Drone. Photo via Chase Jarvis
Drone. Photo via Chase Jarvis

What do you do if you see your neighbor’s camera-equipped drone hovering above you house?

Practice skeet shooting, perhaps?

One New Jersey man took justice into his own hands this week, peppering a robotic drone device over his home with blasts from a shotgun.

Gigaom has details on this bizarre story, noting that it represents a complex issue of “how to balance the rights of drone owners against people’s rights to privacy and self-defense.”

It is a timely incident, since drones will be one of the key topics we discuss at Thursday’s GeekWire Summit, featuring drone entrepreneur Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics and National Geographic photographer Chad Copeland.

Drones aren’t just used for spying, though public perception sure has been shaped in the past few months via some high-profile incidents in the media. The unmanned aircraft systems also have probably not been helped with military uses of drones, equipment with menacing names such as Predator, Raven and Global Hawk.

CBS Philly has more on the New Jersey story, noting that the man was arrested for criminal mischief and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. From the report:

Investigators say the resident was taking aerial photographs of his friend’s home, which is under construction. While doing so, the resident told police he heard several gunshots as he simultaneously lost control of the drone. After retrieving the drone, the resident observed multiple holes in it that were consistent with a shotgun blast.

Just yesterday, an enterprising drone operator in Seattle took his device to the sky to capture some amazing footage of a building fire in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. In this instance, no shots were fired.

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