Meh, there are some inaccuracies in the actual math. Had the dot/cross reversed. I've been cramming for a physics final today, so I think that might be forgivable.

TL;DR;
You shoot upward, the bullet comes down with next to no lethal force. You shoot parallel to the ground, it's another matter.

Detailed:
Simple kinematic projectile motion dictates otherwise in the majority of use cases. Given that a drone is flying overhead, thus the vector has most of its force directed upward and a minority lateral. Terminal velocity/atmospheric efficiency combined with simple momentum dictates the exact energy the pellets may or may not have when they land, and given their surface area is a known quantity, one could easily calculate all the necessary points and come to the conclusion that any shot taken with an inclination exceeding a certain degree will result in the landing projectiles having a trivial amount of energy on impact. Lethal force depends on lateral/parallel motion, not vertical... Dot product, not cross product with gravity. This is a function of flight time, as longer time devolves horizontal movement while gravity nullifies vertical upward movement... and then downward movement is limited by drag.

There have been multiple studies on the subject, both formal and informal, that have concluded what I've outlined here.

Fun related fact: Boxed ammunition is essentially harmless in a fire. Bullets rely on contained gas reactions to obtain lethal energy levels. Boxed ammunition is not sufficiently contained to obtain those energy levels. Studies exist on this as well.

Considering what a shit-disturber Sam was and his views on the right to own arms, I would say I'm referring to exactly the same kind of Liberty Mr. Adams referred to, even if I'm referring to only a subset of the larger scope the quote is using.

If I can't trust a teacher with a gun, why on earth would I trust them with my kid?

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

-- Samuel Adams

Tanks have to stop and refuel sometimes. Folks got to get out and piss eventually. Like any other armored vehicle, there also may or may not be certain weak points a rifleman could take advantage of, if only he knew they were there. Treads break. They break even easier when you know how to do it. A mobility kill makes a tank an expensive metal lined coffin.

  US armor doctrine has always used tanks to support infantry because a lone tank surrounded by infantry is extremely vulnerable. It's not a mobile impenetrable fortress.

And yet 10k Iraqi insurgents kept 150k US troops busy in Iraq for almost a decade, killing and wounding ~40k US soldiers in the process. The Iraqi insurgency faced tanks, air strikes, drones, et. al. They also did it using subpar weapons.

    If you stop for a moment and consider that there are 90M US gun owners, were some hypothetical situation occur where it became .mil vs the populace... if only 1% of the gun owners actually fought, you'd have 900k insurgents. While one could argue the effectiveness of a US-based insurgency, most folks I've talked to agreed that even if you set the bar low and assumed a US-based insurgency was no more effective than the Iraqis, despite our history of being able to shoot, despite our resourcefulness, despite the fact that the insurgency would be sitting on top of the supply lines for the .mil in a manner the IRQ insurgency never could... and despite the fact that were such an event to occur, you would necessarily see .mil desertion rates, either to the other side or folks who would just refuse and sit it out... but if you assume a 4:1 ratio as IRQ managed, then in 9 years, the US-based insurgency, being no more effective than the IRQ one, would have killed or wounded 3.6M US troops.

  Thing is, we don't have 3.6M troops. The totality of the US.mil is less than a third of that, so you are looking at literally every last man and woman in the .mil being killed or wounded in less than 3 years. When you account for the fact that many, many of our troops are support troops and not intended for direct combat, the number of actual door kickers drops to somewhere around 300k-400k, which is roughly a third of the total number available... It's not unfair to assume that the door kicking folks would be used on the front line and would suffer casualties first before the support guys were used, but at a 4:1 ratio, you're looking at running out of door kickers in less than a year...

    Do you think that there wouldn't be attacks on the supply side of things? That the support guys would be able to hold the US insurgency to 4:1? Or better yet, start factoring in combat effectiveness. As a unit loses troops, their cohesiveness suffers to the point where generally the .mil considers a unit at or below half strength to be combat ineffective... which means all line units become combat ineffective at 6 months.

  This scenario does not account for any more than 1% of US gun owners fighting, nor does it account for the fact that a hypothetical US-based insurgency will loot equipment, and is likely to consist of veterans capable of using such equipment with little to no additional training, to include rocket launchers (SMAW, Javelin), anti-air capability, machine guns, tanks, etc, etc. It also doesn't account for defection or actions taken by either side that sway the public to or from their positions, potentially swelling the ranks of the insurgency or causing it to wane. Similarly, this doesn't account for decapitating strikes by either side; though given the nature of an insurgency to act as a hydra, it would not be unfair to assume that adding this to the scenario would necessarily alter the balance in favor of the insurgents.

  As you can see by this simple numbers game, it is not a foregone conclusion that the US.mil will win. In fact, it's highly likely, even if starting from bolt-actions and semi-automatic weapons, that a US-based insurgency with nominally popular support will outlast the .mil were both sides to "slug it out" in a fashion similar to the tactics used in Iraq, provided both sides had the willpower to do so.

  Please note, this post is neither an exhaustive study in military science, nor are the numbers terribly authoritative; this was purely a hypothetical intended to get folks thinking about the numbers behind it in an effort to highlight that perhaps some of our assumptions may not be as solid/accurate as we think.

How does something like this get modded insightful? There's nothing insightful about it. The subject he was replying to was dealing with allowing teachers to CCW and poster gives a herp-derp knee jerk response that has nothing to do with either refuting or supporting the idea and is only tangentially related to the subject at all.

  Insightful could have been, depending on your point of view, something like: "Well, I don't know if I'm comfortable with that, I don't trust most teachers without going through some sort of process", not the drivel posted.

Funny, Bruce... for someone with as many intellectual accomplishments as you have, how is it exactly that you missed the fact that you're advocating taking away someone else's right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Explain to me how depriving each and every one of your countrymen of a right endowed upon them by their Creator based solely on the actions of a person who clearly stepped beyond the boundaries of the social contract does not constitute blatant hypocrisy?

    I have the same right to Life as everyone else here, including you, does. Derived from that right is the right of self-defense against all entities who transgress against us in proportion to the severity of that transgression. Should someone attempt to use lethal force against me, I am morally and ethically permitted to use the same in response: Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back! As a law-abiding citizen with no criminal record, for you to exercise prior restraint against me, to deprive me of the ability to defend myself in a proportional manner to the threat, you are directly violating my right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. You are also purposefully giving the transgressing party an advantage they would not possess were I to have the Liberty to arm myself accordingly and as such are setting up the situation where the transgressing party is far more likely to kill me.

  So, by advocating unjust prior restraint, you are:
1. violating the right to life
2. violating the right to liberty
3. violating the right to pursuit of happiness
4. violating the right to due process
5. aiding/abetting the initiation of force/use of violence against an innocent party
6. aiding/abetting the murder of an innocent party

  So, in light of 1-6, can you explain to me how your actions, were they to become more than simple words, do not constitute a transgression against every person who is subject to your whims? Do you know what's ultimately sad about this? The crazy sonofabitch who shot up that school was crazy; presumably you aren't.

      Last I checked, we're supposed to respect each other's rights, not stomp on them in an emotion-driven tit-for-tat to soothe our own bruised egos. You're supposed to be smarter than this, Bruce. It's not rocket surgery.

Meanwhile, 90 million other gun owners killed nobody that day or any other day for that matter. Guess it makes perfect sense to punish everyone for the actions of one crazy person. One might want to consider the wisdom or lack thereof when getting ready to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

Actually one person *DID* whip his piece out after taking cover. The CCWer properly held his fire because there were innocents behind his target. Supposedly the shooter saw the CCWer and elected to retreat instead of engaging.

Most folks who do that kinda thing are consummate cowards, why else do you think they off themselves before the police show up?

My unconscious what?

  I do believe you meant "subconscious".

Sorry, but if I lived in an active war zone, was driving to work, and came across a bunch of freshly made corpses and one non-uniformed wounded guy flopping about, I'm not so sure I'd endanger my own children by stopping... especially considering it wasn't hard to tell which side was which based on appearance and equipment.

  Also, given the various other tactics used by AQI and their umbrella affiliates, to include tactics expressly forbidden by the Geneva convention, and their blatant, constant attempts to manipulate public opinion via media deception... well, they're kinda proven repeat offenders in the liar department. You'll have to pardon me if I take what's said with a grain of salt.

As for your request for citation, it doesn't matter which one of us is right in regards to #2, they made themselves a legal target (See #3). As far as actually producing the citation, the last time I spent any thought on this incident was 2+ years ago, and being the lazy guy I am, unless you reaaaaaaly want me to go digging, I'm disinclined to do so ;) Especially for a single point of disputed information made moot by another point of law.

Yep. All fine and dandy until you realize a few things like:

1. The video was edited to remove context. Assange admitted this much.
2. The van with the kids was observed dropping off armed insurgents prior to the scene in the original wikileaks video thus making it a legitimate target.
3. Under the Law of Armed Conflict, aiding combatants makes you a combatant.
4. AQI SOP was to pick up weapons to stage fake 'civilian' massacres to use as recruiting tools.
5. Reporters were required to have specific types of markings on them to make sure air units could recognize them. These guys weren't wearing them.
6. Hanging around with guys toting AKs and RPGs in an active warzone where the other side has air support orbiting your position is not a smart idea.
7. In fact, hanging around with armed combatants makes you a legitimate target under the Law of Armed Conflict.

Given #2 through #4, the van was a legitimate target and was serviced appropriately. Given #4 through 7, the "reporters" had made themselves into legitimate targets, either knowingly or through their own negligence. It sucks for their friends/families; but play stupid games, win stupid prizes, good shoot.

PC LOADLETTER, What the hell does that mean?!

  Drag it out in a field with you, a few friends, a baseball bat with some good angry background music.

  That said, rifles are much better for this. 5.56mm AP rounds do really cool/fun things to HDs :)