The threat came before the, uh, “request” (and I’m using that word in the loosest possible sense) to stop advancing.
As far as knowledge of the law, did you miss the part of this threat where a SDMB member police officer said that the statement was a “terroristic threat” in one state?
Perhaps it will become necessary to mark drone limit lines, if there is legislation for property owners allowing them to declare no-drone-zones. This is one idea (warning, link to extremely amateur artwork) of a marker that, when viewed from above, shows a high-contrast indication of the border between a green (drone acceptable) area and a red no-drone area. A property owner puts these at intervals around the property line and a drone operator that crosses them is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Alternatively, I see a future in laser-based anti-drone equipment - perhaps a computer-aimed turret capable of blinding or even damaging a drone camera. Brave individuals like our shotgun-wielding homeowner will be our test subjects, forcing a clarification of the laws.
This is just my opinion - and I’m no legal expert - but the postman analogy seemed completely ridiculous to me.
Nothing Magiver has said seems to indicate any lack of ability to interpret the law though.
FWIW the actual law in Kentucky. Well actually about entering a dwelling not just stepping on property.
Note that required is 1) “A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another” and 2) “The presumption set forth in subsection (1) of this section does not apply if: … The person who uses defensive force is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further an unlawful activity”
Stepping over a property line, even in the context of a dispute, does not qualify as entering a dwelling both illegally and by force (requisite in the law).
It does not seem reasonable for him to have feared that he was in imminent peril of death or great bodily harm under this circumstance as described.
The claim that it is still self-defense even if the home-owner is engaged in a criminal act from the property is explicitly falsified.
Again, not a lawyer, don’t play one on tv, so anyone with actual legal expertise is free to add more in, but based on a straightforward reading of the law, Magiver is just plain wrong. Even this not-a-lawyer can read the law that well.
It seems not in Kentucky but in many states threatening with a weapon is included within the legal definition of assault. In Kentucky it is terroristic threatening third degree.
Well why don’t you go to that one state and advance on a police officer with 2 of your friends and report back.
3 people in a state of agitation trespassing against the will of the land owner would be considered a threat by the average person.
His statement to the 3 men was based on their behavior toward him. It wasn’t a random threat. If 3 agitated people advance on you on your property it’s reasonable to assume they represent a threat.
If angry people advance on a Planned Parenthood, can they be shot?
Actually you’re re-inforcing my point. A red epic drone setup is around $70,000-$100,000 US. You need a BIG expensive drone to carry the weight of a red epic + Lens etc. It’s also about 1.2 meters across and makes a hell of a noise. Not the sort of thing anyone is going to use to spy on their neighbours daughter.
The owner / operator of such an expensive setup is not going to risk that equipment spying on people where there is a risk of it being damaged.
As for the idea of “drone lines”, sorry you don’t own the air above your property up to infinity, thats already been established by the FAA. The only thing that needs to be decided is at what height your property rights end, and right now thats in limbo as no exact ruling has been made on it. (somewhere between 83 feet and 500 feet)
Again the standard for both “castle doctrine” and “stand your ground” is a threat of “imminent peril of death or great bodily harm” … arguing, protesting, calling someone an SOB, and stepping across a property line does not meet that standard to any reasonable average person.
Now I know you are not average … but would you perceive three upset people stepping onto your property as an imminent peril of death or great bodily harm?
How about someone coming towards your car yelling at you after you hit their car in a fender bender? Would pulling a 40 mm Glock on him or her and shooting if they continued to approach be a reasonable thing for an average person to do?
There certainly is nothing presented here that supports any sense of such a perceived threat of death or great bodily harm by our drone-shooter anyway. He stated no such thing. He stated clearly they came only to “confront” him about what he did and he “changed their minds” about that by threatening to shoot them if they crossed his sidewalk.
OTOH there is reason to believe that he was using his property to further an unlawful activity, which would invalidate the legality any use of defensive force according to cited Kentucky law, which explicitly states, in short, it’s not self-defense if you’re a criminal.
What if you change the last point though - instead of him illegally shooting down the drone, they were doing the pervy spy thing. If, after the pervy spies had their drone shot down, three angry pervy spies came to confront the home owner - that would change the perspective quite a bit wouldn’t it?
As far as the home owner was concerned - this was the situation.
Well, we could presume those were the homeowner’s concerns. Personally, I don’t think enough information has been released and alternate theories (i.e. the drone operator buzzed the guy’s house just to be a jerk and the guy shot the drone down just to be a jerk - i.e. jerks all around) are feasible.
No it would not change the perspective by too much.
Whether or not he felt justified, or even was by your or my assessment justified, in doing something illegal, is immaterial to the fact that he did something illegal. And as they say, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
So on that point alone the self-defense argument is invalidated by Kentucky statute.
The other point remains: assume the improbable hypothetical that the owners of the expensive toy are indeed pervs using the drone to spy behind his 6 foot privacy fence - merely confronting someone for destroying a toy, even stepping across the property line to do it, is not enough to qualify as an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm. Therefore use and threat of use of a 40 mm Glock against the hypothetical pervs is not justifiable either legally or ethically.
I dunno - I’m pretty “anti-gun”,
It seems to me though that “four angry guys coming to confront me” is a pretty appropriate time to display a gun…
In general, I agree. But I think you don’t get to go shooting wildly into the air to destroy property and then claim that you’re “defending yourself” when the owners come to get their property from you. IMO when you’ve stolen something and are hiding it on your property, it’s not self-defense when you try to repel the owners of that property, regardless of whether you think they’re going to hurt you. (That doesn’t mean the owners would be justified if they did harm him. Just that sometimes it’s not self-defense even if you’re totally legitimately afraid that you’ll be harmed. For example, if I see someone outside stealing my car, I can’t shoot him. If I do shoot him, though, I’m pretty sure he still isn’t allowed to shoot me back.)
It’s not that I think he didn’t possibly have some legitimate fear. Maybe he really did, but I don’t really care so much. Sometimes when you throw the first punch and miss, the second one lands right on your face. It’s still your fault.
Which is why I suggest that the whole thing rests on how legitimate the original action was - the shooting down of the drone -
given that he “open carries” I suspect that any threat he sees is overblown -
On the other hand, skeevy guys send drone to spy, I shoot it down, said angry skeevy guys come to argue with me - is a good time to display gun
Displaying a gun in an open carry state is legal. Overtly threatening someone with said gun is not.
Again, if he a) had not been engaged in criminal activity from his property and b) had presented that he believed they were about to “imminently” literally beat him to death or at least near death, then he was within his rights to threaten them with his weapon.
None of that is contingent upon whether or not any of us, including he, thinks “they had it coming” or what we think the law should be. “Legitimate” or not, firing as he did was illegal.
Now playing this out though from the other perspective keeping to the facts as we know them with one minor addition, the drone owners are also openly carrying … open carry state … man performs an illegal act and destroys your expensive property … as you, understandably upset (and carrying yourself) approach him to confront him about that illegal activity he threatens to shoot you with his 40 mm Glock … it appears that under “stand your ground” you have every legal right to shoot him.
Maybe, even if you believe that the drone owners are skeevy, is not such a good time to display gun, let alone to overtly and explicitly threaten with it?
I’m thinking this through, and haven’t come to a complete conclusion, but I don’t think that the situation changes at all of the guys are pervs or not pervs.
There is no lawful right I am aware of to shoot down an aircraft, even if it is unmanned. Nor is there a right to threaten to kill someone if there isn’t a reasonable belief that the person is about to inflict death or great bodily harm upon you.
Regardless of whether you think the homeowners actions were ethical, it seems pretty much like a lock that his two major actions – shooting down a drone and threatening other people – were very likely illegal. And I don’t buy for a second that the homeowner was afraid that the four men would hurt him. He was angry and threatened to do harm to them. It’s as simple as that.
I think the shooting of the drone was probably a violation of some kind, the least of which is unlawful discharge of a weapon. However the person could be justified in using his firearm to defend against criminal trespass per KRS § 503.080
Meant to add the quote
Are you talking about shooting the drone or threatening to shoot the owners? The drone incursion was not trespass - that requires entry by a person.