(VIDEO) Eagle takes down drone

Luckily? lol... If some vulture knocked my $3,000-$5,000 drone out of the air, I'd spend however many days it took to give it a 12-gauge thank you, point blank for effect.

Some folks love eagles...but I never have understood it. They are pretty looking scavengers. Vultures..Carrion birds who are as happy with week old road kill as anything fresh.

Knock my drone down, and it'll become road kill...not hunt for it.

*There really are a WIDE variety of very legitimate and downright good uses for these. They're also very valuable property in dollar amount. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would consider 4 figure losses to be a Capital Offense.

Ummm.. Actually.. No. He has absolutely NO right to just blast an aircraft that crosses his property line, and doing absolutely nothing else. In fact, Mr. Wizard there needs an education on his land rights. He almost certainly DOES NOT own the air space over his land, whatever he'd like to imagine. So, I'll bet that technically wasn't even trespassing, let alone menacing anything...until he shot it down to crash onto ground...which THEN became a valid question of who owned what side of a fence line.

As I had read that in the start of things, the guy was shooting footage of a neighbors house and our happy hunter figured he'd wait till it crossed his line. When the guy flew it out for a circle back, it covered the ground Mr. Shotgun was waiting to see..so he blasted it.

He deserves everything he gets for wanton destruction of private property. Call the cops, but vigilantism is never a good idea.

I do wonder, what about a drone is so threatening by its mere presence? It's a remote controlled airplane or helicopter with better range and much shinier bells and whistles than the old combustion engine or jet models ever had. Its still just a remote controlled airplane or helicopter. Why shoot at something that is doing nothing overtly threatening?

Look at it another way...if someone is, by chance, running..and who knows from what or who or just their imagination? Lets say they cross your fence line, to corner your yard, on into the next one.....is it cool to shoot them like a sporting clay, going between fences and non-threatening in any other way?

I'd say if someone is crossing a piece of your land, even in clear trespass conditions, and it is 100% non-threatening and passing like that? It'd be a dandy clear case of Murder in a court room. If they turn toward you? It's a clear shoot in a good % of states now.


If a drone is hovering over a girl in a bathing suit (as he mentioned kids in the backyard)? Then it isn't about being a drone anymore. You're shooting a tool of a peeping tom, and good for ya! (really!) It might even be legally justified on the grounds it was committing a crime. (backyards are considered outside the public view if fenced, and so, it would be violating a legal line..)

If a drone is cornering your property, flying between land, and apparently doing a wide turn, to hear original reports of the whole thing? What does this guy do for an encore? Shoot neighborhood kids crossing his lawn on their bikes?? Or..to keep it to inanimate objects...just shoot their back tire to watch them lose an expensive bicycle while being menace to society?


No one even mentions he popped this with a shot into the air, in a residential neighborhood. True...it is a shotgun...but did he even think about what was short range, down range? ..or just figure lead rain wouldn't hurt too much on the off chance someone was in the line it fell?

@wrabbit2000,

Most drones are equipped with cameras, hence the guy worried about his neighbor flying by an open window while his wife might be changing clothes or something

There are those pervs out there that will use this to their advatage


Not all people are like that mind you, but you can bet your sweet azz there are some that will enjoy the wide range of spying those things can do

@snarky412,

I think you are right about people like that existing and we do see it in some headlines. 

-It seems to me though, it's one thing to debate the ethics of personal drone use to aerial photo you're own house (in a close neighborhood) or that of a friend. Maybe that works...maybe not. Far better (or at least, more electable) than I will figure that one out for new regulations, if new ones are actually needed beyond how a drone may be abused or used as a simple tool of a criminal act. 

-It is quite another to actually pull the trigger on a live round, in a residential neighborhood, in a dynamic situation which I'm sure Bubba wasn't tracking for everything else around him, as he tracked a moving drone aircraft to blast. 

#1 seems like what we do every day...and its even our right to become a pain in the butt to the local Police Department in nuisance related calls, every time a neighbor flew a drone in anything like an odd way. let them know..they are watched..closely..then have them jailed like the pervert they'd be, if they are caught misusing it. (You've even helped lay groundwork to make a real prosecution WORK later....as a real side bonus  ).

#2 gets you arrested, prosecuted, and even among conservative Americans, a point of contention between exercise of rights or menace to the local community.

What a world, eh? Rotors up! Don't Sho....nvm. 

@ Nugget,

Explanation: Uhmmm? ...



Citizen's arrest in the United States [wiki]



Personal Disclosure: I agree shooting stuff out of the sky is not legal BUT citizens CAN take the law into their own hands ... they just have to follow protocol and that is easy as looking up facts on the internet.

In this case arresting the drones controller at gunpoint would be legitimate.

Further reading material ... Citizens Arrest [wiki]

I hope this post empowers you!
Power to the People - John Lennon [youttube.com]