My neighbour and friend has shot down a drone

There are legal rules about drones, off complete top of my head 50m from "people" is the rule I think?
Amongst many others? As minimum. I might be wrong (though it's rarer than a Ronaldo penalty miss).

Blatting it out of the air with a shotgun might be frowned on.. but I'd not convict, I'd encourage it.

deserves a medal

'friend'

shot down

posted by 'topshot'


yeah, right ...

He owns the air space above his property so the only issue is discharging a firearm.

Get a catapult and some proper ammo, it'll do the job.

Are there some regulations regarding using guns near public spaces, roads etc?

If your privacy is being violated, you can take action using the concept of invasion of privacy, just like if anyone was using a cellphone to record you in a way you believed to be inappropriate. So surely anyone would have their rights regarding an unlawful robot intrusion !

However, blasting away with a shotgun, doubt it, but as you say no previous case to base this on, not in the UK anyway. We need some new laws to keep pace with technology, and balance the rights of drone owners against people’s rights to privacy.

Just spoke to him whilst cutting grass this thing was hovering a few feet from his daughters bedroom and he has no regrets, quet rightly

For the disbelievers
Taken from facebook

usually disagree with you Paul Bohan but I think it is outrageous. It is a total misuse of a firearm, to think of someone in town has access to something so lethal is a real concern. He is a States member and should have more common sense. S...See more
2 hrs
Peter Allen
Peter Allen Sorry Mel but you are talking rubbish, Private property is exactly that, private!
What a person does on their private property is their business, not yours!
As to the firearm, it is a shotgun! With the range limitations of such, perhaps you should chec...See more
2 hrs
Peter Allen
Peter Allen I, and I'm sure the majority of people think Steve did nothing wrong.
1 · 2 hrs
Bill Walden
Bill Walden So Pete, let's get this right. You think that because the drone was flying ABOVE Steve's property that he had the right to destroy it? Let's assume that that someone parks their car on your property, up at your field maybe. Does that give you the right...See more
2 hrs
Peter Allen
Peter Allen Bill talking rubbish again!If a dog gets amounts animals you have a right to shoot it, if a person drives a car into my garden and has people inside it looking through my windows i would remove it any way i could!I wonder what your comments would be ha...See more
2 hrs
Melanie
Melanie Peter...That is a simple question. Just ask the person to stop, if that fails then speak to the police.
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Peter Allen
Peter Allen perhaps Mel it would have been the right thing to ASK Steve before flying over his PRIVATE property/garden/house and potentially filming through windows and into doors.
2 hrs
Peter Allen
Peter Allen On the point of safety, there are lots of regulations regarding drones, and proximity to airports it could be said "thank heavens Steve stopped this flying device before it caused a serious accident involving a passenger plane. I wonder if mr Perks had permission to fly his drone near a commercial airport?
1 · 2 hrs
P

there is a law about discharging a firearm near a public highway, I can't remember if it's 50ft or 50yds.

Good on him. Should be applauded for his actions.

should be named in the new years honours list imho

Case like this in America. A teenage girl was sunbathing in her backyard in Kentucky when she saw a drone equipped with a camera hovering overhead, something that she, quite reasonably, found creepy, so she got her father......

Dad's statement: "I went and got my shotgun and I said, “I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.” Within a minute or so, here it came. It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn’t shoot across the road, I didn’t shoot across my neighbor’s fences, I shot directly into the air.

You know, when you’re in your own property, within a six-foot privacy fence, you have the expectation of privacy. We don’t know if he was looking at my daughter. We don’t know if he was looking for something to steal. To me, it was the same as trespassing."

He was arrested and charged with wanton endangerment and criminal mischief.

(I didn't know what 'wanton endangerment' was, googled it and it means creating a situation where another person is at risk of death or serious injury. But it was a robot (????)

Drone over your property = target.

It is only a matter of time before there is a tragic incident caused by one of these abominations and then it will be "lessons to be learned" time again.

I find myself in agreement with people I usually argue with. I have a 9K32 Strela-2 at hand, should anyone fly a drone over my house.

I agree with pretty well everybody!

Hound Dog, I'd guess that "wanton endangerment" refers to the possible harm caused to people by a drone falling out of the sky onto them.

At the moment it seems the worst charge will be wilful damage...£1500 for the drone, and the police still have his shotgun.

he needs proper legal advice topshot, if he accepts a caution they might be able to oppose his license renewal.

So some guy with a drone is more dangerous than a nutter with a shotgun. The guy with the drone should be given a warning but the guy with the gun should be jailed and have his gun license took off him.

Nutters like him shouldn't be able to own a firearm. He must have a short fuse if the first thing he does is grab his gun when a gadget hovers over his house. Spare a thought for guy driving the Google car if it passes his front door.

I think morally it depends what is downwind of the shotgun, if it was safe, and especially his property - good luck to him.

Maybe this should go to court as there is privacy laws and firearm laws to deal with. It could well set a precedent.

Hardly a nutter hes had a gun all his life, he is now in his 60s and fired straight up into the air, also believe it or not he is a local politician.

you won the air above your house to a height of 1800 feet .

I was ready to shoot  down a  paraglider - told him to get off my land 

own *

the levels are set lower  where you are above sea level

it's as low as 56 feet in the Highlands

So if some kid annoys him then grab the shotgun? The police are here to deal with issues like this, not to grab the first weapon and go shooting. The firearm discharge is far more serious than whatever motives were behind the drone.

The guy certainly doesn't deserve to own a gun, that's for sure.

I take the view that the drone owner would find it quite easy to say he was filming something else and momentarily lost control of the aircraft, causing it to be flying over the property of your neighbour.

Shooting it down constitutes Criminal Damage at the very least and discharging a firearm in a residential area could lead to serious charges.

Id say i monetarily lost control of my gun.

F the drone owner.

Erm, momentarily.

He's lucky it wasn't in Liverpool.
They'd have shot him and stole the drone.

To be fair to the drone owner he has done some stunning footage of the our coastline and fortifications, but not sure why he was filming someone's house....the owners must have asked him to do it I guess

couldn't care less about the rules, somebody was violating his personal space, will teach him an expensive lesson.

"I take the view that the drone owner would find it quite easy to say he was filming something else and momentarily lost control of the aircraft"
Drone pilots have regulations.
They should either be observing themselves and a second watching them, or just observing themselves,
always someone observing.
Also they tend to move in an extremely controlled manner. **** them, the pilot, and the poncy you tube video he wanted to make.

But it still doesn't give anyone the right to discharge a weapon. The gun crime is a far more serious offense. The guy certainly doesn't deserve to own a gun if he takes it out every time something rattles his cage.

Also, lets assume he did in fact 'momentarily' lose control. Do we think the OPs neighbour was stood w8th a gun in his back yard on the off chance that a drone may randomly pass over his house?

Id assumne he has no chance of getting his gun back now unless his house was a farm surrounded by his own fields.

very good shot, why has the owner of the drone not been arrested?

Blimey the drone operator is quiet well known and has invented a drone to assist in clearing land mines...Google John Day drones

Fishing rod with small lead weight,  any decent fisherman should be able to bring one of those  things down  in a couple of tries.  If any problems just say that you were  practising  your casting out  techniques when the terrible incident happened.

there where no land mines in his neighbours garden

This puts up a different scenario to what I've been told

I've had a look at the relevant Alderney law, which is the "Dangerous Weapons (Alderney) Law 1965. Section 5. "Penalty for possesing weapon with intent to injure refers.I'm not a lawyer, but it appears clear to me that a firearms offence has been committed, in thnat the firearm has been used to "injure" the property of John Day

.
Penalty for possessing weapon with intent to injure.
5.
A person who has in his possession any dangerous weapon or
ammunition with intent by means t
hereof to endanger life or cause serious injury to
property, or to enable any other person by means thereof to endanger life or cause
serious injury to property, shall, whether any injury to person or property has been
caused or not, be guilty of an offenc
e and liable, on conviction, to imprisonment for
a term not exceeding fourteen years.
1 hr
Very old law, and not taking into account how times change maybe

Im sure the EU will indicate that a

Blue Peter badge should be awarded

To the dronee

A guy I know discharged his Shotgun in his back garden in 2000. He is due to be released this year.

technically the dronee is guilty of trespass. This can mean a sentence of anything up to 10 years

trespass is confined not just to your house and garden but also the airspace above and the soil below.
you cannot tunnel below someones garden.

Could you use a paintball gun to bring down a drone?

Set Phasers to stun.

Loose Cannon imo

The UK law on this goes back to the 16th century-

Today in the UK thanks to the Civil Aviation Act of 1982, the generally accepted amount of air above one’s roof a person is entitled to is approximately 500-1,000 feet, though again this isn’t a hard definition.  Likewise, the United States has a similar estimation of about 500 feet, though this has never been officially ruled on by the Supreme Court.

Jun 19, 2016 -- 4:19PM, casemoney wrote:

Loose Cannon imo

surely that would be far more dangerous than the weapon he used. especially if he missed?

Today in the UK thanks to the Civil Aviation Act of 1982, the generally accepted amount of air above one’s roof a person is entitled to is approximately 500-1,000 feet
_______________

my deeds state 1,800 feet - have i been done ?

i have been robbed of good air

Eh? Surely you've got more air than normal...

oh yeah -  i have gained some air 

well noted Mr Cat

What are you going to do with it? Are you going to build a very tall lookout tower?

i will  exercise my right to fly my drone

They now want to offer him a caution but as of yet he hasn't accepted it.

Too damn right , tell them you want a formal appology in Writing , a night of kinky bondage with their Chief Superintendent & they can also replace the f00king Bullet !

ImSoLuckyLucky

Im sure the EU will indicate that a
Blue Peter badge should be awarded
To the drone

....or a Jim'll Fix It badge - there's plenty of those going spare I understand!

thought there was exclusion rules. cannot be within a hundred yards of a person? or something?

build anti drone drones, then build rockets to counter measure them in case they get taken over by hackers.

what sort of helmet owns a drone??

I Agee entirely with the comments of Ovalman.

At the moment, there is nothing to stop you going and buying a drone and taking it out flying, as long as the drone weighs less than 20kg and you are not using it for commercial reasons.

However, you must avoid flying it within 150 metres of a congested area and 50 metres of a person, vessel, vehicle or structure not under the control of the pilot.

Whereas - for very good reasons - there is a multitude of reasons that stops you buying a shotgun.