleaded guilty.

There's a REASON footpaths are for pedestrians. Not all walkers are aware of what's around them or comprehend a speeding cyclist. Some jurisdictions allow invalid carriages and bicycles ONLY if they do not exceed 5mph.

Re:The drone operator got off light

[stoatwblr]

Generally I call them "organ donors", but if they're showing signs of taking guests along for that ride then they need to be firmly stopped.

Re:The drone operator got off light

[stoatwblr]

The ONLY reason they don't hit pedestrians 99% of the time (or cars) is because our traffic laws are setup with such massive safety margins that it takes a number of serious errors to result in any kind of crash.

The reason those safety margins are there is not for mechanical reasons. It's because people make mistakes all the time. Deciding to strip the margins back by flouting various safety rules is a calculated risk - but unlike casinos (the house always wins), you only need to get unlucky once to kill someone (or yourself).

Re:The drone operator got off light

[LeftCoastThinker]

Right, and the drone operator in this case specifically ignored those rules and flew over crowds of people, striping away the safety margins in a reckless and dangerous manner (thus reckless endangerment conviction).

Re:The drone operator got off light

[LeftCoastThinker]

That was a terrible occurrence, but also literally one in probably 70,000,000,000. It has happened, but is also so rare that this is the only instance I have ever heard of in 40 plus years of watching the news on a daily basis.

I am not arguing that cyclists should be allowed to violate the rules, rather that violating the rules has different levels of risk, and operating a large, heavy drone over a crowd for entertainment purposes is immoral, sociopathic and illegal and an avoidable risk that is also quite a high risk of injuring someone compared with riding down the sidewalks on a bike (when I was a kid, myself and every kid I knew rode our bikes down the sidewalks, and no one I ever knew or heard of was seriously injured or injured someone else). Most kids I see still ride their bikes down the sidewalks with impunity and no one flips their shit because they are paying attention and not going too fast.

Re:The drone operator got off light

[stoatwblr]

"Most kids I see still ride their bikes down the sidewalks with impunity and no one flips their shit because they are paying attention and not going too fast."

And the last four words of that statement is why it's tolerated - also small kids on bikes tend not to be quiet, so you get plenty of warning they're coming.

Whilst you might think the cyclist vs toddler incident is rare, there are regular postings in the UK of cyclists being filmed riding at 20+ miles per hour on busy footpaths whilst they _usually_ get away with it, there are a couple of deaths every year caused by high speed cyclists on the footpath and a lot more injury crashes besides, so no - it's not particularly rare.

Re:The drone operator got off light

[LeftCoastThinker]

I supposed it may be because I am in the US and that kind of thing really is rare here.

Re:You and I ILEGALLY drove faster than the speed

[laurencetux]

i think the law normally has a bit of Squish to it since there are cases where if it turned yellow AS YOU ENTERED the intersection it would defy Physics for you to stop and not end up halfway into the intersection.
so we have in rough car lengths

Green, Green, green, yellow,|\| Yellow , YELLOW ,RED , RED

and yes the |\| is the crosswalk (i think its like one car length per 10 miles??)

Uhh

[easyTree]

One can only imagine the length of stay when you drone strike someone's whole village into a pile of dead bodies and rubble.

*Voice stage right*

What's that? Increased funding? Oh - OK.

Re:Reckless yes. Half the weight of a pillow, plas

[Oligonicella]

Utter bullshit. The average pillow is nowhere near four pounds.

Have a scale? Weigh yours. Otherwise, any shopping

[raymorris]

Do you like surprises? If you have a scale, you can enjoy a surprise.

If you don't own a scale, most shopping sites list the weight of the items they sell.

Re:You and I ILEGALLY drove faster than the speed

[Anonymous Coward]

...and nobody was hurt. That's the distinguishing characteristic. If you had hit somebody and sent them to the hospital, how differently do you think the outcome would have been?

Killing people

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the same punishment is not given for killing innocent people during a war drone strike. Further more on the home front: If you don't mind accidents happening, then you can eat the same thing in the near future A time will come when some lawbreaking prevention drones come to your neighborhood. And they accidentally kill you. Oops, sorry..

Re:You and I ILEGALLY drove faster than the speed

[gravewax]

And if you hit and injured/killed someone while illegally speeding you would be up on charges.

Appealing this is smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart only because it buys him time to get his things in order before he goes in. Anyone would do this

Fuck you slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

When ever there is an article involving manned aircraft and drone conflict (or potential conflict), /. goes ape shit.... when some douche bag flies over a crowd and the drone comes tumbling down and hits someone in the head you feel sorry for the operator. Make up your minds. The polarization (ratio) and hypocrisy here never ceases to astonish me.

Sidewalk?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you on a bicycle on a sidewalk, you are not just negligent. You are committing a crime. I would say, yes, 30 days would be appropriate. A bicycle is a vehicle. If you need to be on the sidewalk for safety reasons, you should dismount and walk your vehicle to the next safe place where you can rejoin the flow of traffic.

He got off lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm almost surprised he was not accused of a hate crime since it happened at a Pride Parade.

Conclusion: PARACHUTES!!!

[syntotic]

Someone else came up with the idea here? After reading this summary it becomes obvious to require parachutes in all drones up from some size and weight. I would consider two: one controlled by electronics and one mechanical to be activated by crashes. I am still asking myself if I want to enjoy my mini or micro drone flying from my hand tied by a strong thread and maybe achieve some other two seconds of flying stability... again.