Politics makes strange bedfellows and therein lies the solution to the nation’s drone problem.
It’s only a matter of time before one accidentally or intentionally kills somebody. Or starts a wildfire. Or causes a power outage. Or shoots video of you through your bedroom window, even with drapes drawn. (See below.)
At least when the public’s electronic airwaves were deeded over to rapacious corporations, our government maintained at least a veneer of regulation.
The public air now hosts a free-for-all kamikaze game.
What’s the solution? How about shooting them down. (Assemblymember Michele Fiore, call your office.)
Liberals and conservatives have common ground. Both are concerned about privacy rights.
Thanks to a federal regulation handed down a few days ago, drones must now be registered. Hey, guys — today it’s your kid’s Christmas present, tomorrow your Smith & Wesson.
Why would liberals make common cause with those they revile as gun nuts?
Because drones are the enemy of every privacy right the Supremes ever thunk up. Equipped with heat sensors, drones can see how many people are in your house and what they are doing behind closed doors. Cleaning AK-47s perhaps? Or, worse, running around nekkid.
In his legendary novel “1984,” George Orwell (Eric Blair) never wrote how spying telescreens got into every room just about everywhere.
Now, we know. We not only allowed them in, we footed the bill from Apple, Microsoft, Dell et al. We paid the pirates for the privilege of being privy to our privacy. Drones are just the next logical step from computer cookies to ‘copters.
What to do? Shoot ‘em. Drones are already illegal in lots of places, but that hasn’t stopped propellerheads from flying into national parks and over natural disasters, endangering first responders and tourists alike. It’s only a matter of time before a hospital chopper or fire-fighting aircraft is taken down.
Shoot a drone in self-defense? I’d surely feel threatened if I saw a soul-less meat grinder buzzing toward me.
Drones are deadly weapons that now must be registered. Guns are deadly weapons but don’t always have to be. If one can be registered, so can the other. Second Amendment advocates should get aboard and declare open season on drones.
Rather than drone on in the courts for years, civil libertarians should welcome the efficiency of just shooting dangerous, law-breaking, rights-violating drones out of the sky.
This could spawn new Nevada industries that Gov. Veto El Obtúsè would just love to support with corporate welfare tax breaks.
Private and religious schools could teach drone hunting as a condition of receiving $5,000 taxpayer subsidies.
Drone target shooting and aerial defense could both become Olympic sports.
What’s not to like?
The possibilities are endless and it could all start in Nevada.
The U.S. is home to some 300 million guns. Let’s put them to work protecting your gun rights, the air rights over your property and your privacy.
But keep your bedroom drapes drawn anyway.
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 47-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune
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