[ents]

Why are they not being shot down at the very least?

[KK7NIL]

The FAA looks down on people shooting at flying objects they can barely recognize, as this guy learned the hard way: https://www.yahoo.com/news/retiree-shot-walmart-delivery-dro...

[mindslight]

> DroneUp Delivery was working on mock deliveries for Walmart and had set up a delivery point outside of Mr Winn’s ... home

> The defendant stated he had past experience with drones and believed they were surveilling him

The question I'm left with after reading that article - was this test delivery point for a single trial run, or did this company choose one random location and then repeatedly send tests there over and over? If it's the latter, that seems like it should also warrant criminal charges.

[runjake]

Shooting large, apparently car-sized, stuff down over populated areas isn't a good idea.

As an aside, I presume at this point, the military and FBI are stationing their SIGINT aircraft over the area and probably have a good idea what's going on but aren't saying publicly. These things are emitting electromagnetic energy in more ways that one, eg. radios and electric motor RF signatures.

RIP the SkyCircles accounts on Twitter.

[bagels]

Some of these photos are of passenger planes. I think most agree that shooting down passenger planes is bad.

[Aeolun]

Also rather hard to accidentally do if you have equipment capable of shooting down aircraft.

[Cthulhu_]

Why? Just follow them and see where they land / head to (they can't fly forever) and ask some questions to the owners.

[alchemist1e9]

supposedly they originate and return to somewhere out in ocean. presumably boats or submarines.

[bell-cot]

"Shot down" with what? Surface-to-air missiles? Duck hunters with shotguns? Attack helicopters with miniguns?

Whatever you spray into the sky (to knock a drone out of it) will also fall back to earth, plausibly generating civilian casualties on the ground. (And if you use lasers - high power laser beams have plenty of safety issues, too.)

[potato3732842]

If Ukraine is any indication you shoot them down with other drones.

[antonvs]

> Duck hunters with shotguns?

Duck Dynasty season 12 is going to be a doozy

[soared]

I don’t think anyone has the tools to go to an area after a spotting and capture/destroy them quick enough.

[hoppyhoppy2]

Not to mention that it's illegal to shoot down aircraft

[OutOfHere]

It's always wrong (in every possible way) to be the first one to engage hostilities. To be morally in the clear, you should always wait for the other side to engage first. If we didn't follow this doctrine, we would've already had a nuclear holocaust. Warmongers and civilization don't mix.

We don't know anything about their capabilities as individual drones or as a cluster of drones. For all you know, when you shoot one, the other ten take that as declaration of war.

[ponector]

According to this logic we should wait untill Iran creates a nuke and only then destroy their nuclear facilities, right?

[op00to]

Nothing these drones are doing are illegal.

[dartos]

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