Animal Rights Activists Fly Drone Over Hunters, Can you guess what the result was?

Well, for one, the drone crash landed in the street when it was shot down, which wasn't exactly the activist's fault. Second, I found a video that showed the last few seconds of the drone descending. The drone was originally grazed while really high up and over the woods. However, it was also shot at and hit again at a low altitude while it's operator was attempting to steer it to the side of the highway; which means that originally I was correct. The trajectory of the bullets/shot would go directly across the street. And lastly, I don't think it's unreasonable for hunter's to be expected to treat their guns with the utmost respect and not act like overgrown children with cool toys. This isn't an anti-hunter or an anti-gun thing.

To be completely honest I don't even understand why there's an argument here. Just because you hate the SHARK assholes doesn't mean that it's reasonable to side with the hunters. These are the types of douchbag hunters that shoot towards houses or into streets and then cry when their luck runs out they hit someone. These are also the numb nuts that make it so you can't wear anything white or walk your dogs near the woods during fall because you can't expect hunters to identify what they're shooting before they shoot it.

I know that accidents happen and all, but irresponsible hunters give ALL gun owners bad names.

As long as they have control of it, it's their fault. It was a controlled descent and they likely brought it down into the street because that's where they were. Why ditch it in the woods and make it potentially unrecoverable? It was not shot down, it was damaged and made a controlled landing.

Watch the full video.

"I'd say they're shooting at it"
"Bring it down?"
"No. It's 22s"

False. Final shot.

They aren't shooting it down because they think guns are cool toys, they're shooting it down because it's trespassing as part of an attempt to disrupt their legal activities on private property.

If there's no one downrange, I don't get what your issue is beyond a potential legal question regarding shooting over a highway. (which we can't solve because we don't know where the shooters were, the exact guns they were using, and their loads) And by highway all we mean is 'public road'. I think the word highway is being a bit misconstrued by media reporting of it.

This post has been edited by TheWinkel on Mar 13 2012, 03:56 PM

Yeah, I saw a different video taken from a different angle that showed the actual "landing" on the street. It was a controlled landing until it was several feet up off the ground where it suddenly dropped like a rock. The video said that the drone had been shot two separate times. They were standing on the side of the highway at the time, not in it. I'm guessing they were trying to land the drone on the side of the street.

Although I'm sure that you guys don't want to believe him, the guy from SHARK did say that the hunters were shooting into the street. He didn't say they were shooting up into the sky.

Truthfully, I don't have sound on this computer, and I'm probably not going to bother watch it again, so I'll have to take your word for it. Although, if I remember correctly, .22s would rule out bird shot, right? (I'm sure you or Nem could correct me if I'm wrong, and I could be. )

OH NOES, someone is filming us hunt!!!!! OH NOES OH NOES OH NOES!! MUST SHOOT SOMETHING DOWN!!!!

Seriously, if it had been me, I would have just continued to hunt after "the law" failed to stop them. I mean it's obnoxious, but seriously, who cares? Give a few thumbs up and try to get into as many PETA brochures as possible. Besides, since they had canceled their hunt the hunters could have just put on their big boy caps and gone home quietly. No stupid temper tantrums were needed.

I honestly have absolutely no clue how busy that road is since I don't live there. Do you know?

Nope, I use .22 birdshot rounds regularly.

The last report occured while the drone was still quite airborne. Unless they doctored their video to remove gunshots, dude's lying.

I assume he's thinking it's .22 LR. Even if he's not, he's almost certainly wrong regardless.

It's private property. Why not? It's not a temper tantrum, it's a legitimate concern. What if it was peering through a bathroom window to record someone showering? Just let it be? Nope.

First, we don't know if their shooting even provided a threat to the road at all. Second...Undivided two lane highway, middle of nowhere, not very maintained road, (the same owner) private property on both sides. I'd say probably not very busy.

Satellite photo of a nearby intersection.


The map of whole area for perusal: Satellite view Broxton Bridge Plantation campgrounds US 601 near Colleton, SC


Well they wouldn't be hunting birds with slugs in rifled barrels. To answer the question though, F shot is .22". At 39 steel pellets an ounce. It's slightly smaller than the smallest buckshot (#4, .24", 21 p/o) but bigger than BB size shot (.18", 50 lead or 72 steel p/o ). F isn't all that easy to find everywhere (maybe it is in the backwoods of SC there though) plus it's not likely anyone much would knowingly be using it to hunt birds or that they'd call it 22. F is too big for use for hunting just about anything bird-wise, perhaps geese or larger at most. Depending on the gauge, barrel length and choke of the shotgun in question. Although maybe they put in F just for the drone.

Beyond that, birdshot simply has limited range and power. 20-60 yards effectively perhaps. Which is rather the point of shotguns, since it allows use near populated areas. Not that it's likely much of a consideration here, still. Safety is important, even when shooting down trespassing remote-controlled hovering aircraft.

Unless somebody catches those who did it, gets the weapons and ammo they used, and charges and prosecutes them, we'll likely never know.

Well obviously not. (It wouldn't work/would be dangerous, correct?) What I was assuming was that it wouldn't be completely unheard of to have a regular 22 rifle (no I don't mean a shotgun) when out pigeon hunting. My question was to whether or not you can even get bird shot for a 22 rifle.

Cool, thanks.

Thanks for trying to clear things up for me guys. Obviously I don't hunt myself, but it's always fun to talk to people more knowledgeable than me about a subject.

U trolling me dude?

Secretly filming someone taking a shower in their own house is completely different than filming some people hunting in the woods. For one, one is a potential sex crime and the other is not. A better comparison would be the DEA(?) fucks in helicopters who used to buzz my back yard and my neighborhood despite the fact that I am an awesome, taxpaying, law-abiding citizen. Maybe I should have shot them down?

Also, in before "u a paranoid schizophrenic".

You'd just have bugger-all chance of hitting anything, but yeah at least in Australia, firing a round without knowing exactly where it end it's trajectory is considered bad form.

It's functionally the same thing except for what's being recorded. It's still trespassing. In both situations I think you'd be fully within your rights to stop the thing.

Aircraft in general and law enforcement are held to a different set of rules.

If you're worried about DEA helicopters, you said it, not me.

Heh, right. But you never know.....

Yes, the difficult part with a large moving single hunk of metal would be for the shooter to manage to actually hit a flying animal at some number of yards/meters away. And more to the point, hit it someplace vital (versus say the feathers). Also that the slug also wouldn't rip it apart and where it would be recoverable. If you were hoping to eat it as you should be.

It depends on the elevation of the weapon and what distance away "other things" would be in the path of the slug that might be hit. Certainly rifled slug = more dangerous than birdshot to a person-sized object with most weapon specifics at most ranges.

Same thing with slugs, small moving targets = not such a good hit percentage and one that gets worse and worse very fast at range. Sure though, trying to hunt such things or just shooting at them isn't impossible or really not all that unlikely.

They might indeed have meant .22 shotshells, whatever they'd do to a flying mechanical device that was anywhere near sturdy. Unless the thing was like 10 or 20 feet away, then why not just hit it with a long piece of rebar or something. On the other hand, perhaps they grabbed some .22 rifles (with normal bullets or otherwise) that weren't the weapons they were hunting with. Unless they were the ones they were hunting something else other than birds with. Assuming that they weren't hunting pigeons with rifles with bullets in them, which as we agreed is a possibility in the first place.

They do. They're practically worthless. Probably wouldn't even pierce a paper target at 10 feet. (I'm exaggerating a bit, but probably not by much)

This post has been edited by TheWinkel on Mar 19 2012, 04:53 PM

I wasn't worried, more like annoyed. You should know how loud helicopters are when they're hovering that low. And I don't even know if it was DEA, I'm guessing it was, but who knows. I felt frustrated and harassed, which I imagine is the same way the hunters felt. Although who knows, maybe I'll change how I feel about the helicopters after the mind-reading devices that they've placed in my fillings start to work. ;p

Unless there's a warrant or at least probable cause involved that's a pretty scarey POV.

And you miss the point anyway. With all the satellites and planes in the sky there is no privacy from the sky. If I had your address I could print you out a satellite photo of your house. What are you going to do, dude?

You guys forget that what SHARK was doing was LEGAL. The hunters were not fully in their rights to stop the filming. And what exactly were the hunters defending anyway? They had already canceled their hunt.

I am constantly impressed by how amazing it must be to be a guy and be allowed to remain so fucking clueless that you actually think getting filmed while hunting is equivalent to a sex crime! (See, now I'm trolling you. ).

This post has been edited by harahara on Mar 21 2012, 11:04 AM

Although as we all know, the black ones are silent.

Having a small remote-control flying vehicle in the air over private land at 25 to 200 feet (say) isn't necessarily legal. Neither is destroying it necessarily illegal. Whatever the vehicle in the air or the people on the land are doing or not.

Videoing someone showering isn't a universal absolute flat-out sex crime. Although non-consensual videoing is almost always an invasion of privacy, more so with showering than with hunting. Either is more likely an 'invasion of privacy' as an absolute though. More so than any single other thing. Depending.

Although if one was hunting while showering..... Shhhh, do you hear that?

They're aircraft. Law enforcement (and ambulances and military) aircraft get their own special rules along with the volumes of other rules for aircraft.

There's no privacy beyond a certain point in the sky. This point is not clearly defined, but I could probably safely put it at least 400 and 500 feet for a flat piece of property up to a buildling with a few stories. Moreover, remote controlled aircraft have regulations governing their use. Crossing that threshold puts you in violation of FAA rules.

They were not legal. They were trespassing and breaking FAA regs.

I only used 'in the shower' as an off the cuff example, but the 'window' could be obscured glass like lots of people have in bathrooms.

If it's flying over your property, it's still trespassing.