Can I legally shoot down a drone that is hovering over my house or backyard property?

Mike Brown of Springfield wants to know: Is it legal for a property owner to shoot down a drone flying over his land at an altitude of, say, 100 feet?

I called Mike to make sure he wasn't considering taking up arms.

Thankfully, has not shot down any drones. In fact, he tells me, he doesn't own a gun.

The answer, Mike, is no. You cannot legally shoot down a drone just because it's over your property.

First of all, you live in Springfield, where it is illegal to discharge a firearm within city limits.

Call the police, instead, says Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for Springfield police.

"If anyone has a concern that their privacy is being invaded, it’s best that they call 911 so an officer can handle it," she says.

But you should not resort to downing drones regardless of where you live.

The Federal Aviation Administration considers a drone an "aircraft."

So don't pull that trigger, says Lyrissa Lidsky, dean of the University of Missouri School of Law.

But one judge's ruling in Kentucky has provided some gray area, she adds.

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William Merideth grabbed his shotgun in July 2015 and took down a drown hovering over his backyard.

Merideth had concluded that the drone — which was equipped with a camera — was getting an eyeful of his teenage daughter, who was sunbathing in the backyard.

According to Newsweek, Merideth said:

"I went and got my shotgun and said, 'I'm not going to do anything unless it's directly over my property. Within a minute or so, here it came. It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn't shoot across the road. I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences. I shot directly into the air.

"When you're in your own property, within a six-foot privacy fence, you have the expectation of privacy. We don't know if he was looking at the girls. We don't know if he was looking for something to steal. To me, it was the same as trespassing."

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Nevertheless, Merideth was arrested and charged with felony wanton endangerment and with discharging a firearm in the city limits of Hillview.

A local judge promptly dismissed the charges.

“I would not count on a judge doing what the Kentucky judge did," Lidsky says. "Like in most things, you do not necessarily want to take the law into your own hands."

If the drone was there to spy on you, she says, it's possible to file a civil lawsuit against the owner and/or operator.

Cities across the U.S. already have "Peeping Tom" laws that deal with privacy invasion, says Jason Preston.

"The FAA is concerned about safety, not privacy," he says.

Preston owns 417 Drone Imagery, in Ozark, a company he created in 2015.

“It is not legal to willfully damage someone’s property," he tells me. “I could not take a ball bat and damage your car because I don’t like it.”

He says that contrary to what the shotgun-toting homeowner in Kentucky said, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in your backyard.

Preston says he personally knows David Boggs, the man whose drone was shot down.

Preston says he was disappointed the judge dismissed the charges without checking to see if Boggs' drone was, in fact, taking pictures of the sunbathing girl in the backyard. The judge could have looked at the images.

In addition, he said, the judge could also have reviewed the drone's telemetry data to see how high it was and whether it actually had hovered over Merideth's backyard.

According to Preston, Boggs was flying the drone at sunset and lost it in the sun.

It took him a while to maneuver it back into a position where he could see it. That's when he heard the shotgun blast.

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Instead of taking aim, Preston says, people should complain to the drone operator, who should be in the area maintaining visual contact.

Or call the police, he says.

In March, Kentucky passed a law that extended the crime of misdemeanor trespassing to drone owners/operators who have their machine hover over — or land on — private property, says Republican State Rep. Diane St. Onge.

There is an exception in the law for law enforcement, she says, provided police obtain a search warrant where one would normally be needed.

Laws regarding drones are rapidly changing, Preston says. “It is very, very muddy waters."

It's confusing, Preston says, that commercial operators like him must have training, a license and follow rules — while hobbyists do not.

FAA rules, in general, apply to drones weighing 55 pounds or les, and require commercial operators to:

• Keep the drone within sight at all times.

• Keep drones from flying over people not involved in their operation.

Specifically, Preston says, a drone should not be flown directly over a person or the "extension of their limbs." It is OK, on the other hand, to take photos of people at an angle — as long as the drone is not directly overhead.

• Limit drone operation to the period a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset.

Preston says he has a waiver that allows him to fly at night. I asked how he can maintain visual contact at night.

“It is actually easier to see a drone at night because there are all kinds of flashing lights on it. It looks like a police car. You can see it three or four times farther than you can see it in the daylight.”

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• Limit speed to no more than 100 mph.

• Fly no higher than 400 feet.

But there is an exception, he says. A drone is allowed to go higher to inspect, for example, a 1,000-foot cell tower.

I ask why there is no limit to how low a drone can fly.

It's because flying too low already is covered by the crime of "reckless endangerment," he says.

“It is terribly confusing what you can and can’t do as a hobbyist," he says.

"As a hobby operator, you can fly at night. As a model operator, you do not have a height limitation. You can take it to 1,000 feet.”

In what is believed the first collision between a civilian drone and a military aircraft, a hobbyist's drone hit a U.S. Army Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter a mile east of Staten Island.

On Sept. 21, the helicopter was legally operating under visual flight rules at approximately 300 feet above the water, according to a story in Forbes.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigated and concluded the drone operator intentionally flew the drone 2.5 miles away, well beyond the visual line of sight.

The operator indicated he had only a cursory awareness of regulations and good operating practices. When the drone did not return, he assumed it had malfunctioned and crashed into the water.

In fact, it had crashed into the helicopter and left a 1½ inch dent on one of the rotor blades.

Parts of the drone lodged in the helicopter, which was able to continue to fly. On one of those parts was the drone's serial number.

Ars Technica reported that owner Vyacheslav Tantashov sent his drone out to sea and out of sight to get views of the New York City skyline.

Keep those questions coming. Send them to The Answer Man at 417-836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail at 651 Boonville Ave., Springfield, MO 65806.