> This is the third time discharge from your firearms has hit our house and property. The first incident left a bullet hole in the door by our garage. The second incident occurred last Thanksgiving when birdshot from your skeet shooting activities rained into our backyard. The third, of course, being what we're currently discussing.
I'm fascinated that this isn't grounds for immediate arrest and, after your stint of several months or years in prison, permanent loss of your right to own firearms. What a country we live in.
A couple of notes, in addition to, as others pointed out, you've got to call law enforcement in the first place to get the ball rolling, and as noted elsewhere you shouldn't do that unless you're willing to accept any result including you and yours getting killed by the police:
We don't do "permanent loss of your right to own firearms" without someone being committed or the like, or being convicted of any felony (a bit silly given how many things have been felonized now) or a domestic violence misdemeanor.
My home state of Missouri is like California in having both serious urban and rural areas, and per the law (http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/stathtml/57100000301.HTML) this sounds like a "Class D" felony, modulo case law I haven't checked that might not count the initial accident as "Discharges or shoots a firearm into a dwelling house...." vs. doing it deliberately at closer range.
But if it did, it would be about as serious as you desire, although I note "immediate arrest" for the first incident doesn't sound like it would necessarily be in the cards, given the potential difficulty of proving the crime. I.e. you can't allow the hammer to come down so precipitously for an action the complainant might himself have caused, i.e. make the hole in whatever fashion and then claim a particular neighbor did it at long range without your witnessing it.
Maybe his/her experience in the US is so very different than mine, but I feel like he/she's grossly over exaggerating. I've lived in 4 cities in the midwest and west coast and would not hesitate to call the police for that reason.
Seriously! I've lived in beautiful suburban family neighborhoods, idyllic rural areas, and a dangerous inner-city neighborhood where two friends of mine were robbed at gunpoint in our backyard and in none of those cases would I have been worried about calling the police.
That is an over-exaggeration to the point of complete absurdity. Pretty much only people who spend way too much time following news of police shootings, and only pay attention to the initial exaggerated reports, would even consider that to be reasonable.
If that was a reasonable fear, then there would be tens of thousands of police shootings every single day. Every single cop would have to shoot somebody a couple of times a week, versus in reality where most will never fire a gun in anger in their entire career, and will probably be off for weeks after a shooting even if it was squeaky clean.
In reality, driving a car to work is many times more dangerous than pretty much anything else you could ever do, yet most of the US does it every day without a second thought. Maybe try applying some rational skepticism to the news?
In my comment that got this going, I said: "you shouldn't do that unless you're willing to accept any result including you and yours getting killed by the police"
Getting shot, let alone killed, is a very unlikely outcome (although a lot more likely for your dogs, if you have any), but there are so many bad outcomes calling the police should still be avoided.
You might want to read Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face; I did after a cop in my fairly small home city played a game of chicken with his car and my body. Best guess, as suggested by the book, is that he was trying to generate arrest and charge statistics; the book's thesis is that with the sharp downturn in crime, what I call the police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of "the clueless" to run through the system, else there would be widespread layoffs.
Pedestrians are uncommon here, and I guess he thought I might be an easy mark, the moment he saw me he jerked his steering wheel towards me and kept the new heading. Having learned to be a pedestrian in the Boston area, the sort of thing I'm pretty sure is not true for most of the other pedestrians in the city, I could tell his car and side mirror would miss me by a foot, less for the mirror, and successfully stared him down (probably makes a difference that while not part of the official South, this bit of SW Missouri is part of the cultural south, and my mom is Cajun).
It seems pretty clear that the police were never made aware of the gunshots. I doubt it is legal to shoot your neighbor's house anywhere in this country.
Its a felony anywhere I have lived. It generally falls under "reckless discharge", and I remember it covered in hunter's safety class back when I was a 6th grader. They very sternly warned of dire consequences.
I don't know the level of seriousness here, but discharging a weapon within 150 yards of a house or occupied building is definitely unlawful in CA:
"3004. (a) It is unlawful for any person, other than the owner, person in possession of the premises, or a person having the express permission of the owner or person in possession of the premises, to hunt or to discharge while hunting, any firearm or other deadly weapon within 150 yards of any occupied dwelling house, residence, or
other building or any barn or other outbuilding used in connection therewith. The 150-yard area is a "safety zone."
(b) It is unlawful for any person to intentionally discharge any firearm or release any arrow or crossbow bolt over or across any public road or other established way open to the public in an unsafe and reckless manner."
Perhaps it's not legal, but that doesn't necessarily mean the police will act. Depending on where it is, rural police may be less willing to follow up on complaints if the suspect is armed (lack of manpower compared to urban counterparts, and greater distance to fire station, hospital etc. in case something happens). They'll be less likely to act if the offence is minor; a bullet hitting a window or door would probably only lead to a small or medium fine.
The operative words here are could have been - nobody was injured or killed. Of course, if that did happen, then the usual consequences of injuring or killing someone with a firearm ensue. The problem is, there are many things that could injure someone, and you cannot simply make them all illegal, otherwise driving would be an offence. However, note that negligence is probably citeable as a factor in some of these cases, so perhaps that is the route to go down?
Depending on where it is, rural police may be less willing to follow up on complaints if the suspect is armed (lack of manpower compared to urban counterparts, and greater distance to fire station, hospital etc. in case something happens).
This is ridiculous. Just because the crime involves firearms doesn't mean the person being arrested is a cold blooded murderer. Being afraid of arresting someone who has a gun but shows no intention to kill or hurt anyone is like refusing to drive because there are other cars coming in the opposite direction. Oh sure, they might switch into the wrong lane and kill me, but there's nothing to gain from that. It's stupid.
Have you lived in the rural USA? If someone is a minor the cops are still allowed to scare the hell out of them and shame them. Yes, if they are a minor, they might escape something on their record that will destroy their life, but we'd rather they learn then end up with a dead end life.
I have found urban cops to be less responsive and more prone to take a police report over the phone (for insurance purposes) then to actually deal with robbery or other "minor" offenses. Had my car broken into in a underground parking lot with cameras and video of the person who did it (portable drills are wonderful things). Didn't show up but we got a case # for insurance.
Had the exact thing happen in Encino neighborhood of LA (fairly nice part, on the expensive side) and guards even caught one of them. Police took hours to arrive and they only bothered with the person caught.
When I asked if they wanted to examine my damaged car, they cop looked at me as if I'm asking him something stupid, told me to stop by the station and file the report for insurance. When I asked if they are going after the others, he told me "you have insurance, don't you? Then what are you worried about?". So much for going after crime...
If that happened in Canada you would be in jail after the first offence.
I know a buddy who owns a gun, and he is only allowed to discharge it at a gun range. And he is only allowed to carry his gun on his person if he is on the way to the gun range.
In Modesto, CA unlawful discharge of a firearm (firing into a neighbor's yard because you believe the CIA is flying a surveillance drone there probably qualifies) might land you in jail as well. The victim didn't call the police.
That just raises more questions. Forgive me, I'm Australian.
Why, after having live fire arms discharged in your direction (on 3 separate occasions) did the victim NOT call the police?
And why after going to small claims court, was the shooter not brought up on this? The shooter doesn't appear to have disputed the claim that he shot in the direction of someone else's property.
I wouldn't call the American police on a burglar, if I caught him. They have too high a chance of being insane and dangerous, and someone might get shot even if the situation has settled, and it might even be me.
(This has, in fact, happened. Turns out the guy didn't know I was home and just wanted a place to sleep, so I put him up in the living room on an air bed and told him to take a shower before leaving)
More anecdotally, I've seen quite a few stories of people who called police for fairly routine visits that ended with somebody getting shot, after the police escalated the situation.
No, the thing is that violent encounters with the police are reported by the media, and nonviolent encounters are not, because they're not news.
Based on reporting, one could also assume American blacks are violent thugs, Muslims are hate filled radicals, and all the Jews in the world are in Israel.
Thing is, your example fits in with "the natural order of things". No one is surprised that some members of a general group of people are "violent thugs", since there are people who are like that. Ditto "hate filled radicals", and there are observably many Jews in Israel, it was established for that exact purpose.
Whereas there's a mainstream theory that police are there to "protect and serve" the non-criminal population in a Western nation, it's not supposed to be in the natural order that they're e.g. observably eager to kill your dogs given the slightest opportunity.
It's very counterproductive, to the extent they in theory exist to preserve order, it deprives them of vital information. It's extraordinarily short sighted to behave that way, for so called "good cops" to look the other way when "bad cops" do that, in a thoroughly armed society they have no hope of disarming.
You're making the wrong inference from this, I think.
The thing about news agencies, and journalism in general, is that they generally report on rare or unusual incidents. If Americans were regularly getting shot as a result of calling the police, it would be commonplace, and thus no longer newsworthy, so you would not see these stories.
The 2nd one of bird shot landing in his back yard isn't such a big deal, it wouldn't be at a high velocity by that time, but there's absolutely no excuse for it, skeet shooting is not an impromptu activity vs. a foolish opportunist shot at a drone. And the first incident, which sounds a lot more serious, ought to have resulted in a discussion, if not further action.
Is it? If the drone's flying over my property, over the tree line, and my neighbor shoots it, it'd have to be at an angle where there's nothing directly behind it.
"4. Identify your target, and what is behind it." is short for wherever the bullet or shot will end up, be it deflected if you're shooting at a surface at a low angle, or in an arc coming down. For shotguns, it's fundamental to be aware of where the shot comes down.
> Manned aircraft, even quite low-flying ones, are not trespassers — at least so long as they comply with FAA rules on overflights, which usually means 500 feet or higher. Helicopters can go even lower without trespassing so long as they are operating in a safe manner. As a result, unless the drone is quite low, there may not be an actionable trespass at all. And if there is no trespass there may be no intrusion justifying self-help.
I'm fairly certain that drones don't qualify as manned aircraft. ;)
Moreover, my understanding is that there's a big gap in case-law concerning drone use. It's really a shame that this trigger-happy hick didn't take the drone case to court, as he might have made a meaningful contribution to the U.S. justice system by doing so.
Yes, the legal status of drones is unclear. And there's not much case law. This should have been a clear case, given that the downed drone was reportedly never over the neighbor's property.
But maybe the trigger-happy family appreciated this fact, and just wanted to make a statement. I certainly don't like the idea of being surveilled. And it's not just cameras. Drones can easily carry compact equipment for LAN hacking[0] or exfiltrating key material.[1] But for those applications, one would need to land the drone in a suitable location.
What sort of reasoning is that to fire a shotgun at a drone? If it was a CIA device he'd be up for a whole lot more than $850. I don't think the CIA take you to Small Claims.
We don't know any of these people, why are we judging them? Sorry to pick your comment, I had this thought after reading any given comment in this thread. Suppress the instinct to judge people you don't know, it is tempting but pernicious, and (occasionally) the path to great evil.
Anyone legitimately targeted by the intelligence community should be intelligent enough not to try to beat them in a fire fight.
This man is obviously either mentally ill or just takes pleasure in ruining things for other people. Probably the latter, unless he thought the door by their garage was a secret portal for CIA agents to travel through.
Snowden has made many people aware that they're being surveilled all the time. CIA SURVEILLANCE DRONES isn't the most extreme conspiracy theory.
It's interesting that you use mental illness to describe violent behaviour you don't understand. That kind of stigmatising use of language contributes to a culture where shooting and killing the mentally ill is common. (About 500 people with mental health problems are shot and killed by police in the US each year. http://tacreports.org/storage/documents/2013-justifiable-hom...
> It's interesting that you use mental illness to describe violent behaviour you don't understand.
It's not so unreasonable. Perhaps the shooter has a very logical reason for having shot at the drone (and the neighbour's house, previously), but it seems to me very unlikely that there is any other reason than paranoia or recklessness. Having said that, i expect that a judge and/or mental health professional should evaluate this more carefully and with better access to facts than you or i on a forum somewhere—i'm just outing an opinion, not saying the shooter should indeed be treated/medicated/institutionalised.
> That kind of stigmatising use of language contributes to a culture where shooting and killing the mentally ill is common.
I actually think this is the wrong way around. I agree that we should recognise mental illness as a serious problem, and offer individuals who are suffering from it (and potentially endangering their entourage) professional help. I fail to see how suggesting that this shooter is mentally ill would contribute to the shooting and killing of mentally ill patients—on the contrary, it should lead to a more adapted response to this situation, instead of laughing it off or throwing a potentially mentally ill person in jail, which will be counter-productive, if anything. This shooter is not being stigmatised at all, as i see it: attention is being drawn to a potential sufferer who is not receiving (adequate) care.
That said, "recklessness" is not by itself "mental illness", and from the emails it doesn't sound like this guy is suffering from clinical paranoia. He comes off more as a "jerk", which is not by itself actionable even in the bad old days when we did lock up the "crazy", until he acts like this that endanger others, and the criminal justice system sounds like the right venue to me (ignoring the minor detail that nowadays invoking the police is to be avoided at nearly all costs).
Hmmm, for that matter, if he appeared to be genuinely mentally ill, I don't think there's a way to deal with him without involving the police at some point or another.
I wonder if this reply isn't coloured by the stigma GP was trying to point out. Recklessness and paranoia aren't in themselves mental illnesses. What portion of the general population experience paranoia or recklessness vs people with mental illness? I bet the rates aren't all that different, it's just that in extreme combination it earns the person a de facto badge of "mentally ill". That's usually shorthand for "I don't have enough information to understand this persons motives, so I'll label them as crazy and be done with it".
> I fail to see how suggesting that this shooter is mentally ill would contribute to the shooting and killing of mentally ill patients
It's possibly perpetuating the widespread belief that people with mental illness are predominantly violent. The _vast_ majority are not.
> This shooter is not being stigmatised at all, as i see it: attention is being drawn to a potential sufferer who is not receiving (adequate) care.
I guess the "mentally ill" label is a bit more compassionate than "violent criminal", but it also applies to millions of harmless people who don't necessarily benefit from being lumped into the same label.
> It's possibly perpetuating the widespread belief that people with mental illness are predominantly violent. The _vast_ majority are not.
If that's what it seems like, i would like to correct that miscommunication. I most certainly do not espouse the view that "mentally ill" implies "probably" or even "perhaps violent". There may or may not be violent people who are also mentally ill, but i see it as orthogonal issues. People with mental illnesses should be taken care of and helped, not threatened with fines or jail time. Part of the problem is precisely that there is a stigma on coming forward and asking for help—i'm hoping that by pointing out that (e.g.) violence and mental illness are orthogonal issues might contribute infinitesimally to the decrease of stigma.
But i suspect we largely agree, and i also think that we are now significantly off-topic with regard to the original post :).
Actually it does sound really far fetched that the CIA, an external intelligence service, is out flying hexacopters over American orchards. Do these things even have any practical value for spies given how unwieldy and conspicuous they are?
If it had been state surveillance it would have much more likely been the local sheriff looking for grow-ops with their new toy helicopter. In which case shooting it down would be a sure fire way to get the attention of the cops and have them come look at your grow-op. I see no other explanations but malice or mental illness.
That crazies are fair game to American cops is indeed a problem, but in most western countries you can actually identify mental illness and not have the cops show up to shoot the poor bugger. That's what you need to work on, not "stigmatizing language". I suppose I should have given a trigger warning too, just in case.
Shooting weapons in the air without knowing what people are around and what exactly you are aiming at should be considered mental illness or at a minimum felony operation of a weapon and their guns should be seized.
Seriously, if you a "fan of gun" and want guns to be legal, you need to have strict rules or people think of them as toys.
> > This is the third time discharge from your firearms has hit our house and property. The first incident left a bullet hole in the door by our garage. The second incident occurred last Thanksgiving when birdshot from your skeet shooting activities rained into our backyard. The third, of course, being what we're currently discussing.
Birdshot is fired into the air when hunting birds. It loses its energy very quickly and should be moving slowly enough not to cause damage when it lands (unless maybe a pellet hits you in the eyeball or something). Pistol and rifle bullets are another story entirely.
Apparently (based on a bit of googling) it's very common to be peppered by birdshot when hunting birds. People are basically firing birdshot up into the air - and it, not infrequently, lands on other hunters.
Still, I agree it's pretty impolite to have your shot land on your neighbors property.
That being said, drones are a pretty nice toy for stalkers. Not sure this particular story qualifies but it will lead to some grudge between neighbours.
Have you ever seen a drone? They sound like an angry hornet's nest and fly about 20 minutes. The stalker stuff is pure FUD, promulgated by people who are afraid of them based on a hypothetical that has to date never happened. Once.
Read every story that claims it has and think hard.
Doesn't the noise make it more likely to cause a grudge between neighbors? If it was quiet enough to go undetected then the neighbor would never know or care about the UAVs presence.
I have been buzzed by a curious neighbor before and it was unsettling and extremely rude (it also spooked our livestock and could have cost my parents a lot of money)
Don't assume the people around you are happy to have UAVs flying near or above them or their property, regardless of whether the UAV is being used for stalking/surveillance. For one thing, they can't know for sure what it's being used for, and even if they're confident it isn't conducting surveillance it is generally seen as rude at best to invade somebody's privacy.
> Don't assume the people around you are happy to have UAVs flying near or above them or their property,
When I'm flying in public, I approach people who wander in to what I think of as a "zone" and explain what's going on. With absolutely zero exceptions across several hundred people, the reaction has been positive. Nearly everyone has a load of questions to ask me about aerial photography and drones in general; one woman in her 60s spent half an hour sitting next to me just amazed at the technology, often just watching me fly for minutes at a time, and telling me about her grandson in the Air Force.
In over two thousand hours of flying, I've had precisely one negative experience: a contract security guard at Wind River Systems in Alameda came up to me and threatened to have me arrested on the basis that I was trespassing on Wind River property, even though the specific space is Alameda public shoreline and I had done research on this beforehand. He got in my face and shouted expletives at me, no matter how much I attempted to defuse the situation. To be honest, based on comments like yours (and many more before it), I expected when I got in to this hobby to have many more experiences like it. That hasn't happened.
I've found that doing your research, not being stupid, and being open and willing to talk to people instead of confrontational and falling back on the rules ("I'm permitted to be here" instead of "hey, is it okay with you that I'm flying nearby?") has brought about a positive interaction without fail. Countless people have asked to see my work: once while flying at Berkeley Marina, an impromptu show developed from a few sailors asking to see their vessel from above.
Your assertion about people suffers from confirmation bias. You feel that way, so you think everyone feels that way. In my extensive experience operating unmanned vehicles, I regret to inform you that you are in the tiniest of minorities. I work very hard to maintain a good positive image for the hobby, which is why I'm never rude to someone. You have to return that courtesy and open a line of dialogue with me if I'm making you uncomfortable, because no matter how hard I work, I will occasionally make mistakes.
The typical expectation of privacy by most folks is completely flawed, by the way, including by your comment, but I've learned that there's no path toward arriving at any sort of agreement on that point.
Just as you have certain things you do not want me to assume (though you're assuming I assume them), I have a few to return to you: simply because there are people with more money than common sense who buy drones and harass people and disrupt safety with them, don't assume anyone you see operating a drone is one of them. Most pilots I know are very open and more than happy to talk to you -- trust me, someone showing interest and talking to you is sometimes the best part of any hobby because it's a chance to meet new people.
> The typical expectation of privacy by most folks is completely flawed
I expect to have privacy while on my own property and there is nothing flawed about that expectation.
> With absolutely zero exceptions across several hundred people, the reaction has been positive.
My reaction would be positive too, if you came and introduced yourself beforehand or were flying safely in a public space.
I wasn't saying earlier that drones are always going to cause stress. I said that having a mystery drone show up near or on their property is going to bother many people. And I'm definitely not in the minority there.
You claimed above that drones were loud and short lived, therefore useless for surveillance. But that's not the point. They can still cause people great bother if the pilot isn't careful to respect people's comfort zones. Particularly while drones are a new thing and people haven't made any room in their comfort zones for them
Edit: to be clear, the courteous piloting you describe yourself as doing is not an issue in my book at all. I would be more than happy to have pilots like you around my property. My point is that discourteous piloting, where people are left wondering about the UAV on their property, is going to cause grief.
I'm not at all comfortable with drones flying outside the windows of my apartment. I don't know if they carry cameras or not and I value being able to make my Saturdays no-pants day. And the sound is really annoying.
Maybe this comes from a rural up-bringing, but one of the top rules on my list is "Don't mess with crazy neighbors with guns". So, he shot down your toy. Don't start an E-mail conversation with him! Don't call the police on him. Next thing you know it'll be your dog instead of your drone, or worse. Just pack up the pieces and be glad it was something replaceable.
I can't believe this guy voluntarily contacted (and then sued) someone who has demonstrated no reservations about shooting his house.
> "I didn't contest what he said, as I didn't want to get argumentative with a guy with a shotgun," Joe said. "So I went back to my place [and] inspected it."
The person in the article did mention arguing on site was a bad idea. I think he was right to stand up for his property rights through email later when he was in his house and significantly more safe in comparison. History has taught us that appeasing an aggressor is generally a bad idea for the long term.
No one should be above the law, but the parent is right that safety concerns also come into play. In this case the damage to the drone was ~$700. Provoking someone who has already shown a disregard for your property could mean that person will do more damage to your property, or could threaten harm or damage to you. In this case, the legal concern of getting that $700 compensation may be trivial compared to the safety concern.
I'm fascinated that this isn't grounds for immediate arrest and, after your stint of several months or years in prison, permanent loss of your right to own firearms. What a country we live in.