> have you ever lived in an area where concealed carry is shall issue and self-defense was encouraged by the local authorities?
I have not, I have talked to several Texans for whom this is the case, given that police help was 45 minutes away. It enriched my perspective on gun culture quite a bit.
> I wonder if your take on drone warfare is a bit off.
Yeah, I'll admit that I'm not exactly extrapolating from intimate knowledge of details. And you're right that "enemy combatant" is the term generally used. I do still think that is an imbalance in that is effectively impossible for us to see those combatants as legitimate in the same way as the social construct of "soldier", because they fight for a sect or tribe rather than a nation-state. But then, past wars have often involved pre-emptively describing the enemy as sub-human, so perhaps it's just more of the same, if not a slight improvement.
I'd be very curious to learn if there has been any attempt to "sharp-shoot" or otherwise physically defend against drones. Or do they simply strike from too far away for this to be feasible?
Also, I'd wager ten-to-one that in the next decade, we'll see a Supreme Court ruling on whether personal defense drones are covered by the 2nd amendment.
Well, there's the concept of unlawful combatant per the Geneva Convention, which allows most any fate including summary execution on the battlefield. To not be an unlawful combatant is not that difficult, e.g. it requires things like a command structure and identifying clothing on the field, an armband will do. Fighting for a nation-state is not required.
According to Wikipedia, the standard Hellfire II missiles the Predator and Reaper drones use have a long range, 546 yd – 5 mi/500 m – 8 km, although these models can't operate farther than the laser designator can reach. No "sharpshooter", that is individual rifleman shooting a battle rifle cartridge has no practical chance. Maybe someone using a general purpose machine gun or better with plenty of tracer rounds in the belt, but of course that's going to be rather obvious to the operators and invite getting out of range and firing a Hellfire back. Hmmm, looking at heaver USSR/Russian stuff, these drones would be able to easily keep out of range of even the famous ZSU-23-4 4 cannon mobile AA weapon system, SAMs are going to be required.
I don't expect a Supreme Court decision, unless unfavorable, they're very reluctant to take up 2nd amendment cases. E.g. only one 20th Century case in 1939, then Heller in 2008 and *McDonald 2010. Since then I believe they've denied cert to every case that's come to them, although in terms of "clean" cases (e.g. not a criminal trying a Hail Mary appeal he's going to lose) as I recall only a concealed carry one in New York state, despite there being a circuit split with the one covering Illinois. We'll see, but I at least am not that hopeful. They will get more opportunities on concealed carry, e.g. from the circuit covering Maryland, and I think another.
I have not, I have talked to several Texans for whom this is the case, given that police help was 45 minutes away. It enriched my perspective on gun culture quite a bit.
> I wonder if your take on drone warfare is a bit off.
Yeah, I'll admit that I'm not exactly extrapolating from intimate knowledge of details. And you're right that "enemy combatant" is the term generally used. I do still think that is an imbalance in that is effectively impossible for us to see those combatants as legitimate in the same way as the social construct of "soldier", because they fight for a sect or tribe rather than a nation-state. But then, past wars have often involved pre-emptively describing the enemy as sub-human, so perhaps it's just more of the same, if not a slight improvement.
I'd be very curious to learn if there has been any attempt to "sharp-shoot" or otherwise physically defend against drones. Or do they simply strike from too far away for this to be feasible?
Also, I'd wager ten-to-one that in the next decade, we'll see a Supreme Court ruling on whether personal defense drones are covered by the 2nd amendment.