Police Not Issuing Charges For Handgun-Firing Drone -- Feds Undecided 312
Mr.Intel sends a followup to last week's news of an 18-year-old man getting a lot of attention for posting a video of a handgun being fired from a drone. Despite calls to arrest the man, police say they can't find any reason to charge him. "It appears to be a case of technology surpassing current legislation," they said. Todd Lawrie, the chief of police where it happened, said, "We are attempting to determine if any laws have been violated at this point. It would seem to the average person, there should be something prohibiting a person from attaching a weapon to a drone. At this point, we can't find anything that's been violated. The legislature in Connecticut (recently) addressed a number of questions with drones, mostly around how law enforcement was going to use drones. It is a gray area, and it's caught the legislature flatfooted." The FAA and other federal agencies are still investigating and trying to figure out if any criminal statutes were violated.
Investigating if laws were broken (Score:5, Insightful)
It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?
Because there are never gray areas in law (Score:2)
Just because the PR people say words does not make them the most accurate depiction of events occurring. More than likely they are determining if the act meets the tests required by law and if there is reasonable likelihood that a criminal case can be successfully prosecuted. Court cases are expensive - both in money and resources; having the prosecution review a case for potential applicability is SOP.
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There are a lot of laws on the books, and when the public cries out "This man needs to be arrested!" they have to do a full investigation. They can't just say "Well, it doesn't look like there's anything wrong here. Go home folks." Because then people will bitch about some obscure law that - through a lot of hand waving and misinterpretation - makes this activity illegal, or people will start bitching that this should obviously be illegal and cops should do something about it anyways(which they can't -
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:5, Insightful)
regular citizens can never know if they're breaking the law, there are so many of them after all, but therein lies an interesting thing. the law is rarely applied based on who is breaking the law, but rather who the person is.
anyone can be singled out and have their life turned upside down by law enforcement, it's all a matter of application. application of the law occurs on people who already have their feet wet and lower socio economic classes.
keep your nose clean and you won't run afoul of the law. I'd say that especially goes for "do no harm to anyone else" areas, that's how you first get in trouble, is if you assault or cause a harm to someone else. that raises your profile initially and from then on the system is inadvertently designed to focus on you and drive you into the ground.
most people get away with all kinds of minor crimes, so long as they don't actually physically or monetarily harm someone else (or be black) you won't get dragged into the undertow of the criminal justice system.
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:4, Insightful)
regular citizens can never know if they're breaking the law, there are so many of them after all, but therein lies an interesting thing. the law is rarely applied based on who is breaking the law, but rather who the person is.
anyone can be singled out and have their life turned upside down by law enforcement, it's all a matter of application. application of the law occurs on people who already have their feet wet and lower socio economic classes.
keep your nose clean and you won't run afoul of the law. I'd say that especially goes for "do no harm to anyone else" areas, that's how you first get in trouble, is if you assault or cause a harm to someone else. that raises your profile initially and from then on the system is inadvertently designed to focus on you and drive you into the ground.
most people get away with all kinds of minor crimes, so long as they don't actually physically or monetarily harm someone else (or be black) you won't get dragged into the undertow of the criminal justice system.
That holds true for most people, but sometimes you are dragged into something you don't want to. For example, if you are minding your own business running a convenience store and some guys come in with guns demanding money, and out of fear for your life, you shoot first and kill one of them. Now you have to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that you never premeditated or wanted to have happen.
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:4, Insightful)
Well this is exactly what happens when the technology or social norms surpass existing laws. If the laws were so clear cut at all times we wouldn't need someone to bring the case to court, and we wouldn't need judges to decide how the law applies, and we wouldn't need a legislator to update the laws.
If any legal system stays stable long enough eventually you will run into this scenario. The regular citizen can't be expected to know until either a ruling has been made or a new law is passed. This is situation normal.
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Laws that are there to prevent the abuse of something (gun, knife, rock) are good.
Laws that are there to prevent the potential for abuse of something (see examples above) are bad and impose on the freedom of citizens.
This is clearly someone that is not abusing anything. The potential for abuse is high, yes I give you that, but the potential for abuse of a steak knife is high too.
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Surely It's also a balance of how useful something is when used correctly compared to the damage it can do when misused.
Subjective bullshit and I can prove it.
I declare that nothing you have ever done or potentially will ever do is useful. Now head off to jail, criminal.
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Oh? So we should allow all citizens to tinker with high-yield nuclear weapons in downtown metropolitan areas, since there is only the *potential* of harm provided they don't do anything stupid? I think that's going to be a hard sell.
Or how about juggling sealed vials of weaponized Smallpox at the World Fair or something? So long as you don't drop them there's only the *potential* to kill hundreds of millions of people, so it should be perfectly legal, right?
I agree with you in general principle, but ther
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In many cases, the full circumstances of an event make the difference whether a law has been broken or not.
Were there any license requirements for things like flying the drone, owning the gun, firing a gun from a flying platform? Was that drone allowed to carry any cargo?
Where did it happen exactly? It may make a difference whether it's private land, public land, a gun range, or maybe a nature reserve.
It is not that black and white. So many possible questions may be raised which may determine that an act i
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Sounds like a reasonable grounds for starting an investigation in this case.
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It bothers me when I hear of regulatory organizations "investigating" to determine if a law has been broken. If the agency directly responsible for the enforcement of a law cannot immediately decide if an action is illegal how can anyone reasonably expect a regular citizen to know if they are breaking the law?
If they are investigating, then they will find a law that he has broken. Perhaps he was wearing a hat on a Tuesday, or tied his mule to a horse hitching post or something, but there is no doubt he has broken some law. They will find one.
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:4, Funny)
Well sure. But it seems like "It was Tuesday" is generally a valid excuse for the police. Along with "It wasn't Tuesday".
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This is marked funny, but the US Supreme Court recently affirmed that the joke is true.
http://thinkprogress.org/justi... [thinkprogress.org]
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:4, Interesting)
In that situation, how can an individual know with certainty if he break the law or not?
Re: Investigating if laws were broken (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, the most perverse thing is that the kid did nothing morally wrong or hurt anyone, but LEO is trying to find a way to punish him for scaring some chickenshits? That, to me, is just disgusting.
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Since LEOs aren't judges or legislature, it really isn't supposed to be within their power to make that determination.
Actually yes it is. Its very much the job of law enforcement to investigate if laws may be being broken. Its the judges or juries job when you go to trial to determine if you broke the law. Your defense certainly can be that the Police/Prosecutors interpretation of the statue is incorrect or does not fit the facts.
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.
In Common Law jurisdictions we have another principle that goes back for 800+ years: mens rea. Meaning that you have to have a guilty mind (i.e., intent) to have broken the law. Unfortunately this principle is being steadily eroded in favor of "strict liability" laws that require no intent, thus criminalizing more behavior and further expanding the power of the State.
Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score:4, Informative)
My understanding of "mens rea" is that the defendant knew (understood) that they were performing the action (the "actus reus") irrespective of whether or not they knew that the action was illegal. Some people commit physical actions but don't know what they're doing ... or can't stop themselves (e.g. the insane, underage child lashing out, etc).
And that the demonstration of intent (knowingly breaking the law) only exacerbates the offence.
Then again, IANAL, so my legal commentaries are probably as valuable as those of the underage child I mentioned above ...
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Mens rea is a component fact of guilt. There are different kinds of mens rea. The law or statue will usually define it. Some laws might require a mens rea of willful, that is you knew or at least expected a certain result form your actions and they it was criminal. Others might simply be 'negligent' like vehicular manslaughter, you reasonably could have known or reasonably should have know driving at excessive speed might result in the injury of others. There are other possible mens rea types as well.
M
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The issue is not about knowledge of the law, it's about legal certainty [wikipedia.org]. More specifically, if the authorities themselves after investigating the issue are unsure about how the law is supposed to apply, it might be that even if such law exists it might be void for vagueness [wikipedia.org].
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The world is flat. This is a scientific principle that pre-dates the Greek.
When literally nobody knows the entirety of the law anymore (because there's too much of it for that) INCLUDING the legislature and SCOTUS (they have to look it up all the time), then ignorance of the law really IS an excuse even if it isn't accepted as one.
The elephant in the courtroom is that pretty much everyone has no choice but to do what seems right and hope for the best.
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How Heller-ishly convenient. There are so many criminal laws on the books, it is impossible to know them all (ask the ABA, they tried to simply count them, which is much less than _knowing_ them, and failed: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... [wsj.com] ). And yet an individual person without ranks of lawyers to do the research, is presumed to know each and every one. This is extremely dange
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>There was clearly no criminal intent in this case since he posted the video on Youtube.
I really, really wish that were true. Have you really never heard of any the many cases of people posting Youtube videos of thefts, assaults, even rapes? I don't know whether it's motivated by overwhelming stupidity, a desire for infamy, or what, but it's very definitely a thing.
Also, from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ignorantia juris non excusat or ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for "ignoran
Accuracy? (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy? (Score:4, Informative)
That's not too hard, actually, from an engineering perspective. It adds expense and complexity, certainly, but it's just a design parameter. Alter the mount to react with uniform stiffness centered around and aligned with the barrel and bolt reaction mass center and you'll reduce your problem to a simple 2DOF force couple system.
I would guess that state of the art drone weapon systems are every bit as accurate as the most accomplished human snipers.
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I thought recoil only happens the moment the bullet leaves the barrel, and as such recoil has no effect on accuracy. The more impressive thing is that the drone handles the recoil without breaking apart or being smacked into the ground, instead it handles it quite gracefully.
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It takes up to several milliseconds* for the bullet to exit the barrel. During that time, the gas is pushing both the bullet and the firearm. Because of geometry, shortly after the bullet exits, the gas stops pushing on it, but it still acts on the barrel.
So, most of the recoil happens after the bullet has left, but not all of it.
* The time depends on a lot of factors, the length of the barrel and the burn rate of the propellant are obviously huge, but also less obvious factors like the headspace of the c
Escalation (Score:3)
Welp, now those firefighting helicopters are in REAL trouble
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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red scare
News flash. McCarthy was right. There were commie agents all over the damn place.
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Are you going somewhere with this?
McCarthy was going after soviet agents. That he was going after mere lefties was fiction written by said soviet agents and piled on by their "useful idiots". (their term, not mine)
McCarthy has been very thoroughly vindicated, first by the Venona project that intercepted soviet communications, and then by the opening of the KGB files.
Claims otherwise are in the same category as claims that Columbus thought the world was flat.
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Sure it does. You just have to define "state" as "the socio-economic power structure furthering the interests of the people currently in power". Conveniently, that's usually the practical definition anyway.
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Sadly, these days, just getting dragged to court is a potentially life changing punitive process.
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Sure there would - it still needs to be determined with certainty whether the particular action actually occurred, who was involved, and in some cases what the motive was (say premeditated murder versus self defense). Not to mention whether the law is being applied justly - jury nullification has a long and proud history in this country.
Existing Law (Score:5, Insightful)
He hasn't committed a crime.
If he shoots people or trespasses there's existing law. Flying a hobby project on private land with a gun or a container of fireworks may be ill-advised -- but you don't need to make another law because you feel threatened by the brave/stupid things people choose to do with their life and property.
Re:Existing Law (Score:4, Funny)
Remember, your autonomous roving drone with a Beretta and solenoid is not an automatic weapon unless you code the trigger as a do/while loop!
Unroll the loop, so it counts as ten individual fire events that just happen to trigger really really fast ;P
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Case in point, entirely legal bump-fire triggers on '15s - Yes, they can spit rounds out at a rate approaching a full auto (albeit with all the accuracy of a monkey flinging feces) - But you'd need a frickin' miracle to make it through a standard 3
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The gun is legal but his use of the solenoid to depress the trigger may not have been. It may have transformed the "legal handgun" to simply being one component of an NFA automatic-weapon.
So what you are saying... (Score:5, Funny)
The gun is legal but his use of the solenoid to depress the trigger may not have been. It may have transformed the "legal handgun" to simply being one component of an NFA automatic-weapon.
So what you are saying... is that when I build my own weaponized drone, I should arm it with a flamethrower instead of a hand gun?
Good to know...
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A flamethrower would be outside the purview of the ATF. :-)
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A flamethrower would be outside the purview of the ATF. :-)
Pretty sure a flamethrower counts as a destructive device and therefore is fully under the purview of the ATF. Especially since they are really the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE).
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Neither the NFA or GCA has any regulations to deal with flamethrowers. "Destructive devices" must be explosive in nature, which a flamethrower is not.
True story.
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I still say ATF should be a convince store not a government agency.
Re:Existing Law (Score:4, Informative)
No.
Benchrest shooters use mechanical, electrical and hydraulic systems to activate triggers all the time. As do gunsmiths when accurately zeroing a scope, or when test firing a gun of unknown safety.
What matters is that the gun not fire more than once per human action.
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Here in Canada, under Transport Canada rules, mounting any weapon on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), aka "drone", or "weaponizing" a UAC (aka" drone) is against the law, unless you have a special permit/permission to do so. As far as I know, here in Canada, the only people who have that "permission" are the military. I do not even think the police have that right here in Canada.
I know the laws differ from the USA to Canada on several issues (for example, the handgun alone would be illegal in Canada in
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You obviously don't know much about firearms to make a statement like that.
Re:Existing Law (Score:4, Insightful)
By that logic, every time you drive, every human being around you should feel threatened, and you should be charged with something, because all it takes is a few more feet of drift, or not paying attention to bearing, or any of a dozen other minor lapses and suddenly they have a car bearing down on them.
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I have a lawnmower. If I run you down with it, it will surely cause you grievous bodily harm. It can easoly go off of my property.
Fortunately I, like practically every owner of a lawnmower, only use it to mow my lawn.
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Of course all those things would equally well apply to someone carelessly firing the gun by hand. I mean it would be especially stupid to fire a gun while dancing on top of an orchard ladder, but I really doubt it's actually illegal.
Why dont they do what they ususally do? (Score:4, Insightful)
and just make something up to arrest him for? Cops are good at that. Disorderly conduct is vague enough to stick.
please clear something up for me (Score:2)
How does the law in the US stand regarding unmanned combat aerial vehicles under the control of civilians?
Definition of a UCAV: a remotely operated or automatic drone equipped with a weapon that is a: guided (camera targetting?) and b: able to be fired remotely.
Backwards legal system (Score:5, Insightful)
Criminal intent? (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens to first determining if there was any criminal intent or adverse consequences?
... and this is why you should never talk to police. They might just determine that you have been violating something while talking with you.
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What happens to first determining if there was any criminal intent...
You can't really have criminal intent to eat a piece of toast at your breakfast table, but you can have criminal intent to kill someone. What's the difference? Killing someone is a crime. So you have to know if something is a crime before you can determine if the plan to do it is reflective of criminal intent.
...or adverse consequences?
If you plan to murder someone, and even attempt the act, but the intended victim is unaware that you took a shot at them with your silienced movie-quality assassin's rifle and missed ... what are th
Everyone is missing what the police actually said (Score:5, Interesting)
"It appears to be a case of technology surpassing current legislation."
They're intentionally not finding a reason to arrest him and they tell you why right there. They want new laws. This is an underhanded attempt at manipulating the public and I very much suspect it will work if the comments on this story are any indication.
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"It appears to be a case of technology surpassing current legislation."
They're intentionally not finding a reason to arrest him and they tell you why right there. They want new laws. This is an underhanded attempt at manipulating the public and I very much suspect it will work if the comments on this story are any indication.
Probably right. But from the comments it also does seem that he clearly broke the letter of the law unintentionally. So there is already a law against this. Just because a law is broken, however, doesn't mean that a crime was committed or that charges should be filed. This is an obscure law, at most the ATF should just issue a clarification that this is illegal under existing law.
That would be very reasonable. I'm very sure it also doesn't allow a new large budget to be appropriated and I almost guarantee the police are actually looking for new toys and less restrictions along with a bigger budget. I'd bet you a beer my interpretation is much closer to what you're going to see if the recent pattern holds. I am pretty sure of this: that quote wasn't an off the cuff remark; it clearly was a call for action while giving the preferred solution in a thinly veiled way.
OTOH, I'll be th
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the army dows it, and there is no regulating law (Score:2)
They actually attach weapons to drones, and kill people with that.
Still nobody thought it would be a nice idea to have any law around this concept, stating that army is ok, police not, and private not at all.
curse my lack of internet-fu (Score:2)
I can't find it right now, but there was a quote from a Supreme Court Justice, I believe it was in the 30s-40s, along the lines of how dangerous it is when there are so many laws that the government can pretty much pick what they charge a person with, because everyone is guaranteed to have violated *some* of them at some time.
If someone could find that, it would be pithy here.
Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
If I tapped a shotgun to the front of a car, would that make the car a tank? No?
Okay, so why does attaching a hand gun to a remote controlled helicopter make it an armed "drone".
These things aren't even drones. Are they autonomous? Nope. Do they have any kind of artificial intelligence? Only to assist with hovering and gyroscopic stabilization... I wouldn't call that AI.
So first off, it isn't a drone. And second off... people could have glued a gun to remote controlled anything ages ago. Why is this suddenl
Re:"Automatic" Weapon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Solenoid driven trigger pulls (such as used here) do, in fact, require an NFA tax stamp as an automatic weapon. It's a regulation designed around the scenario you describe (push button once, solenoid opens and closes repeatedly).
Almost certainly, that's what the Feds are investigating now, determining the exact details on how the gun was fired (that it did in fact use a solenoid-trigger-pull, etc.).
In other words, it may not be an FAA violation, but it's almost certainly a (probably-accidental) ATF violation.
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Re:"Automatic" Weapon? (Score:4, Interesting)
The regulation is clear on this point (so I'm told, anyway, I haven't read it myself), because the *device* at that point has nothing mechanically preventing multiple bullets from firing per "manual action" (the button push in this case), it becomes a NFA weapon.
Essentially, you've got a "manual" operation, a "trigger" operation, and a firing of a round. In a conventional firearm use the manual operation and the trigger operation are the same. Mechanically at that point (in the normal firearm), the firearm prevents multiple rounds from being fired per manual action (by requiring a trigger release, and re-pulling it).
When you're using a solenoid for the trigger-pull, you lose the "connection" between the manual operation and the firing of rounds that is necessary to remain NFA-compliant.
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That MIGHT depend on the nature of the mechanism. If it is wired so that button press activates the solinoid to pull back and release is necessary for ity to move forward again, then one press can only ever fire one round.
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If you think that is odd, then you will love this
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.c... [everydaynodaysoff.com]
Yes a 14" piece of string and a key ring attached to a rifle to make it cycle constitutes a "Machine gun" under federal law.
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Perfectly legal as far as I know....
Video of similar set up [youtube.com]
And LInk to similar product for sale [americansp...tyammo.com]
So, I have trouble thinking a solenoid doing the same thing mechanically would suffice it to be an automatic weapon. Hell, one turn of the crank here fires off 4 shots.
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Re:"Automatic" Weapon? (Score:4, Informative)
Never look for rhyme or reason in ATF dictates. You won't find any.
legal precedent (Score:2)
Remote turret hunting is legal and it uses a solenoid fired rifle. Not that the atf cares about precedent but it would at least be a defense.
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I wonder if it fits into the category of automatic weapon.
A lot depends, of course, on the type of handgun used, the calibre and load of the ammunition, the drone, etc. etc., but I imagine that for some combination of these factors cycling will not take place (light ammo load, light gun/drone combination). For another combination, recoil may be too heavy for the drone to handle and keep following shots in a safe direction....
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Let's imagine a button press is an individual shot, but the software doesn't allow to fire again before 3 seconds or before the drone is stabilized. Then you can tap the button repeatedly, regardless and it will be like an auto unless the software catches this and yells "Stop doing this" at the user.
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No, dude, that was a firearm. BB guns don't report when fired.
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Possession, or purchase? In MO, for example, you can own and even carry a handgun at 18, but you can't legally purchase one from a dealer unless 21 or older.
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He is 18 so? How does he have a hand gun?
I had a .22 calibur rifle in the 5th grade (granted it was a single shot). Some parents teach their children weapon safety at an early age. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing what the kid did was at all safe and responsible, but fail to see the issue of an 18 year old with a weapon, especially since they can be in the military at that age.
Re: They're not going to arrest him! (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly, unless discharge laws were violated, why should this be illegal?
It's not concealed, nobody was hurt.
Re: They're not going to arrest him! (Score:5, Insightful)
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No officer I wasn't shooting anyone, or even threatening them, I was just flying around my armed killer robot.
Re: They're not going to arrest him! (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply having a weapon in someone's presence isn't illegal even if they feel threatened. It isn't your fault is someone is overly sensitized to guns or simply timid.
In the case of a threat it makes sense for the charge to escalate because the level of threat is escalated by a weapon. For everything else where there is a more substantial charge because a gun was involved it's ridiculous. If I actually hurt you it's how bad I hurt you that counts which automatically accounts for a gun. If I robbed you what difference does it make what I use? You suffered the same injury.
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You are more likely to get struck by lightning than shot by a gun.
NOAA [noaa.gov] gives an average of 33 lightning deaths and 297 injuries per year in the US for the years 2004-2013.
GunPolicy.org [gunpolicy.org] gives a minimum of 11,068 gun homicides and 64,389 non-fatal gun injuries in any one year over the same time span.
Statistically, a random person in the US is much more likely to be killed or injured by gunfire than struck by lightning.
Assault (Score:4, Interesting)
So threatening you with a gun is ok? As long as I don't actually shoot you? Now substitute a drone.
No officer I wasn't shooting anyone, or even threatening them, I was just flying around my armed killer robot.
Threatening you with a gun is assault (i.e. threatening you with physical harm) and you can get arrested for it. You can also get sued if you have done an intentional act that is a legal and but-for cause of putting someone in apprehension of imminent bodily harm.
If you assault someone with your killer robot, it's still assault. If you do something stupid but intentional with the robot and it makes people afraid it will hurt them, they can still sue.
We don't actually need new laws to go after people who do something bad with a robot.
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Not sure what that has to do with anything. If you are threatening to kill someone by running them over with your car, I would think that should have the same legality as threatening to kill them with a firearm. Just having/using a car and having/using a firearm for without violence or threat of violence should be legal.
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Not sure what that has to do with anything. If you are threatening to kill someone by running them over with your car, I would think that should have the same legality as threatening to kill them with a firearm. Just having/using a car and having/using a firearm for without violence or threat of violence should be legal.
To me, a car has other purposes -- to transport; whereas, a gun has only one purpose -- to destroy/damage the target.
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2. To get a military contract
3. Profit
Looks like more than 1 to me.
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Mounting a gun on my car and driving it around is illegal. Why should mounting a gun on my drone and flying it around be legal?
Now, if he was on private property and away from the public enough where the gun posed no danger to anyone... sure, knock yourself out. Same as driving a tank on private property. Flying it over public land or private property without permission, yeah that is a no-no. Same as your makeshift tank.
Now, if your backyard is sufficiently small, there may be no way to safely fly the thing
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Also, I don't know about in Connecticut but here it's legal to mount on a vehicle unless the police believe you are causing a panic. If loaded the gun could potentially accidentally fire depending on the mechanism a tank never would. Outlawing a tank on the road is just silly if it's otherwise road legal.
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Mounting a gun on my car and driving it around is illegal.
Is it?
Re: They're not going to arrest him! (Score:4, Insightful)
If we made "recklessly shooting into the woods" illegal, hunting enthusiasts and the NRA would be up in arms.
Besides which, there's no evidence such a thing happened with the drone - all we can tell from the video is that the drone was firing a pistol in the woods. It could perfectly well have been firing into the side of dirt hill that was off-camera. Maybe even someone's safely designed target shooting range.
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If we made "recklessly shooting into the woods" illegal, hunting enthusiasts and the NRA would be up in arms.
Besides which, there's no evidence such a thing happened with the drone - all we can tell from the video is that the drone was firing a pistol in the woods. It could perfectly well have been firing into the side of dirt hill that was off-camera. Maybe even someone's safely designed target shooting range.
I think there's a difference between "shooting into the woods" and "recklessly shooting into the woods."
If I own 100 acres of private land that I have marked as private, and I go into the middle of it and shoot away knowing full well that there's nearly no chance that a bystander will stop the round instead of a hill or tree, that's "shooting into the woods."
If I go into a public space of forest where I don't know who may be around, or where they may be, then that's "recklessly shooting into the woods."
The
Re: They're not going to arrest him! (Score:4, Informative)
Because he is not in full control of the firearm.
Neither is a person who places a firearm in a gun rest and fires it with a string on the trigger for testing purposes.
Arrest warrants all around for the cast and crew of MythBusters, then?
Strat
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)