The point is that birds are not going away and they dwarf the threat to aircraft posed by drones.
That "point" is meaningless. You do not stop trying to mitigate other hazards to safety just because you cannot eliminate one of the hazards. That's just stupid. This continued harping on how birds are a danger to aircraft is a red herring.
The locks on my doors won't stop a determined burglar, so I might as well not lock them. That's what your argument boils down to. Can't stop all dangers so don't bother dealing with any.
Dude, the drones the uninformed fly have a 300ft range and 3 minute flight time.
No, dude, the drones the uninformed fly around wildfires are much larger, have a much longer flight time, and go quite a bit further. Not all drones are the 2 oz pieces of crap you get from the Crackerback Jox.
You're more than welcome to try and fly one into a wildfire.
No, you are not. They put TFRs around wildfires for a reason.
It won't cause anyone any harm.
That's only because when they are detected, all aircraft operations cease. You're right, they won't hit any of the firefighting aircraft because the firefighting aircraft are grounded for safety. That also means the fire isn't being fought in the most efficient manner.
You don't know any cops do you?
They won't do anything that interferes with their on duty naps and donut eating.
You don't know any cops, do you? I live in a city that has a lot of ex-pat cops from southern California cities, and when anything interesting happens they ALL manage to "go 12-2" (on scene) so they can play. It's boring in a small city, compared to big city copping.
Birds are not a microscopic minority, though, and civil aviation has managed to live with bird strikes for decades.
I keep seeing this nonsense and I just can't let it keep going on. Birds are living things that, for political and scientific reasons, we cannot simply eliminate as a way of reducing the risk they cause to aviation. We have to live with them because we've decided that they have a right to live. We do take steps to limit the problem when we can.
Drones, OTOH, are not living things, and they do not have a right to live. We can easily ban them from airspace where they pose a threat to other aircraft.
The fact that one threat to something exists and cannot be eliminated does not mean we must put up with all threats, especially ones that can be eliminated. Trying to argue that since birds are a threat we cannot do anything to limit any other kind of threat is just stupid. There are all kinds of hazards in daily life that we cannot prevent, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to mitigate all of them that we can.
Pretty simple, I thought. The statement that "guns routinely kill innocent people" is flamebait, pure and simple, and is patently absurd. It is not only false, but irrelevant to any part of this discussion.
<flamebait>Good luck, we can't even get registration for guns that routinely kill innocent people,</flaimbait>
Guns do not routinely kill innocent people. I'm pretty sure that none of the three I currently own are slipping out at night wreaking havoc. Perhaps during the day when I'm not home, but there are no reports of multiple unsolved murders in my neighborhood. Perhaps they're hopping on the free buses run by our city and wiping out large numbers of people a few miles away. If so, I would be fully in support of a law prohibiting unaccompanied firearms from riding public transport.
What you mean is that some evil people use guns to kill innocent people. That is a significantly different concept than "guns routinely kill".
The point was that the types of laws that states and municipalities are passing in order to prohibit the sorts of behaviors they don't want are redundant with laws already on the books that prohibit generally reckless behaviors that endanger people.
But that point is wrong. There are laws in my city that prohibit flying a UAS in a public park. There are city parks around here that are almost always empty -- flying a UAS at low altitude and within a close radius is hardly reckless, and it endangers nobody.
To the degree that they also prohibit non-reckless use of drones, then it is good that they have been superseded with Federal Regulations.
Which is it? Are they preempted by federal regulations or not? I don't know that my city law about flight in public parks has been preempted by the FAA, but if so, then the law you claim is preventing reckless endangerment of the public has been preempted. You can't have it both ways.
I would suggest requiring that manufacturers ensure their product is sold on the condition that it will only be sold to a licensed pilot or licensed, or registered drone operator.
Agreed. Amateur radio requires graduated license tests.
Except there is no requirement for someone to have an amateur radio license before he can buy a radio capable of transmitting in the amateur band. I don't have to show my license to the guy at the hamfest who is selling recycled Motorola stuff before I can give him $10 for an old Mostar.
And since building a radio (or UAS) is possible, which parts of either do we say defines the radio (or UAS) and requires a license to possess or buy? (Like "lower receiver" for guns.)
There should be an exemption for traditional RC activity over recognized fields.
"Dear Amazon.com: I don't have a drone license, but I promise to fly my Phantom III Pro only over recognized fields. Please send me two. Your Friend, Obfuscant."
The concept of requiring people to have a license before they can buy a UAS is simply unenforceable. Even more unenforceable than requiring people to register to fly them.
What's wrong with two (or even three) sets of rules, each made by government entities tasked with addressing scopes of problems?
Someone flying below 1000' AGL with a good camera can take a lot of incriminating pictures of your daughter by your swimming pool, especially if her boyfriend (or girlfriend) is there too.
Your city, in response, passes a law, based on privacy concerns, that nobody can fly less than 2000' AGL over your fair city. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the existing federal laws on minimum safe altitudes. It also conflicts with the VOR approach to the local airport which allows pilots to descend to 650' AGL. It also conflicts with the ILS approach where the outer marker has a crossing altitude of just 1650' AGL.
Does the FAA need to keep track of every local law prohibiting flight in the national airspace so it can keep the charts up to date, and how does that impact the rules that try to institute standards for things like approaches so pilots don't have to keep track of thousands of details? Or do thousands of pilots independently have to keep track of thousands of different cities' laws regarding the national airspace they are using?
Is it a good thing for a pilot who has obeyed the published approach procedure and made a safe landing in low weather, to be approached by a local cop on the ramp because he didn't know that Greater Dloob Township passed a law that nobody could fly lower than 1000' AGL and that ILS approach he just flew had him at 500' AGL while transiting that municipality?
While some laws are passed based on different "concerns", they still need to make a regular picture, not a patchwork of special limits in special areas.
And if you have a silly situation where someone tries to make silly rules in the other entity's scope (e.g. cities trying to ban all flights over or within that city) just let the silly people lose.
Except it won't be the silly people who lose, at least not in any direct way. It will be the pilots who find out that Podunk City has passed a law prohibiting flight below 2000' AGL after they have landed at Podunk City airport and the local cops show up to arrest them. Yes, the silly people will have strangled general aviation into and out of their locality, but most people don't recognize the value of that, and don't consider that someone who flies into the local airport counts in the FAA traffic totals that bring in grant money for airport projects, they usually buy gas that pays for jobs at the FBO, and they are often there to visit the city or a business.
"Let the silly people lose" results in the tyranny of the ignorant or fearful.
Yeah, there will be some complexity, and arguments about what belongs to who, but we've always had that going on.
There has been blissfully little of that regarding aviation. There has been altogether too much of it regarding amateur radio and antenna restrictions. On the whole, I prefer less more than more.
Drones are not a serious hazard unless they are used in a completely reckless or criminal manner that would trigger a bunch of generalized laws already on the books that apply generally to reckless behavior and criminal intent.
That statement is almost a tautology, only failing to be so because you used the word "completely", and because the law defines "reckless" in a bit stricter sense than you seem to. (I.e., "completely reckless" is not a legal term; it is reckless or it isn't.) Not every stupid thing someone does that violates the FARs is reckless, but that does't make them legal or reasonable.
There are many stupid things that people do that are not reckless, and smart people can do reckless things. Let's stop using a legally restrictive term and try using the word "dangerous". Doing dangerous things ignorantly is just as bad as doing the same dangerous thing knowingly. Criminal intent in "reckless" isn't a requirement, only the action.
For example, if I go out to the boonies and fly my drone up to 600' AGL, am I operating recklessly? Maybe, maybe not -- and because I know the airspace it isn't. But I don't want my example of doing it safely but illegally to become the example for a nitwit who knows nothing of the airspace rules. The question "if HE can do it, why can't I" is a pretty serious question, and the answer "he knows the airspace and can do illegal things safely and you don't" is a pretty stupid answer.
There is nothing preventing local authorities (or organizations) passing more restrictive laws in the aviation world, as long as those laws amplify the nationally established ones.
I know what an "amplifier" is in electronic terms. I have no idea what you mean by "amplify" when it comes to laws.
Are you seriously claiming that a state could pass a law that only multi-engine aircraft can fly within state borders, or that all aircraft above 14,000 AGL must operate IFR, or other such nonsense? Or that the federal 18,000 AGL Class A airspace rules don't apply in their state?
I really can't tell if it is tighter or looser regulations are what you mean by "amplify". I can tell that allowing such silliness would be a serious hindrance to that state's aviation system, and that of neighboring states. Imagine all the airlines having to keep from flying over the state of Kentucky because they have little bottles of alcoholic beverages on board and FooBunk County in Kentucky is a dry county. Imagine all the general aviation aircraft having to fly around Oklahoma because they are single engine.
"Federal preemption". Sometimes there is no good reason for it; in cases of keeping a unified airspace system there is. There's a VOR approach that comes into the local airport right over the city I live in. Suppose our city council decides to pass a law that says that nobody can fly lower than 2000' AGL over the city. Instead of being at the legal and authorized 700' AGL that an aircraft can descend to now, he's got to stay at 2000' AGL until two miles from the airport. What a great system we'd have, huh?
Yet according to the Constitution, it's PERFECTLY OK for individual states to ban weapons.
Uhhh, no. Those rights enumerated in the Constitution are limits on the government at all levels.
That's the part about the "well organized militia".
Uhhh, no, again. The part about the "well regulated militia" has nothing to do with the states, and it is not a proscriptive statement of any kind. It does not define the only reason the right exists, nor can it do so. Otherwise, the right would not be inalienable.
Moreover, states are entirely within their rights to impose a death penalty for even transporting a gun across their territory.
Not a reasonable part, since your right to own a gun isn't affected by said ownership being documented.
The Second Amendment doesn't just say you must be allowed to "keep and bear" arms, but that that specific inalienable right "shall not be infringed." Not "shall not be prohibited", but "shall not be infringed." As in "shall not be encroached upon". Yes, keeping a national database of gun owners is infringing upon that right because it has an affect upon those who wish to exercise it. It would be a special hoop that you must jump through before being able to use a right that the government didn't grant you but has documented as something that existed and exists outside the scope of the government.
Imagine if you were required to register your encryption keys with the government before you were allowed to use encryption as a way of exercising your fourth amendment rights. Or you had to register your printer before you could use the first. How about a government requirement that you provide a documented real name on every published exercise of your right to free speech? My goodness, that's not a prohibition on the speech, it's a simple registration requirement! How could that be a problem? (Hint: it's only a problem if you are saying something that might be unpopular. Oh, wait, that is the reason the first amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.)
Looks like the FCC is trying to protect operator license privacy.
Nonsense. The FCC has stated flat out that it will not hide the operator license data for current licensees. The only accommodation to the privacy of amateur licensees is that they can now use a post office box instead of the physical address of their station on the station license application. I know about this because I have had a parole officer take her license exam at one of my sessions and she needed to be sure that her physical address wasn't on file for the safety of her family.
Perhaps if you actually read the ARRL news item, you would have noticed this:
The change would not affect public access to a licensee's current address information.
They're thinking about allowing previous address information to be hidden, that's all. Current data is public record.
Actually, it is quite different. For started, car registrations are at the state level, these FAA registrations are at a federal level. Second, car registrations are per-vehicle, the FAA drone registration is registering a person.
You personally aren't a moron with your car, but enough have to the point that all cars are required to be registered now.
That is hardly the reason why cars are registered and required to display license plates. The requirement is to show that you have paid the taxes for having a car. If identification of the vehicle was the intent, then the VIN laws would not exist. You do realize, I hope, that there is a unique identification for each vehicle, and this identification can be found in several places in a car, not just the the front window.
Unlike the annual required car registration, which is per-car.
You admit at least one difference, but make the mistake of assuming the car registrations are all for one year.
My dad certainly had read or heard of more than one returned G.I. who, for whatever reason, picked up his own firearm and did something insane to his own family.
Which is not an excuse for him destroying a weapon HE had. Your dad was not those people, nor am I, nor are most of the people in the US. Yeah, gosh, someone did something bad with something. Let's ban something so we stop all the evil people from doing bad things. What a ridiculous argument.
You're sure you would never ever do such a thing and so was your dad. But history says otherwise.
Bullshit. History doesn't force me to do something like that. You don't know me or my dad but you'll make ludicrous and insulting claims about how I'm going to shoot someone because I have a gun. You are arrogant and ignorant, and that is a bad combination for someone who creates laws for other people.
And any person of normal intelligence
You aren't the only smart person on the planet, and you're opinion isn't the only smart opinion on the planet. You shoot yourself in the foot with your own arrogance when you make arguments like that.
It is already against the law for criminals to own and use guns to commit crimes.
No. That's the point. What gun laws did Adam Lanza break?
Born on April 22, 1992, Adam Lanza is believed to have shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the head at her home in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, before traveling to the nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he shot and killed 20 students between the ages of 5 and 10, and six adult workers. According to police reports, Lanza then turned the gun on himself, fatally shooting himself in the head.
If you cannot identify at least 28 crimes in that one paragraph, this discussion is a waste of time.
It's not illegal for a family member to give guns to a minor, nor allow access to them, even if they are knowingly violently ill.
No, it is not against the law for a "violently ill" person to have a gun. It is against the law for a mentally ill person. "Under 18 U.S.C. 922(d), it is unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution." ". Mother knows, best, yet mother broke the law.
... but many of the mass shootings look to be done by people who broke no laws before the first shot was fired.
And the logical fallacy that results from such a nonsense argument is that if only there were just one more law, the person who with malice and forethought murdered 28 people, including himself, would have chosen not to murder 28 people, including himself. He would not simply have stolen a gun and proceeded as before, he would have considered the dire consequences of stealing a gun and decided that stealing was a crime and he wouldn't do it. Adam Lanza, in particular, would think "Mother would be very angry if I used a stolen gun to murder her and 27 other people, so I better not steal a gun and murder her and 27 other people."
Another logical fallacy from such nonsense is that you would happily turn law abiding citizens into criminals. People who have no intention of, and will not, go out and murder 28 people must be made criminals because they own a magazine that holds 28 rounds, or because they have guns with certain cosmetic appearances ("assault weapons"). We can't allow that, because we know that they will just go out and kill 28 people with those awful guns if we let them have them. We must make having a gun a crime so they won't dare break the law by using the gun. Poppycock.
And new laws that target those planning mass shootings would be the only thing that law enforcement can do to stop them.
Right. Because killing his mother wasn't enough of a crime for the police to stop Adam Lanza before he killed 27 other people. They weren't on the scene in time to stop him after murdering someone, but they would have been right there lickity split to stop Adam Lanza from murdering his mother if he had stolen the gun he used to murder her, and 27 others, instead of her giving it to him. Right. Sure.
Here on Planet Earth, things don't work that way. Maybe where you live the Unicorns would have arrived and prevented the killings based on a simple theft of a weapon, but on this planet we don't have magic police with pixie dust protecting us everywhere and anywhere we go.
Most countries have the police explicitly tasked with protecting the people,... The US is the exception,
I've been to other countries. I recall quite clearly how the police in Brazil, for instance, "protected" the public. They did it by stopping them on the street and demanding money. When I was in Sao Paulo, I can't remember ever seeing a policeman.
In any case, it is lunacy to think that the police in any country can protect everyone everyplace all the time. It's just absurd to even pretend that it could be true.
There's an assumption in my argument that the people involved in the discussion are smart enough to predict that bad things are likely to happen based on past history.
And the assumption other people have is that the people involved in this discussion are smart enough to predict that adding yet another law will have the same results as all the previous "yet another laws" have had on solving the problem. And yet, here you are, pretending that you are the smart one and the people who disagree with you must be dumbasses for daring to question your qualifications based on... your Dad's fear?
...try to get put away without hurting anyone first.
Fear mongering writ large. My dad never felt he had to destroy a gun because he was scared I'd shoot someone with it.
Bruce, arguments based on how smart you are and how dumb everyone that doesn't agree with you is aren't productive in any way. You should be smart enough to recognize that.
The odds are much higher that you will use that weapon against your own family than that you will ever use it in any way that actually protects them from harm.
I call bullshit. The odds are ZERO that I will use any of the guns I own against anyone in my own family. ZERO.
My dad was a reserve and was called up for both World War II and Korea.... because he knew that his family would be safer without an operating weapon in the home.
His fear that you would shoot someone is hardly an reason to enact more gun control laws.
So, I figure that not having guns all around us is better for our freedom overall.
The founders of this country, and the legislators of the various states that ratified the Constitution and Bill of Rights, disagree with you. I trust their judgement more than yours.
By that twisted logic we wouldn't have laws against anything.
No, by that logic we would understand that adding YET ANOTHER LAW will be just as ineffective at stopping the crime that you are trying to stop because we've already added YET ANOTHER LAW multiple times and it has done nothing.
You talk about REMOVING laws, when the fact is that nobody is talking about removing existing laws, except you.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That's the pathway chosen by those who demand yet another law.
Of all the stupid arguments against gun control, that ranks right up near the top.
It is rather disingenuous to talk as if the discussion were about "gun control", since we already have "gun control". It is already against the law for criminals to own and use guns to commit crimes. Honest folks have ever increasing numbers of hoops to jump through to be able to buy a gun. Gun control we got. There is no serious argument against gun control. The argument is over whether yet another law will solve the problem it is being proposed to solve, or whether it would be yet another law that impacts only the law abiding folks who have put up with the increasing number of "yet another laws" that haven't had the results that the anti-gun folks keep claiming they'll have.
Not having an easy answer does not make the non-feasible answers work better. It is a logical fallacy to argue that a bad answer is suddenly good if all there are no immediately available good answers. "More laws" is one such ridiculous answer, since "more laws" have been tried over and over again and shown not to be a solution.
If I have the choice between being confronted by a criminal with a knife and a criminal with a gun
Laws against carrying a gun that you obey because you are not a criminal don't force a choice upon the criminal. The idea that the criminal will happily choose a knife if he knows the victims are unarmed is a concept trivially disproven by any of the mass-shooting incidents.
Against a knife I have the opportunity to run if I choose and in most situations I can lay my hands on a weapon that will give me a chance in a fight.
The right to self-defense belongs to the strong and the swift of foot.
The old, infirm, or non-athletic people are valueless and should accept their fate happily.
The shooting at the community college in Oregon being the most recent example.
Umpqua Community College code of student conduct section 721.3, paragraph 19, prohibits:
Possession or use, without written authorization, of firearms, explosives, dangerous chemicals, substances, or any other weapons or destructive devices that are designed to or readily capable of causing physical injury, on College premises, at College-sponsored or supervised functions or at functions sponsored or participated in by the College.
The Oregon court has struck down an administrative rule of the Oregon higher education department that covers the main Oregon universities, but UCC is not government by that group. While concealed carry permit holders are allegedly allowed to bring guns onto campus, colleges can ban their possession inside buildings or classrooms. Which UCC clearly has. And, of course, CCH are not the only people who would otherwise be allowed to carry a gun on campus, except for the rules against carrying guns on campus.
A firearm for home defence is not accepted, that is what the police are for in a properly managed society,
No. Even the police admit that they cannot be everywhere to defend everyone against everything all the time. But you may mean a "properly managed society" in which all the people are "properly managed", yes?
Hunting does not require an assault rifle,
Good thing there aren't many assault rifles being sold, huh?
But here we're back at the typical "you don't need" argument, which is pretty meaningless. If we based our "properly managed society" on what I think you need, I'm sure we'd all be happy citizens being happy, productive consumers and never have a single thing to worry about.
Slashdot Mirror
My point was not made, then.
That's right. You didn't make your point.
The point is that birds are not going away and they dwarf the threat to aircraft posed by drones.
That "point" is meaningless. You do not stop trying to mitigate other hazards to safety just because you cannot eliminate one of the hazards. That's just stupid. This continued harping on how birds are a danger to aircraft is a red herring.
The locks on my doors won't stop a determined burglar, so I might as well not lock them. That's what your argument boils down to. Can't stop all dangers so don't bother dealing with any.
Dude, the drones the uninformed fly have a 300ft range and 3 minute flight time.
No, dude, the drones the uninformed fly around wildfires are much larger, have a much longer flight time, and go quite a bit further. Not all drones are the 2 oz pieces of crap you get from the Crackerback Jox.
You're more than welcome to try and fly one into a wildfire.
No, you are not. They put TFRs around wildfires for a reason.
It won't cause anyone any harm.
That's only because when they are detected, all aircraft operations cease. You're right, they won't hit any of the firefighting aircraft because the firefighting aircraft are grounded for safety. That also means the fire isn't being fought in the most efficient manner.
You don't know any cops do you? They won't do anything that interferes with their on duty naps and donut eating.
You don't know any cops, do you? I live in a city that has a lot of ex-pat cops from southern California cities, and when anything interesting happens they ALL manage to "go 12-2" (on scene) so they can play. It's boring in a small city, compared to big city copping.
Birds are not a microscopic minority, though, and civil aviation has managed to live with bird strikes for decades.
I keep seeing this nonsense and I just can't let it keep going on. Birds are living things that, for political and scientific reasons, we cannot simply eliminate as a way of reducing the risk they cause to aviation. We have to live with them because we've decided that they have a right to live. We do take steps to limit the problem when we can.
Drones, OTOH, are not living things, and they do not have a right to live. We can easily ban them from airspace where they pose a threat to other aircraft.
The fact that one threat to something exists and cannot be eliminated does not mean we must put up with all threats, especially ones that can be eliminated. Trying to argue that since birds are a threat we cannot do anything to limit any other kind of threat is just stupid. There are all kinds of hazards in daily life that we cannot prevent, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to mitigate all of them that we can.
What's your point exactly?
Pretty simple, I thought. The statement that "guns routinely kill innocent people" is flamebait, pure and simple, and is patently absurd. It is not only false, but irrelevant to any part of this discussion.
<flamebait>Good luck, we can't even get registration for guns that routinely kill innocent people,</flaimbait>
Guns do not routinely kill innocent people. I'm pretty sure that none of the three I currently own are slipping out at night wreaking havoc. Perhaps during the day when I'm not home, but there are no reports of multiple unsolved murders in my neighborhood. Perhaps they're hopping on the free buses run by our city and wiping out large numbers of people a few miles away. If so, I would be fully in support of a law prohibiting unaccompanied firearms from riding public transport.
What you mean is that some evil people use guns to kill innocent people. That is a significantly different concept than "guns routinely kill".
The point was that the types of laws that states and municipalities are passing in order to prohibit the sorts of behaviors they don't want are redundant with laws already on the books that prohibit generally reckless behaviors that endanger people.
But that point is wrong. There are laws in my city that prohibit flying a UAS in a public park. There are city parks around here that are almost always empty -- flying a UAS at low altitude and within a close radius is hardly reckless, and it endangers nobody.
To the degree that they also prohibit non-reckless use of drones, then it is good that they have been superseded with Federal Regulations.
Which is it? Are they preempted by federal regulations or not? I don't know that my city law about flight in public parks has been preempted by the FAA, but if so, then the law you claim is preventing reckless endangerment of the public has been preempted. You can't have it both ways.
I would suggest requiring that manufacturers ensure their product is sold on the condition that it will only be sold to a licensed pilot or licensed, or registered drone operator.
Agreed. Amateur radio requires graduated license tests.
Except there is no requirement for someone to have an amateur radio license before he can buy a radio capable of transmitting in the amateur band. I don't have to show my license to the guy at the hamfest who is selling recycled Motorola stuff before I can give him $10 for an old Mostar.
And since building a radio (or UAS) is possible, which parts of either do we say defines the radio (or UAS) and requires a license to possess or buy? (Like "lower receiver" for guns.)
There should be an exemption for traditional RC activity over recognized fields.
"Dear Amazon.com: I don't have a drone license, but I promise to fly my Phantom III Pro only over recognized fields. Please send me two. Your Friend, Obfuscant."
The concept of requiring people to have a license before they can buy a UAS is simply unenforceable. Even more unenforceable than requiring people to register to fly them.
What's wrong with two (or even three) sets of rules, each made by government entities tasked with addressing scopes of problems?
Someone flying below 1000' AGL with a good camera can take a lot of incriminating pictures of your daughter by your swimming pool, especially if her boyfriend (or girlfriend) is there too.
Your city, in response, passes a law, based on privacy concerns, that nobody can fly less than 2000' AGL over your fair city. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the existing federal laws on minimum safe altitudes. It also conflicts with the VOR approach to the local airport which allows pilots to descend to 650' AGL. It also conflicts with the ILS approach where the outer marker has a crossing altitude of just 1650' AGL.
Does the FAA need to keep track of every local law prohibiting flight in the national airspace so it can keep the charts up to date, and how does that impact the rules that try to institute standards for things like approaches so pilots don't have to keep track of thousands of details? Or do thousands of pilots independently have to keep track of thousands of different cities' laws regarding the national airspace they are using?
Is it a good thing for a pilot who has obeyed the published approach procedure and made a safe landing in low weather, to be approached by a local cop on the ramp because he didn't know that Greater Dloob Township passed a law that nobody could fly lower than 1000' AGL and that ILS approach he just flew had him at 500' AGL while transiting that municipality?
While some laws are passed based on different "concerns", they still need to make a regular picture, not a patchwork of special limits in special areas.
And if you have a silly situation where someone tries to make silly rules in the other entity's scope (e.g. cities trying to ban all flights over or within that city) just let the silly people lose.
Except it won't be the silly people who lose, at least not in any direct way. It will be the pilots who find out that Podunk City has passed a law prohibiting flight below 2000' AGL after they have landed at Podunk City airport and the local cops show up to arrest them. Yes, the silly people will have strangled general aviation into and out of their locality, but most people don't recognize the value of that, and don't consider that someone who flies into the local airport counts in the FAA traffic totals that bring in grant money for airport projects, they usually buy gas that pays for jobs at the FBO, and they are often there to visit the city or a business.
"Let the silly people lose" results in the tyranny of the ignorant or fearful.
Yeah, there will be some complexity, and arguments about what belongs to who, but we've always had that going on.
There has been blissfully little of that regarding aviation. There has been altogether too much of it regarding amateur radio and antenna restrictions. On the whole, I prefer less more than more.
Drones are not a serious hazard unless they are used in a completely reckless or criminal manner that would trigger a bunch of generalized laws already on the books that apply generally to reckless behavior and criminal intent.
That statement is almost a tautology, only failing to be so because you used the word "completely", and because the law defines "reckless" in a bit stricter sense than you seem to. (I.e., "completely reckless" is not a legal term; it is reckless or it isn't.) Not every stupid thing someone does that violates the FARs is reckless, but that does't make them legal or reasonable.
There are many stupid things that people do that are not reckless, and smart people can do reckless things. Let's stop using a legally restrictive term and try using the word "dangerous". Doing dangerous things ignorantly is just as bad as doing the same dangerous thing knowingly. Criminal intent in "reckless" isn't a requirement, only the action.
For example, if I go out to the boonies and fly my drone up to 600' AGL, am I operating recklessly? Maybe, maybe not -- and because I know the airspace it isn't. But I don't want my example of doing it safely but illegally to become the example for a nitwit who knows nothing of the airspace rules. The question "if HE can do it, why can't I" is a pretty serious question, and the answer "he knows the airspace and can do illegal things safely and you don't" is a pretty stupid answer.
There is nothing preventing local authorities (or organizations) passing more restrictive laws in the aviation world, as long as those laws amplify the nationally established ones.
I know what an "amplifier" is in electronic terms. I have no idea what you mean by "amplify" when it comes to laws.
Are you seriously claiming that a state could pass a law that only multi-engine aircraft can fly within state borders, or that all aircraft above 14,000 AGL must operate IFR, or other such nonsense? Or that the federal 18,000 AGL Class A airspace rules don't apply in their state?
I really can't tell if it is tighter or looser regulations are what you mean by "amplify". I can tell that allowing such silliness would be a serious hindrance to that state's aviation system, and that of neighboring states. Imagine all the airlines having to keep from flying over the state of Kentucky because they have little bottles of alcoholic beverages on board and FooBunk County in Kentucky is a dry county. Imagine all the general aviation aircraft having to fly around Oklahoma because they are single engine.
"Federal preemption". Sometimes there is no good reason for it; in cases of keeping a unified airspace system there is. There's a VOR approach that comes into the local airport right over the city I live in. Suppose our city council decides to pass a law that says that nobody can fly lower than 2000' AGL over the city. Instead of being at the legal and authorized 700' AGL that an aircraft can descend to now, he's got to stay at 2000' AGL until two miles from the airport. What a great system we'd have, huh?
Yet according to the Constitution, it's PERFECTLY OK for individual states to ban weapons.
Uhhh, no. Those rights enumerated in the Constitution are limits on the government at all levels.
That's the part about the "well organized militia".
Uhhh, no, again. The part about the "well regulated militia" has nothing to do with the states, and it is not a proscriptive statement of any kind. It does not define the only reason the right exists, nor can it do so. Otherwise, the right would not be inalienable.
Moreover, states are entirely within their rights to impose a death penalty for even transporting a gun across their territory.
Now I know you are clueless.
Not a reasonable part, since your right to own a gun isn't affected by said ownership being documented.
The Second Amendment doesn't just say you must be allowed to "keep and bear" arms, but that that specific inalienable right "shall not be infringed." Not "shall not be prohibited", but "shall not be infringed." As in "shall not be encroached upon". Yes, keeping a national database of gun owners is infringing upon that right because it has an affect upon those who wish to exercise it. It would be a special hoop that you must jump through before being able to use a right that the government didn't grant you but has documented as something that existed and exists outside the scope of the government.
Imagine if you were required to register your encryption keys with the government before you were allowed to use encryption as a way of exercising your fourth amendment rights. Or you had to register your printer before you could use the first. How about a government requirement that you provide a documented real name on every published exercise of your right to free speech? My goodness, that's not a prohibition on the speech, it's a simple registration requirement! How could that be a problem? (Hint: it's only a problem if you are saying something that might be unpopular. Oh, wait, that is the reason the first amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.)
Looks like the FCC is trying to protect operator license privacy.
Nonsense. The FCC has stated flat out that it will not hide the operator license data for current licensees. The only accommodation to the privacy of amateur licensees is that they can now use a post office box instead of the physical address of their station on the station license application. I know about this because I have had a parole officer take her license exam at one of my sessions and she needed to be sure that her physical address wasn't on file for the safety of her family.
Perhaps if you actually read the ARRL news item, you would have noticed this:
They're thinking about allowing previous address information to be hidden, that's all. Current data is public record.
It's no different than registering your car.
Actually, it is quite different. For started, car registrations are at the state level, these FAA registrations are at a federal level. Second, car registrations are per-vehicle, the FAA drone registration is registering a person.
You personally aren't a moron with your car, but enough have to the point that all cars are required to be registered now.
That is hardly the reason why cars are registered and required to display license plates. The requirement is to show that you have paid the taxes for having a car. If identification of the vehicle was the intent, then the VIN laws would not exist. You do realize, I hope, that there is a unique identification for each vehicle, and this identification can be found in several places in a car, not just the the front window.
Unlike the annual required car registration, which is per-car.
You admit at least one difference, but make the mistake of assuming the car registrations are all for one year.
My dad certainly had read or heard of more than one returned G.I. who, for whatever reason, picked up his own firearm and did something insane to his own family.
Which is not an excuse for him destroying a weapon HE had. Your dad was not those people, nor am I, nor are most of the people in the US. Yeah, gosh, someone did something bad with something. Let's ban something so we stop all the evil people from doing bad things. What a ridiculous argument.
You're sure you would never ever do such a thing and so was your dad. But history says otherwise.
Bullshit. History doesn't force me to do something like that. You don't know me or my dad but you'll make ludicrous and insulting claims about how I'm going to shoot someone because I have a gun. You are arrogant and ignorant, and that is a bad combination for someone who creates laws for other people.
And any person of normal intelligence
You aren't the only smart person on the planet, and you're opinion isn't the only smart opinion on the planet. You shoot yourself in the foot with your own arrogance when you make arguments like that.
It is already against the law for criminals to own and use guns to commit crimes.
No. That's the point. What gun laws did Adam Lanza break?
If you cannot identify at least 28 crimes in that one paragraph, this discussion is a waste of time.
It's not illegal for a family member to give guns to a minor, nor allow access to them, even if they are knowingly violently ill.
No, it is not against the law for a "violently ill" person to have a gun. It is against the law for a mentally ill person. "Under 18 U.S.C. 922(d), it is unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution." ". Mother knows, best, yet mother broke the law.
... but many of the mass shootings look to be done by people who broke no laws before the first shot was fired.
And the logical fallacy that results from such a nonsense argument is that if only there were just one more law, the person who with malice and forethought murdered 28 people, including himself, would have chosen not to murder 28 people, including himself. He would not simply have stolen a gun and proceeded as before, he would have considered the dire consequences of stealing a gun and decided that stealing was a crime and he wouldn't do it. Adam Lanza, in particular, would think "Mother would be very angry if I used a stolen gun to murder her and 27 other people, so I better not steal a gun and murder her and 27 other people."
Another logical fallacy from such nonsense is that you would happily turn law abiding citizens into criminals. People who have no intention of, and will not, go out and murder 28 people must be made criminals because they own a magazine that holds 28 rounds, or because they have guns with certain cosmetic appearances ("assault weapons"). We can't allow that, because we know that they will just go out and kill 28 people with those awful guns if we let them have them. We must make having a gun a crime so they won't dare break the law by using the gun. Poppycock.
And new laws that target those planning mass shootings would be the only thing that law enforcement can do to stop them.
Right. Because killing his mother wasn't enough of a crime for the police to stop Adam Lanza before he killed 27 other people. They weren't on the scene in time to stop him after murdering someone, but they would have been right there lickity split to stop Adam Lanza from murdering his mother if he had stolen the gun he used to murder her, and 27 others, instead of her giving it to him. Right. Sure.
Here on Planet Earth, things don't work that way. Maybe where you live the Unicorns would have arrived and prevented the killings based on a simple theft of a weapon, but on this planet we don't have magic police with pixie dust protecting us everywhere and anywhere we go.
Most countries have the police explicitly tasked with protecting the people, ... The US is the exception,
I've been to other countries. I recall quite clearly how the police in Brazil, for instance, "protected" the public. They did it by stopping them on the street and demanding money. When I was in Sao Paulo, I can't remember ever seeing a policeman.
In any case, it is lunacy to think that the police in any country can protect everyone everyplace all the time. It's just absurd to even pretend that it could be true.
There's an assumption in my argument that the people involved in the discussion are smart enough to predict that bad things are likely to happen based on past history.
And the assumption other people have is that the people involved in this discussion are smart enough to predict that adding yet another law will have the same results as all the previous "yet another laws" have had on solving the problem. And yet, here you are, pretending that you are the smart one and the people who disagree with you must be dumbasses for daring to question your qualifications based on ... your Dad's fear?
...try to get put away without hurting anyone first.
Fear mongering writ large. My dad never felt he had to destroy a gun because he was scared I'd shoot someone with it.
Bruce, arguments based on how smart you are and how dumb everyone that doesn't agree with you is aren't productive in any way. You should be smart enough to recognize that.
The odds are much higher that you will use that weapon against your own family than that you will ever use it in any way that actually protects them from harm.
I call bullshit. The odds are ZERO that I will use any of the guns I own against anyone in my own family. ZERO.
My dad was a reserve and was called up for both World War II and Korea. ... because he knew that his family would be safer without an operating weapon in the home.
His fear that you would shoot someone is hardly an reason to enact more gun control laws.
So, I figure that not having guns all around us is better for our freedom overall.
The founders of this country, and the legislators of the various states that ratified the Constitution and Bill of Rights, disagree with you. I trust their judgement more than yours.
By that twisted logic we wouldn't have laws against anything.
No, by that logic we would understand that adding YET ANOTHER LAW will be just as ineffective at stopping the crime that you are trying to stop because we've already added YET ANOTHER LAW multiple times and it has done nothing.
You talk about REMOVING laws, when the fact is that nobody is talking about removing existing laws, except you.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That's the pathway chosen by those who demand yet another law.
Of all the stupid arguments against gun control, that ranks right up near the top.
It is rather disingenuous to talk as if the discussion were about "gun control", since we already have "gun control". It is already against the law for criminals to own and use guns to commit crimes. Honest folks have ever increasing numbers of hoops to jump through to be able to buy a gun. Gun control we got. There is no serious argument against gun control. The argument is over whether yet another law will solve the problem it is being proposed to solve, or whether it would be yet another law that impacts only the law abiding folks who have put up with the increasing number of "yet another laws" that haven't had the results that the anti-gun folks keep claiming they'll have.
Then provide an answer.
Not having an easy answer does not make the non-feasible answers work better. It is a logical fallacy to argue that a bad answer is suddenly good if all there are no immediately available good answers. "More laws" is one such ridiculous answer, since "more laws" have been tried over and over again and shown not to be a solution.
If I have the choice between being confronted by a criminal with a knife and a criminal with a gun
Laws against carrying a gun that you obey because you are not a criminal don't force a choice upon the criminal. The idea that the criminal will happily choose a knife if he knows the victims are unarmed is a concept trivially disproven by any of the mass-shooting incidents.
Against a knife I have the opportunity to run if I choose and in most situations I can lay my hands on a weapon that will give me a chance in a fight.
The right to self-defense belongs to the strong and the swift of foot.
The old, infirm, or non-athletic people are valueless and should accept their fate happily.
The shooting at the community college in Oregon being the most recent example.
Umpqua Community College code of student conduct section 721.3, paragraph 19, prohibits:
The Oregon court has struck down an administrative rule of the Oregon higher education department that covers the main Oregon universities, but UCC is not government by that group. While concealed carry permit holders are allegedly allowed to bring guns onto campus, colleges can ban their possession inside buildings or classrooms. Which UCC clearly has. And, of course, CCH are not the only people who would otherwise be allowed to carry a gun on campus, except for the rules against carrying guns on campus.
A firearm for home defence is not accepted, that is what the police are for in a properly managed society,
No. Even the police admit that they cannot be everywhere to defend everyone against everything all the time. But you may mean a "properly managed society" in which all the people are "properly managed", yes?
Hunting does not require an assault rifle,
Good thing there aren't many assault rifles being sold, huh?
But here we're back at the typical "you don't need" argument, which is pretty meaningless. If we based our "properly managed society" on what I think you need, I'm sure we'd all be happy citizens being happy, productive consumers and never have a single thing to worry about.