Can You Shoot Down Drones In FL? What To Know

FLORIDA — The mysterious drone sightings that have baffled residents of multiple states since mid-November are prompting a universal question: Is it legal to shoot down a drone in Florida?

Here’s the short answer: It’s not, nor is it legal anywhere in the United States under federal law.

Florida residents who violate federal law face criminal charges, civil penalties or both.

The question was initially raised by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, where multiple sightings of the unmanned aircraft have been frustrating residents for weeks. Last week, Smith urged the Pentagon to authorize use of force to bring down drones after they were spotted tailing a Coast Guard vessel off the Jersey shore.

“Why can’t we bag at least one of these drones and get to the bottom of it?” Smith said.

The Federal Aviation Administration includes drones in its definition of aircraft under the Aircraft Sabotage Act, and it’s a federal offense to damage or destroy it, even if it’s flying over private property.

A Florida man made headlines when he shot down a Walmart delivery drone with a 9mm pistol in July.

Dennis Winn, 72, of Clermont told deputies that he fired at it when it wouldn’t go away, the Daytona Beach News-Journal said.

"They say I hit it so I must be a good shot, or else it's not that far away," he said in bodycam footage. "I'm going to wind up having to find a real good defense lawyer."

Winn was charged with shooting at an aircraft, criminal mischief damage over $1,000 and discharging a firearm in public or residential property, reports said.

Florida is among nearly a dozen Eastern states that have reported drones buzzing overhead, some flying alone or in pairs but also in a cluster of drones. Some are as large as an SUV.

Jack Jones told Action News Jax that he spotted a large drone about the size of a car hood flying near Naval Air Station Jacksonville, which is surrounded by restricted airspace, on Dec. 12.

A spokesperson for the air station told the news outlet there were no issues or reports of drones in the area, but that air traffic controllers there would investigate.

A Miami real estate agent posted a video of a bright object in the sky that was recorded Dec. 11 to TikTok.

"It was really bright lights. I thought it was a helicopter with searchlight lights, which sometimes if they're looking for someone or something, sometimes that does happen," Jessica Blank Gerson said, according to WPBF.

But she knew it wasn’t a helicopter because of the way it flew between buildings.

"I'm a little bit unsafe, I guess. I'd like to know what they are. That's why I recorded it. I wasn't sure what it was," she said.

Congressman John Rutherford (R-FL 5th District) called on investigators and federal agencies to take the sightings seriously, according to reports.

“I’m very concerned about what’s going on here with these things,” he said.
He also noted that a Chinese national was arrested after being accused of flying a drone and taking images of a Space Force Base in California.

“All of this could appear to be a very earnest attempt by the Chinese Communists to develop intelligence on our military bases,” said Rutherford.

Political leaders are calling on the federal government to deploy high-tech drone hunters using recently declassified technology to help unravel the mystery that has baffled and alarmed residents of the Northeast over the past four weeks.

This weekend, an airport was shut down for about an hour Friday in New York’s Hudson Valley because of drone activity in the airspace. Two men were arrested and accused of operating a drone “dangerously close” to Boston’s Logan International Airport Saturday night. Also, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, was shut down for about four hours late Friday and early Saturday because drones were too close.

“This has gone too far,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement after Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, New York, was shut down. Hochul supports reform legislation strengthening the FAA’s oversight of drones, and extending the same authority to select state and local law enforcement agencies.

In a news conference Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) urged the Department of Homeland Security to deploy high-tech drone hunters using the technology that was initially developed

“If the technology exists for a drone to make it up into the sky, there certainly is the technology that can track the craft with precision and determine what the heck is going on,” Schumer said.

The federal government has offered few answers about the mysterious unmanned flights. The Biden administration has come under criticism from President-elect Donald Trump for not dealing with the matter more aggressively.

Trump, who calls Palm Beach, Florida, home, claims that the federal government knows where the mystery drones are from but wants to “keep people in suspense,” according to CBS News.

In a call with reporters Saturday that was organized by the White House, senior officials from the FBI, Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies sought to assure people that the drones are not a national security or public safety threat, or the handiwork of a malicious foreign actor.

The White House has said a review of the reported sightings shows that many of them are actually manned aircraft being flown lawfully, echoing the opinion of officials and drone experts.

The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”