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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: 2) by Freeman on Thursday July 23 2015, @05:21PM
Guns still don't tend to go off when dropped. Whether the safety is on or off. Unlike the movies, it really is hard to have a gun "accidentally fire" on it's own. I know that the movie "True Lies" had an automatic weapon dropping down the stairs and taking out a bunch of bad guys, but seriously that was totally bogus.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday July 25 2015, @12:26AM
This gun is rigged with something designed to pull the trigger. There are probably lots of different ways the acceleration from hitting the ground would either trigger the mechanism or cause enough pressure from the piece acting on the trigger itself.
The gun design has little to do with the risk of misfire. It's not a gun misfire, but a system misfire.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 27 2015, @08:48PM
Fair enough. The issue with reckless endangerment is that there has to be someone else to hurt. "Reckless endangerment is a crime consisting of acts that create a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person." http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/reckless-endangerment/ [uslegal.com] (Probably not the best source, but it sounds reasonably accurate.) Typically that wouldn't include anyone who was knowingly taking part in what could be considered a dangerous situation. There's a reason why some restaurants that server stupidly hot stuff require you to sign legal waivers. The place of business is covering their behind. Just because something's stupid doesn't mean it should be illegal.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"