Odd News: Florida Man Admits to Damaging Walmart Delivery Drone by Shooting It

As retailers seek to offer faster than ever deliveries, drone delivery, where a small or medium sized package can be lifted from a local distribution center and dropped on your front porch, is emerging as a possible delivery method that's potentially more environmentally friendly and possibly faster than traditional courier delivery. However, it seems that some US citizens choose to shoot at any drones that fly by, believing that their privacy is somehow being violated. Recently a man in Florida found out what are the consequences after he shot a Walmart delivery drone that flew by his house. 

DJI Inspire Drone with HD Cam, delivery drone would be even larger
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Dennis W was arrested in Florida after he admitted to shooting at a drone that flew by his house. He claimed he saw it approaching, went to the gun safe, retrieved a 9mm pistol, then at the height of about 75 ft (for the drone), gave it one shot, which apparently hit. As the drone landed back at Walmart a bullet hole was observed in the central area, and law enforcement was summoned, and through the drone flight log the deputies narrowed down the shot origin to Dennis W's residence. Deputies went there to interview Dennis W, where he admitted to the shooting. He claimed he had been harassed by drones before, which were surveilling him. Deputies then told him he shot a Walmart delivery drone. His reaction was "Really?"

Dennis W is facing 3 charges... the most serious of which is a FEDERAL charge... shooting at an aircraft. 

That's right... It is a FEDERAL crime to shoot at an aircraft, including drones. Federal laws and regulations makes NO distinction between a drone vs an airliner. It is a Federal FELONY to shoot at an aircraft, punishable by fine and up to 20 years in prison. It was not a new ruling... It had been around 2016. 

Yet you'll see gun and archery owners joke about "it's open season" if drone delivery is being scaled up in their area. 

And let's just say more than a few police drones were shot by people. 

But the speed and efficiency of drone delivery seems to outweigh the risks... Amazon and Walmart both wanted to expand use of drone delivery, and many fast food places are considering it as well. Some even started up pilot programs, including Wendy's (in collab with DoorDash) and Chick-fil-a's. 

Except no one can evaluate how many... weapon practitioners may choose to risk Federal prosecution just for a chance to claim they bagged a drone, because they "believe" they're being harassed. 

Judging by the hostility toward self-driving cars which are far less ubiquitous and obviously, limited to public roads and streets, I'd be more pessimistic than optimistic. 

High Capacity Magazine Ban Should be Reinstated

Image via WikipediaThe debate on high-capacity magazine for a handgun reignited after the Tucson shooting of 2011, when a Congresswoman was shot through the head and six others died, and over a dozen more injured. The shooter used a Glock 19 with a 33-round high-capacity magazine. He had at least one more but he didn't get a chance to use it.

Keep in mind that a normal Glock 19, a compact version of Glock 17, has a 15 round magazine (with 9x19mm parabellum rounds). So 33 round mag is more than twice the capacity.

Real shooters disdain hi-cap mags because:

1) they disturbs the balance of the gun.

In general, you want the gun to be FRONT heavy, to help you control the tendency for the gun to "nose up" after a shot due to the way barrel is located relative to the arm. A hi-cap mag adds more weight to the REAR of the gun.

2) they are far less reliable

US military tested in 2004 their version of hi-cap mag, called C-mags, for their M-4's / M-16's, and found them to be unreliable.

The reason is simple: the spring inside does NOT give constant pressure. By the time you got down to last few rounds the pressure exerted is far less, but if you load it all the way down it may just feed too hard and cause a jam. In fact, most shooters even underload normal factory mags by a round or two to make sure they can feed properly when used.

3) hi-cap mags serve no legitimate purpose other than to engage high number of targets with minimal training

A pistol is a short-range weapon (25-50 yards effective range, probably even less). If you have THAT many enemies that close, that requires 33 round mags, you are already ****ed, gun not withstanding.

Besides, real shooters, can drop mag, reload, and restart shooting in less than a second. They don't need hi-cap mags. If they don't have time to reload, they usually use a second gun, i.e. a "backup piece" instead. Or else they pack something better, like a submachine gun.

The only conceivable reason to have high-cap mags are, to me

1) Someone wants to prove he has a bigger gun than _____

2) Someone plans to shoot a LOT of targets with minimal training.

And that is what happened in Tucson: someone decided to shoot a lot of targets with minimal training.

Real trained shooters don't need or even WANT hi-cap mags. There are no legitimate use for them. Thus, they should be banned. And they WERE banned, until the "Assault Weapon Ban" expired in 2004.

Related articles

• Glock's High-Capacity Bullet Magazines (businessweek.com)
• High-capacity magazine used by Loughner was banned until GOP gave in to NRA (americablog.com)
• Ban high-capacity gun magazines like one used in Tucson (cnn.com)
• Shooting Prompts Congress To Rethink Gun Clip Ban - NPR (news.google.com)
• Pending Magazine Ban Legislation in the U.S. (survivalblog.com)