The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced earlier this week that anyone who owns a drone will have to register it with the government starting Dec. 21.
The policy change came after months of discussion in an effort to make consumer drone use safer and more accountable.
“Registering unmanned aircraft will help build a culture of accountability and responsibility, especially with new users who have no experience operating in the U.S. aviation system,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx wrote in an October press release. “It will help protect public safety in the air and on the ground."
There's nothing wrong with a desire to put a policy in place that will prioritize public safety, but there's an obvious discrepancy when we have to register consumer drones in all states before we have to register guns. While there have been thousands of deaths related to guns in 2015 alone, there have been zero deaths related to drone use. Ever.
The impetus to register drones stemmed from concerns that people were inappropriately flying them, causing them to have run-ins with aircraft. There were 764 drone sightings by aircrafts from the beginning of 2015 through Aug. 20, 2015.
Of those 764 drone sightings, only 27 were considered "near miss" or "near collision," according to the American of Model Aeronautics, a drone lobbyist group that analyzed the data released by the FAA. Only in 10 of those reports did the pilot have to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
An FAA spokesperson confirmed to Tech Insider that there have been no deaths or injuries caused by flying consumer or commercial drones.
The "better safe than sorry" mentality is all well and good — we shouldn't have to wait for a consumer drone-related injury or death to put a comprehensive policy in place. Especially since the FAA notes the number of drone sightings by pilots has steadily increased over time.
But why is it that after 25,697 gun-related injuries and 12,713 gun-related deaths in just 2015 alone that it's still only mandatory to register a gun in six states and the District of Columbia?
Those gun stats come from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a not for profit corporation that collects data from over 1,200 media, government, and commercial sources daily.
The GVA also notes that there have been 317 mass shootings in 2015. It's worth noting that the rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011, according to a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University.
So the question is this: if registering consumer drones is necessary to "build a culture of accountability and responsibility," why does that same logic not apply to gun registration? Especially when guns are more dangerous than flying consumer drones?
