http://www.wdrb.com/story/30354128/judge-dismisses-charges-for-man-who-shot-down-drone
There's already precedent around here. Stand yer ground.
Important things to note about that particular case:
1) He wasn't actually charged for shooting at a drone, he was charged for "wanton endangerment" caused by firing his gun within city limits.
2) That was still at the state level, since the FAA wasn't involved as the federal crime yet.
3) The fact that the drone was seen below the treeline by several people helped to classify it as an invasion of privacy, you can sure bet the amazon drones are going to be much higher.
In short, this is a nice precedent for shooting down low-flying drones that are hovering over your property, but pretty worthless as a precedent of you shooting down parcel-laden amazon air drones, and it's still confined to a state-only level, not a federal one.
That's sorta missing the point that I was making. The case explicitly
assumes that a landowner has the right to take down a drone flying within their airspace, and additionally concluded that it was not criminal to discharge a firearm in the process of doing so.
Also note one of the attached articles: the drone owner submitted a video of the drone's flight path claiming to show the drone never descending below 200ft. and not hovering for longer than 30s over the other guy's property. The judge favored two people claiming to have seen the drone dip below the treeline and the owner describing the hover time as "long enough for me to get three shots off" and this:
“His claims are that the drone never got below 200 feet,” Merideth said on Thursday. “Number 8 bird shot is not going to take anything out at 200 feet.”
over that. It's a pretty darned permissive interpretation. All you appear to need to justify it is an eyewitness willing to claim that they saw the drone descend below 200ft.
And to be fair, I
did say "where I live".
In all seriousness though, this is why I expect Amazon drones to (as suggested) fly high and be fitted with GPS trackers and such to monitor altitude and position at all times.