[samatman]

A pellet gun is not taking down a delivery drone.

The topic isn't shooting a BB at a DJI Mini, it's shooting a bullet/slug from some sort of long gun at a delivery drone, one of these: https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2022/05/24/were-bringing-...

I agree that conflating airplanes and drones here is not ideal/correct, but as I said, both the bullet, and the drone, can easily kill someone if some reprobate decides to pop off at the drone.

I'd say a consecutive sentence for negligent discharge and reckless endangerment is about right, and bumped up to attempted manslaughter in places where it's crowded enough that this kind of behavior is straightforwardly as dangerous as, say, tossing a toaster oven off a tall building.

But sure, the penalty for shooting a Daisy Red Rider at one of the sub-250gm units should be indexed closer to property destruction/vandalism. If it's close enough to the ground to take a bead on it, it's not going to hit someone, and if it does, a laceration on the head is the worst outcome in the reasonable realm of possibility. Just don't be surprised if any legislation on this issue writes that particular scenario out of the picture.