You are right - I was kind of exaggerating. You “can” use physical force, but you’re better off not. You open yourself up to civil damages. You can leave it up to the jury as a matter of law, but the common advice is to just walk away. This is the common advice among my fellow gun rights advocates as well.
What if the kids are in the car? What if it’s the reincarnation of Osama Bin Laden!? The point is, the fact pattern matters a whole hell of a lot.
Are you suggesting that the drone operator was indeed spying on the man’s daughter or that he was a creep? If so, why?
Eh, just unplug his dialysis machine.
If a Amway salesman comes to my door and won’t leave, I think it’s fine to tell him to leave. If he doesn’t, I can grab his arm and walk him to the street.
If he gets angry when I grab his arm, I can grab him by the scruff of his neck.
If he pushes me away, I can lock his arm behind his back and shove him against the wall.
If he headbutts me, I can give him a roundhouse kick to the head.
If he runs back to his car and pulls out a machete, I can pull my gun and threaten to shoot him.
If he runs at me, I can shoot him.
Now, some variation on these steps is totally understandable. But you can’t jump from him getting angry to me threatening to shoot him. It simply isn’t proportional. I think escalation like that is illegal and unethical.
Did you happen to read the OP or the article linked in the OP? 
*WDRB News spoke with Merideth Tuesday afternoon, and he gave his side of the story.
“Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard,” Merideth said. “And they come in and said, ‘Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.’”
Merideth’s neighbors saw it too.
“It was just hovering above our house and it stayed for a few moments and then she finally waved and it took off,” said neighbor Kim VanMeter.
VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird.
“I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard,” she said.*
AFAIK, I didn’t introduce the possibility that the drone owner was a creepy guy. YMMV.
(post shortened)
The lone home owner didn’t threaten to shoot any of the 4 angry men. He said, “If you cross that sidewalk onto my property, there’s going to be another shooting.”
You assume that statement means that the lone home owner had issued a threat to shoot/kill/murder one or all of the 4 angry men for trespass. I don’t see it that way. He may have meant he would fire a warning shot. He may have intended for the 4 angry men to notice that he had an open-carry firearm. Whatever his reason was for using that particular string of words, the end result is that the 4 angry men did not trespass on his property and the possibility of a physical confrontation was avoided.
The idea that four men retreated because he said he was going to fire a warning shot is nonsensical, bizarre, an extreme reach, and not worth responding to anymore.
The 4 angry men didn’t trespass. In the real world, the immediate problem of the possibility of a physical altercation was avoided. Situation diffused.
“Defused.” “Diffused” is what would have happened if he’d used his shotgun to turn the trespassers into a fine, red mist.
Oh, wait! I get it now! When the homeowner said there’d be a shooting, he was referring to a photoshoot! Like a bunch of models were going to arrive and do a Playboy spread if the four guys crossed the sidewalk.
The men, being all seekrit homosexuals, fled and called the police. Problem diffused.
Perhaps they were* very *angry men, and the homeowner was threatening to shoot himself out of fear. (Puts gun to head) “And you guys are next if you don’t watch it!”
But I suspect not.
Ah, the old “Blazing Saddles” strategem.
“Defused” works better in the story line.
Anyway … unsure if this May 13, 2015 Wall Street Journal article was already linked to here.
Note ahead of reading it that right to privacy case precedence includes that anything visible to the naked eye from publicly navigable airspace has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
So from the WSJ article:
Here is information from the FAA directly (1/6/2014).
And for a more in the weeds discussion see this Brookings paper.
In short the combination of considering public navigable airspace as down to ground and rulings that state that that which can be observed with a naked eye from public navigable airspace does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy is an untenable circumstance going forward. And shooting down or otherwise intentionally destroying aircrafts, including unmanned drones, is and should be against the law.
Couldnt disagree more. If you violate someones privacy I hope they destroy your drone. Good luck getting a conviction. I would remain silent and not allow access to my property without a warrent. And good luck finding 12 jurers to convict.
And your position would also mean that its open season on the famous by the paparazzi.
As has been explained more than once, if the drone is directly over your house it is almost definitely NOT shooting or recording video of your property. Drone cameras don’t point straight down, the point down at a 30-45 degree angle and usually have wide angle lenses. So unless you have a very large property, if the drone is over your house, its aiming at a property next door.
You don’t own the air over your own property, thats well established, and if you damage expensive equipment belonging to someone else because of ignorance and paranoia then you will surely face charges.
Lets say I want to film a commercial on a street. I would meed to get a permit. Drone owners should also have to get a permit to film in public. Also, in California its illegal to film anyone where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
There are two things quite wrong with your proposal, first of all how do you define a “perv”? Because I’ve seen on this thread that the bar seems to have been lowered to the point that being able to look into someone’s private property makes one a potential “perv”, and that is reason enough to take drastic actions, like blasting stuff with a shotgun.
If I’m on a balcony taking a photo of the city line, am I a “perv” because I can see into next condo’s windows?
How about if I have a dash-cam and film schoolchildren crossing the street? Is that pervy?
Secondly, you are proposing going after the technology and not the actual offense; by your logic pervs and child molesters should be forbidden from buying cameras, binoculars, telescopes, ladders (to peep over fences), a frikkin’ pole with a mirror taped to the tip, and so on and so forth.
You can’t penalize ownership of technology like that, all technology can me misused; it would be the same as banning all firearms because they could potentially be used to commit crimes.
Wrong, It’s completely legal for me to go shoot video using a Canon EOS 7D camera on the street without a permit. You only need a permit if you a closing the street down or disrupting traffic.
Is it illegal to shoot video in california from a high hill overlooking many houses? Using a wide lens where people are unidentifiable? Again, as I’ve said before drone wide angle lenses mean that from any reasonable height individual people are unidentifiable. Commonly used commercial drones including the one in this case are designed for shooting sweeping dramatic wide shots of landscapes, not for spying on people.
It obvious reading the comments here that all the anti-drone people are basing their knowledge on the south park episode and have never looked at the capabilities and what video looks like from an actual drone.
Surely, you can’t say what “drone video capabilities” are, because that depends on the camera, not on the drone, and it would be trivially easy to attach any sort of camera to a drone.