08:20 – We spent yesterday up in the mountains looking at homes in the Jefferson and Boone areas. We’ve ruled out the Boone area, where equivalent homes sell for about 50% more than in Jefferson. And we both much prefer the Jefferson area anyway.
Our real-estate agent is getting some final details resolved before we put in an offer on a house we looked at yesterday. It’s in town, which means the property taxes are twice what they’d be if it were outside town limits, but it also means we’ll have municipal water, sewer, garbage collection, and so on. The house is in great condition. We could move in without having to fix or replace anything. There’s central heat and air, as well as a big wood stove in the basement. There’s plenty of floor space, both finished and an unfinished full basement for the business. There’s plenty of room for Colin to run, an outbuilding for Barbara’s tractor, combine, harvester, and other Green Acres farming equipment, and even a stream on the property.
August is starting typically. When we left about 0815 yesterday morning, we had no kit orders for the month. When we returned around 1630, we had five kit orders outstanding. At the moment, we have enough finished kits in stock to carry us through the first 10 days or two weeks of this month. We’ll be working today on boosting that supply by building more subassemblies.
Is that stream anywhere near the house?
And is the wood stove in the basement already hooked up and ready to go?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrbPAt1_vc4
Defensible positions? Fields of fire?
Check out the future neighbors, too; we were a wee bit lax on this score when we bought this house. Also the level of activity during the seasons, again, laxity on our part.
The stream is maybe 50 feet from the rear of the house. Yesterday, it was just a small trickle, maybe five or ten gallons a minute, but it’s obvious that it’s quite a bit more than that in the non-dry months, maybe 10+ gallons/second. I’m not worried about water. Between city water service, stored water, that stream, and rainwater collection, we’d be fine no matter what.
The wood stove is obviously connected to the chimney, but not into the house duct work. That would be a relatively cheap/easy fix or if push really came to shove we could simply cut vent holes in the floor and heat by convection. As our realtor said, the stove is big enough to turn the entire basement into a sauna no matter how cold it gets outside.
If push really came to shove, it wouldn’t be too difficult to improvise/improve positions. The basement walls are masonry, and all but the top couple of feet are below grade. There are concrete stairs leading up to the yard, and the area at the top of those stairs could easily be sandbagged to make a decent size bunker with a 270° field of fire. The basement windows could easily be improved into firing positions. The above grade walls are brick and the porches/patio areas are concrete and could also be improved to make bunkers with wide FOFs. If the SRHTF, there’s floorspace/cubic sufficient for 40 to 50 people, along with space/cubic to store supplies to support that many. (I intend to make a lot of friends up there.)
The neighborhood is MC/UMC. There aren’t any trailers, and no UC to speak of in the area, let alone the neighborhood. It’s a quiet neighborhood, without much activity.
Internet access?
“Yesterday, it was just a small trickle, maybe five or ten gallons a minute, but it’s obvious that it’s quite a bit more than that in the non-dry months, maybe 10+ gallons/second. I’m not worried about water.”
I wasn’t thinking about about the wottuh supply so much as the possibility of it getting into your basement/cellar. Is the stream uphill or downhill from the house?
Good deal on that woodstove; what brand is it? And yes, a decent-sized stove like that will indeed heat the whole house, even up here in northern Vermont, let alone tropical North Carolina.
Sounds like that property could be pretty decent for defensive purposes, too. Ours not so much. As with many, if not most, colonial-era houses here in the Northeast, it’s set right on the street with about six feet of front lawn. I wanna beef up the front of the house accordingly at some point, starting with a new front door, storm door and deadbolt locks, and later, probably, mesh and/or ballistic panels on all the ground-floor windows.
A state highway curls around the back of our back yard, between us and the town park, all leafed out now with deciduous trees and brush but pretty bare in the winter. I’m putting in a four-foot wire fence back there with trip wire and already have motion-detector floods set up.
Other than potential stand-off defense involving rifles, our primary close-in ops, should it ever come to that, will be with shotguns and handguns. And by the time things have devolved to that point, we would hope to support and be supported in such endeavors by neighbors and townspeople. That’s a long-term work-in-progress, however, and one’s local culture surrounded by our larger cultural considerations is a huge factor.
Sunny with blue skies today up here and a nice breeze. On to put the finishing touches on the cellar and do a bit of yard touch-up as well. Other than that, a Sabbath day of rest and study.
Internet access is currently 20/3 mbps D/U via copper cable. I expect fiber will be deployed in the next year or so. They started deploying fiber on the edges of the county and are working in toward Jefferson/West Jefferson in the center.
I’m not worried about water in the basement. We didn’t even bother to look at homes with basement water problems. This is an older house with no sign of even minor leakage. The stream is down the slope from the house.
As you know, I’m not a believer in guns and don’t own any, so if PCTS, I plan to hunker down, shout really scary insults and threats against anyone who bothers us, and hope the neighbors shoot them.
Of course, I have nothing against napalm, claymores, land mines, and other stuff that doesn’t require sticking our heads out if there are bullets flying around. Too bad I don’t have any of those either.
And I do have my eye on a couple of nice little .22 LR Gatling guns, merely from historical interest you understand.
It’s nice for us older, semi-retired gents to have hobbies and activities that pique our interests, isn’t it?
I’ve been a reader and follower of Jeff Duntemann since my subscription to PC Techniques. His first novel – hard SF – is just now on Amazon Kindle. I only downloaded it a few minutes ago but I’m looking forward to it.
Having problems with a link to Amazon. Maybe: http://www.amazon.com/Cunning-Blood-Jeff-Duntemann-ebook/dp/B0131OHVIA/?
I’ve been in bed, sleeping. On my vacation I developed a cough which got worse. Visit to the doc got me a prescription for Levoquin (one of the ‘-floxasins’. That hit me like a ton of bricks. 5 of the ‘call your doctor’ side effects. So some messing around, and I got switched to augmentin, and the only cough suppressant that works for me, which is controlled. So lots of sleeping.
Docs office girl asked if I’ve met my deductible yet. I laughed and told her ‘not since the obamacare disaster passed.’ That earned me a sneer. Hope she enjoys her obama subsidies while I can still afford to pay them.
Not much working, and no sales this weekend for me. With the actual heat over 100 in the shade and misery index over 104 I’m not working in the yard on the garden or anything else (like my 2m antenna.) Never mind coughing my lungs up.
nick
@RBT – Be alert to the “wet lands” status of your property. That stream may be a bureaucratic nightmare. And WHO really has the water rights and what are they?
I am super sensitive on the water issue right now since the State and Federal Bureaucrats have come in and in the name of a “drought” have overridden homesteaded water rights that have existed since the early 1800s, both surface and below. Today, forget any water on or under your property, it is not yours. And if there is any standing water, you are a wet land and may not develop your property in any way. Court challenges are taking years.
I do like your description of the house. Just remember “trust but verify”, but you already know that 😉
Going into our third day of 105° after our recent 3-week run of 100°+ days with a 1-week respite, but you would never know it looking at a National Weather Map, they totally ignore the micro climate here in the People’s Republic of Southeastern Washington.
@DadCooks
IIRC, you’re unfortunate to live in a radical prog state. The state government in NC would be tarred and feathered, probably literally, if they tried that here.
“As you know, I’m not a believer in guns and don’t own any, so if PCTS, I plan to hunker down, shout really scary insults and threats against anyone who bothers us, and hope the neighbors shoot them.”
The UC really hate Barry Alan Pincus so just put some of his fine songs on high volume and the troublemakers will run for their lives. Oh, and it’ll increase your chances of scoring with the local ladies.
I thought only the coastal part of Washington was lunatic fringe liberal.
That’s true in terms of the population, but they completely control state government, much as NYC utterly dominates NY state government to the detriment of upstate NY. I think I’d rather live in Illinois than Washington state.
That’s even starting to happen in NC, with the Charlotte, Triad, and Triangle population centers starting to force their prog agenda on the rural/conservative areas. The difference is, in NC we don’t like anyone telling us what to do, including state government.
@RBT and @Miles_Teg – the radical progressive liberal lunatic fringe has infested the whole state of WA now. It used to be that the vermin stayed West of the Cascades. But like all radical progressive liberal lunatic fringe areas, they soon cannot stand their own stench so they migrate to the conservative areas because they cannot stand each other. And Bob’s your Uncle there is soon another ruined area of the country. Kind of like what the Native Americans did, totally hunt out an area and then move on (bet your radical progressive liberal lunatic fringe schools aren’t teaching that truth).
Folks talk big about tar and feathering the radical progressive liberal lunatic fringe, but I would like to see some action.
You see, our problem is we are too civil, we need to change our building inner anger into action. Getting out of this “entitlement nation” is going to be painful and we do not seem to have the cojones. Are we really prepping? I am getting too old and infirm to be on the front lines, but I will go out standing my ground against the wild unprepared hoard that I know will come to my door. Maybe the heads on pikes will deter some others for awhile.
Illinois will go bankrupt first. The dominance of Chicago in Illinois politics is if anything worse than the coastal areas domination of Washington State politics.
Well, the Carolinas and Tennessee are pretty well known for making revenoors disappear, and that’s not just in the old days.
“I am getting too old and infirm to be on the front lines, but I will go out standing my ground against the wild unprepared hoard that I know will come to my door. Maybe the heads on pikes will deter some others for awhile.”
I’m with ya 100% there, Mr. DadCooks; I do hope, however, to get in good enough shape this next year to be able to hump ruck + weapons + ammo for occasional front-line chit if need be. If not, it’s gonna be commo, intel, gun-smithing, and tutoring the youngsters. And I would rather go out standing my ground than living on my knees; heads on pikes and cadavers hanging from gibbets on the roads outside the village here. They wanna drive the country into medieval feudalism? Fine, we’ll go all medieval on THEM, too.
@RBT – I think I’d rather live in Illinois than Washington state.
I grew up in Illinois (Chicago suburbs, under the reign of Richard Daley and the Chicago Mob), still have relatives there. On my maternal side used to have a homestead on the West side, a Centennial Heritage Farm (the family brought the first Aberdeen Angus to this country in the 1870s), until the wonderful Death Tax Laws forced its sale (lawyers screwed our family). One only has to look at Obummer to see see what Illinois is today. At least Daley and the Mod knew how to run things.
Granted, water rights are a tangled mess, but surely that constitutes a “taking”, for which you have be be compensated? Of course, suing the government is usually prohibitively expensive.
Meanwhile, what the government doesn’t know, won’t hurt it. Just as an example: here, they have declared that you can only burn raw wood in your stove or fireplace. If you buy lumber, and have some offcuts – even if you are certain that the lumber is untreated – you are not allowed to burn the offcuts.
Which is just idiotic, some bureaucratic pantywaist got a knot in his knickers. Rather than fight it, you just do what you were going to do anyway. Talk about an unenforceable law.
I figure it must be much the same with water rights – if you aren’t doing something egregious, like maintaining an English lawn in the desert, how are they ever going to know you’re taking water from your own well?
@OFD
As I keep saying, I expect a slow slide into dystopia rather than a cataclysmic crash, assuming we’re not hit with something like a major EMP attack or Carrington-class CME. I don’t worry too much about the financial stuff. Countries like Greece are in deep shit because they don’t control their own currencies. The US dollar is by far the strongest currency in the world among currencies that count. There is no alternative for a reserve currency, and I don’t see any on the immediate horizon. As long as they’re careful to avoid runaway inflation–and they’re very careful–the Fed can simply continue making money from nothing and their chicks for free for many years to come. Inflation is basically just a hidden tax on assets, and it’s in the government’s interest to continue inflating. It will ultimately crash, but that’s probably several decades in the future. Meanwhile, we’ll all just keep paying more every month for everything we buy, and watch our dollar-denominated assets continue to lose real value.
Yes, we’re both getting too old for this shit. Many years ago, I would have been an asset at the sharp end. Now, I’m a liability, and I’m fully aware of my limitations. I’m garrison troop at best, and even that is pushing it. Fortunately, I know valuable things and can do valuable things, but I’ll leave any shooting that needs to be done to the young folks except in a SPMF of an emergency.
The other thing I can do is accumulate stuff. When we get moved, I’ll get into higher gear on that, buying food by the ton and so on. I figure that way I’ll be able to feed not just ourselves but the young ones, who can do things that I can’t. I am not young. As Pournelle is so fond of saying, “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”
@brad
Exactly.
“…how are they ever going to know you’re taking water from your own well?”
Here in the upper Mojave desert, we have some light agriculture. It has been proposed (but not yet implemented) to put meters on those wells. Just to collect data, of course. Of course.
I figure a slow slide until some kind of “perfect storm” event/s that accelerate matters. I may be fooling myself but I think I can still step up for a bit of sharp end stuff if necessary, if not today then in the next few months barring injuries. I am careful and not given to doing more than I realistically can at first. This will take a bit longer than the months of Basic and subsequent training forty years ago, hell, forty-five years ago.
“…meters on those wells. Just to collect data, of course.”
Sure, meters on our wells and wottuh usage data; meters on our heating fuels; internet bandwidth usage; and surveillance of what we grow on our property and what we buy locally and online; much of this already in place anyway. So they can collect data, regulate it, and tax it.
Cue up “Taxman,” by either the late George Harrison or the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, your preference. I like both, and I like to crank ’em up loud, too.
Then there’s “Trouble Man,” by the late Marvin Gaye. And “Compared to What,” by Les McCann and Eddie Harris.
“America Drinks and Goes Home,” by the late Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.”
Hmm…….things that make ya think….how come all these anti-establishment musicians are now dead….??? (except for Les McCann, who is 79)
I can think of a few ways they might know. Depends on what you are using the water for.
If spraying it on the ground, airbourne assets can probably see that easily, through moisture or temperature differences.
If you are using it to drink, there isn’t much point as the amounts are small.
If the need gets critical enough, you can be sure they will deploy the assets to detect the usage, witness the war on some drugs. They use power company usage records, overhead imagery with temperature, drive by radio location looking for the RF noise of grow lights, etc.
Your neighbors are probably the biggest risk.
nick
“Hmm…….things that make ya think….how come all these anti-establishment musicians are now dead….??? (except for Les McCann, who is 79)”
Hard living, suicide by lifestyle. No need for conspiracy theory there.
Although, SRV died after making a comeback. At the time, I seriously considered that the devil did not like the attempt to modify the original contract for his soul, and ‘executed’ one of the small print clauses.
nick
[snip] Barry Alan Pincus [snip]
W. A. Mozart and many of the other Krauts will have the same effect. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, etc., might draw people sympathetic to your cause, too.
{And this them still makes it difficult to enter name & email. I have to go to the main text and Shift-Tab three times; clicking with the mouse doesn’t work. Firefox / OpenSuse. }
I’ve been in bed, sleeping. On my vacation I developed a cough which got worse. Visit to the doc got me a prescription for Levoquin (one of the ‘-floxasins’. That hit me like a ton of bricks. 5 of the ‘call your doctor’ side effects. So some messing around, and I got switched to augmentin, and the only cough suppressant that works for me, which is controlled. So lots of sleeping.
Every time I get in a plane in the last couple of years, I get some sort of nasty respiratory disease a couple of days later. What kinds of diseases are the general populace passing around out there? Are planes being used for testing of new diseases? Inquiring minds want to know.
One of the years when I had 90 flights, I got pneumonia 3 times. That was in addition to all the run of the mill infections.
I’m careful too. I broke old habits and started new ones. I don’t touch handrails in public places, I try not to touch ANY surface in public. I don’t touch my face with my bare hands, esp. my nose eyes or mouth. I’m careful with handshakes. Door handles are avoided by waiting for someone else to open it, touching the top of the door if it’s a little open, or using paper towel to open the door.
All those precautions helped.
Now I’m getting sick from the 2 kids I have in day care. The family members of the other kids often bring in something from WAY outside our normal area. There are huge reservoirs of disease just a plane ride away, and Houston is a very international city. So we get constant exposure to disease from outside our normal pool.
Isn’t globalism grand?
nick
“Your neighbors are probably the biggest risk.” = Stasi Americana Redux
“Hard living, suicide by lifestyle. No need for conspiracy theory there.”
Marvin Gaye via a .45 ACP shot to the head by his dad.
Frank Zappa via the Big C.
And Stevie Ray caught the Death Stare from Mr. SteveF.
“Every time I get in a plane in the last couple of years, I get some sort of nasty respiratory disease a couple of days later.”
Ditto Mrs. OFD, though not always. But regular breathing/sinus and eye troubles after flights. And she does roughly 30-40 flights per year.
“Now I’m getting sick from the 2 kids I have in day care.”
Welcome to our shitty club. Ditto for us over the years we raised our two kids; they brought home every damn cold and flu and Lord-knows-what from skool and daycare and then we got socked with them but still had to go to work or use up sick days for both them and us. It’s probably a lot worse now, and esp., as you say, in your gigantic global village down there.
That’s true in terms of the population, but they completely control state government, much as NYC utterly dominates NY state government to the detriment of upstate NY.
Not quite if you ask Mayor De Blasio…
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/07/31/deblasio-vs-cuomo-355990.html
Way too many acronyms. I know EMP and CME. I figured out FOF and SRHTF. I have a good guess on MC/UMC and maybe PCTS. I’m lost on SPMF.
MC/UMC = middle class / upper-middle class
PCTS = push comes to shove
SPMF – from Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer = “shit pot mother fucker of an emergency”.
Mr. SteveF and Mrs. OFD probably know far more than me about the Vampire State politics over the decades; I see it not so much as city versus country as one gang of criminal scumbags trying to be the top dawgs versus another of the same ilk. As the article points out, these bastards are usually birds of a feather originally.
The blonde hottie behind Monkey-Face Cuomo is his gf, Sandra Lee, a tee-vee “chef,” although they may have married by now. I dunno what she sees in that piece of garbage but then again her cooking/recipes warn’t too great, either. Check out her “Kwanzaa Cake,” which chef/critic Anthony Bourdain called a “war crime.”
Our real-estate agent is getting some final details resolved before we put in an offer on a house we looked at yesterday. It’s in town, which means the property taxes are twice what they’d be if it were outside town limits, but it also means we’ll have municipal water, sewer, garbage collection, and so on. The house is in great condition. We could move in without having to fix or replace anything. There’s central heat and air, as well as a big wood stove in the basement. There’s plenty of floor space, both finished and an unfinished full basement for the business. There’s plenty of room for Colin to run, an outbuilding for Barbara’s tractor, combine, harvester, and other Green Acres farming equipment, and even a stream on the property.
Your OPSEC is better. I do not have a clue how to find this house on the intertubes. Not even sure if Jefferson or West Jefferson. I’m just sure that it is not Boone.
Not that I recall. However, I did see him at the Stone Pony (Springsteen’s old haunt) not long before he met his end. He gave a short, shitty show and on the walk from the stage to the prep room (through the audience in the Stone Pony) he refused to make eye contact or otherwise acknowledge the paying customers and his bodyguard quartet was not at all bashful in making sure there was at least a 4′ wide safe zone for The Great (albeit rather short) Man. As I say, I am not knowingly responsible for his death, but when I heard he’d died, I shed not a single tear.
Another anecdote, but this comes from TV news and then a brief “what actually happened”: When SRV died, the bimbette who informed us of it said he’d taken some crew member’s place on the helicopter returning them from the shoot site to the hotel, and that guy is alive now only because SRV took his place. She presented it as if he’d knowingly and willingly sacrificed his life that another might live. “Yah, right,” quoth I. “The douchebag was too important to wait, so he bumped someone.” Some months later, it came out that was exactly what happened, according to a couple of witnesses.
Yeah I once did a corporate show for a band that wouldn’t get back together unless ‘hell froze over.’ [or someone piled a cr@pton of money on a table]
It was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen and they were on the plane with engines spooling up before the applause died down. (show was at an airport)
I say, if you are gonna whore yourself out, then you’d better find a way to enjoy it. Or a lot of people will end up hating you.
The second worst was Judd the senior on the 4th of July. She didn’t even bother to phone it in, just lazy and lackluster. There were all sorts of problems with production, but the paying audience didn’t know that, and just wanted to see her.
Nothing but dislike and spite for performers like that. You took the money, now dance the tune. IT’S YOUR JOB YOU F-er.
nick
Yikes, I better get down and kiss the ground here in Vermont in appreciation for what have here; the poor Aussies are being REAMED:
“So to sum up: A spree killing that killed 35 people was never properly investigated and a coronial inquiry was actively opposed by John Howard, while used as an excuse to take firearms away en masse. But a siege that killed two people warrants an immediate investigation, is still getting air time on television and is being used as an excuse for even further disarmament. Yeh, work that one out.”
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/08/daniel-zimmerman/367270/#comments
Stazi neighbors
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3182277/Californians-rush-drought-shaming-sites-social-media.html
nick
Picture East German Stasi network/neighbors in the 1950s-80s. Now picture them with cell phones, FaceCrack, Twitcher, SnapPopCrack, etc. And ability to not only set up web sites but also hack them. I saw in the article that the Kalifornia .gov snitch site was down, gee I wonder why.
Eh? What on earth makes you think we’re looking in Jefferson or West Jefferson?
Mr. Lynn is a spy. Next, he’ll send over a drone. Tread carefully….
A drone? He’s apparently forgotten about my ZSU-23-4 anti-Santa gun, which is also hell on drones.
Speaking of which, that thing is going to be a pain to get moved up to the mountains. It gets 3 MPG on the level.
Colonel Atoz can pick it up with one of his sky-crane choppers and lift it over to your new digs.
Or you can simply invent a new economical fuel in your basement lab.
There’s been some scuttlebutt on a couple of the gun blogs concerning whether or not it’s OK and when to blow away drones that “trespass” in your air space and spy on you. In one case a guy saw a drone hovering over his daughter while she was sunning herself by the pool so he blew it away. A few minutes later a carload of guys showed up all pissed off; imagine the nerve! He was OC’ing a Glock on his hip and told them to sod off or there’d be more shooting.
Other peeps said why not focus the firearm laser on the drone’s camera lens, etc., but that would be kinda hard to do, I think.
Haven’t seen any around here but of course they could still be hovering out there somewhere, or at high altitude. This could be some interesting chit in the next few years, as it’s apparently a very gray legal area.
Amazon is going to be very cross if people start shooting down their drones.
I keep hoping that Amazon will start carrying napalm cannisters or cluster bombs. Imagine the convenience. One-click ordering, and I get to specify where the drone delivers it.
Except that one-click shows up on NSA databases.
I’ll develop more respeck for Amazon when go the same route as Sportsman’s Guide went recently, and start selling guns and ammo and accessories.
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/department/guns?d=185
But, but…. Guns and ammo are *dangerous*. Think of the children.
Colonel Atoz can pick it up with one of his sky-crane choppers and lift it over to your new digs.
No problem. One of the fun missions was sling loading giant germinators up in the mountains in Korea. They powered large radar setups. I remember one where I had to set it on this spot where it, and only it, would fit. Drop it off a couple of inches and down the side it would go. I wouldn’t want that on my record.
In Illinois, IIRC, shining a laser on a person is felony assault. I’m sure there are other places where shining the weapon mounted laser has various penalties all by itself.
The problem is ‘unlawful discharge of a firearm inside city limits’ or the equivalent.
Is the ‘trespass’ by the drone enough to make the discharge ‘lawful’?
Someone up thread, or on another comment said you should be able to prosecute under peeping tom laws, but many places still don’t have them adapted to using technology to peep. Usually it’s a hidden camera case or an upskirt video that prompts the change. They’d still have to be over your property as you probably don’t have an expectation of privacy in your yard most places.
nick
added: some sort of potato gun, paint ball gun, or maybe an air rifle might be safer legally. An air rifle that sprayed out a steady stream of bbs would make a good AA gun….
This weekend the local paper had an article about a neighboring police departments new drones. Of course they will only be used to find fleeing suspects and lost children. Yeah, sure.
This topic is timely since drones have been flying over my house frequently in the last couple of weeks. Most likely they are coming from the hobby store nearby which has all manner of RC toys. I have decided that if any flying object drops below the highest point of my house (the chimney) it’s mine. I’m not sure exactly how to “take possession” yet. I’m thinking fishing net on a long, light stick. Even glancing contact would entangle the rotors
I’m thinking along @nick’s line, to take care of a drone I’d be inclined to use my CO2 air pistol or rifle, maybe even a Nerf machine gun if there was no wind. No sense in calling attention to yourself with a load bang.
Short casting fishing rod, small lead weight?
The line would tangle pretty good, and then you just reel it in.
With practice you could probably get pretty good distance and accuracy.
They aren’t particularly robust, being little more than RC planes.
nick
(think about how to scale this up if things get sporty)
Barrage balloons
I’m thinking along @nick’s line, to take care of a drone I’d be inclined to use my CO2 air pistol or rifle, maybe even a Nerf machine gun if there was no wind. No sense in calling attention to yourself with a load bang.
You will be on their video though.
“In Illinois, IIRC, shining a laser on a person is felony assault. I’m sure there are other places where shining the weapon mounted laser has various penalties all by itself.”
Turns out I have the statutes in front of me for an unrelated matter, and I was right, in IL it is aggravated assault, class 4 felony to point a weapon mounted laser at someone.
@Lynn, of course, if they show the video, they’ve incriminated themselves with the peeping charge (where applicable.)
Also, you can bet the PTB will exempt themselves from any rules limiting the overhead imagery in the name of privacy. So a .gov drone is a different story.
I saw one in the wild while on vacation on Long Island this past summer. It had very bright blinking lights on it to indicate battery status. You would have no trouble seeing it. I’m sure there are other stealthier versions.
nick
They run on electronics so there are ways to incapacitate them, I reckon, using various methods. If the operator/s complain, sue their pants off for whatever your lawyer/shyster can gin up.