On July 21, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it is investigating whether 18-year-old Austin Haughwout violated laws in flying a drone that carries and fires a handgun.
Video of the drone carrying a handgun and firing rounds into a wooded hillside in Clinton, Connecticut, went viral earlier this week, and the FAA is now trying to see if Haughwout “violated… regulations… which prohibit the careless or reckless operation of a model aircraft.”
According to WPXI, the FAA is “working with Clinton police, who also are investigating.”
Haughwout is a student at Central Connecticut State University. News Channel 3 reports that he “made the handgun drone” with one of his professors “as part of a project.”
So far, the Clinton police say they had not found any violations related to the drone.
Clinton Police Chief Todd Lawrie told CNN:
We are attempting to determine if any laws have been violated at this point. It would seem to the average person, there should be something prohibiting a person from attaching a weapon to a drone. At this point, we can’t find anything that’s been violated.
The Chief added, “The legislature in Connecticut (recently) addressed a number of questions with drones, mostly around how law enforcement was going to use drones. It is a gray area, and it’s caught the legislature flatfooted.”
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