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An 18-year-old student in Clinton, Connecticut has led the Federal Aviation Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and local police to investigate after his video of a quadcopter drone firing a handgun went viral.
According to his father, Austin Haughwout assembled the drone warrior for a college class project with the help of a professor at Central Connecticut State University. A spokesman for the university said that the professor strongly discouraged Haughwout and that the drone wasn't related to a class project. The 14-second video, posted on YouTube on July 10th, shows a quadcopter hovering and firing a semiautomatic handgun (unconfirmed that this was a Kel-Tec PMR-30 pistol) four times in midair. CNN reports that the agencies involved haven't found any evidence of wrongdoing:
"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," Clinton Police Chief Todd Lawrie said. [...] The Federal Aviation Administration and federal law agencies are also investigating "to determine if there were any violations of criminal statutes," the FAA said.
[...] Law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, a former director of the FBI, said he believed the gun drone could be illegal as a form of reckless conduct. "What if the drone gets beyond the distance of the radio control? We had that drone land on the front lawn of the White House," Fuentes said. Earlier this year, a U.S. intelligence agency employee lost control of a borrowed personal quadcopter drone, which crashed on the White House lawn. "Do we want drones out of control that could land who knows here? We could have a child pick up the drone, pick up the gun, and accidentally kill themselves. I see the whole thing as reckless conduct," Fuentes said.
This isn't the teen's first taste of national drone fame. He was assaulted by a 23-year-old woman last year while taking aerial footage of a beach using an unarmed quadcopter. Despite assaulting a minor and lying to the police whom she had called to the scene, in contradiction of video evidence from the drone and Haughwout's iPhone, she received just 2 years probation.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @01:39PM
Filming women on the beach and arming toys with live weapons doesn't sound like he gives a fuck about consequences.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Thursday July 23 2015, @02:04PM
doesn't sound like he gives a fuck about consequences
On the contrary, based on his earlier experience he created a (follow me?) bodyguard drone to protect him from people that want to beat him up ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @02:21PM
anyone who needs that probably deserves the odd beating
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @03:48PM
Like the pope, or heads of state, or military personnel. Yeah fuck people that take measures to keep themselves safe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:44PM
Yes. all those people you listed definitely deserve an occasional beating.
without a doubt yes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @12:51AM
So they deserve to get their ass kicked because people are always looking to kick their ass? Circular argument is circular.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 23 2015, @02:28PM
Sounds like a perfectly normal kid to me. And, I can just picture this thing escalating. Gubberming tells the kid, "No guns on drones!" So - he builds a nice laser to mount on his drone. Gubbermint hears about the laser, and says, "Hey kid - no lasers on drones either!" Kid goes home, and starts studying EMP's. Screw gubbermint. Instant blackout, from Miami up to Bangor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @02:15PM
being an asshole is not against the law
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @02:23PM
There would have to be a lot more prisons if it were.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @02:53PM
At 18, I'm pretty sure everyone is an asshole.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @03:30PM
As long as it is a public beach, I don't see what's wrong with the filming. If you don't want to be seen in bathing clothes, don't go to a public beach in bathing clothes.
It the place was not public, then of course it was an invasion of privacy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @03:41PM
As long as it is a public beach, I don't see what's wrong with the filming.
Congratulations, you're an asshole too. Not everything that isn't explicitly forbidden is acceptable behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @03:46PM
Calling random people assholes for not conforming to your very precise and very personal value system isn't acceptable behavior either. Ironic really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @04:02PM
Neither is beating up an asshole who films women on the beach, but it happens for a reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:04PM
You are missing the point entirely and enticing violence. Again, ironic really.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:20PM
I am not enticing anything. I am telling you that there are other codes of conduct beside the law and that those codes of conduct are enforced. The example was from the story, in case you missed it. I've said it before, but here it is again: If building a remote controlled flying gun and using it with live ammunition isn't illegal now, it soon will be. If people had some fucking common sense, hardly anything would have to be explicitly forbidden, but look how many laws there are. Speaks volumes to the qualities of our fellow men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:31PM
You're just a vigilante asshole inciting violence over perfectly legal activities.
Lindsey Graham, is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @12:54AM
"Legal" does not mean "moral" or "ethical". The Venn diagram of "legal" and "moral"/"ethical" has little overlap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @02:42AM
And everyone has a different opinion on each.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @09:36PM
Common sense says a lone man on private property doing something all by himself is not a danger to anyone else, but that is not your agenda. Common sense and "those codes of conduct" are whatever you want it to be at the moment. Certainly not a sane way to run a live let alone a society.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 23 2015, @07:53PM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=8562&cid=212797 [soylentnews.org]
There is no "asshole who films women on the beach". That was a fiction. There was a mentally ill woman who took offense with legal activity.
Your informal vigilante justice may work some of the time, but its proponents will eventually land in prison, especially when cameras are recording their illegal "codes of conduct".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:38PM
What the woman claimed he did (hovering for some perv shots) didn't match the actual evidence. He was filming high above [youtube.com] the beach. She said: "He’s taking pictures of people on the beach ... with a helicopter plane." Not a reason for police to respond to the call. After she assaulted him, he called the police.
The woman also lied and said that the teen assaulted her. The cops were initially ready to believe the woman rather than the teen, but he had all the video he needed [photographyisnotacrime.com]:
It's clear that the teen is not the asshole, and that in this case, what wasn't explicitly forbidden was both acceptable and normal, while the unacceptable behavior (lying to the police and assault) was not. Good thing he was filming, or the outcome could have been very different due to people who think like you.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by seeprime on Thursday July 23 2015, @03:51PM
It's not illegal to be an asshole, of any size.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:37PM
And availing yourself of facts doesn't seem to make you less of an asshole. Maybe it makes you a festering, wart covered asshole.
What the boy did was legal. Lying to police and assaulting other people was the illegal activity.
Obviously being a buffoon has no limit on size either. Thanks for illustrating that for us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @10:50PM
He did neither of those things. His video evidence gave proof to the police. The woman he "assaulted" was arrested for assault (and other charges) herself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @04:53AM
Capt'n-save-a-ho strikes again. Fucking white knights.