The thing is, these laws are really, really hard to enforce at the federal level and in general municipal and state governments already do an efficient job (and are happy to collect the fines from rich folks with a hobby) executing on local laws.

It's really quite unnecessary.

One is a fine. The other is a few years in prison. It has quite a bit of a deterrent effect. It won't get everyone, but it will cut down on the number of people who try stunts like that.

But drones are hot so why not pass a complex bill with a complex mandate to satisfy regulators itching to pounce on drone hobbyists.

Frankly I assumed the behavior was already criminal under Federal law.[1] Anybody who thought it was okay to buzz airplanes is almost certainly not thinking about consequences.

[1] I'm not completely convinced it's not, FWIW, but I'm satisfied it's not covered by the above, which is the only relevant Federal criminal statute I could find. I'd bet it's already illegal in many states, though.

What changes people's habits is the likelihood of punishment, not the severity of it.

Germany has much lower punishments for murder, but around 90% of murder investigations are solved.

Which of these do you think is the greater deterrence?

Also, now that Germany has...diversity...the crime rate went up pretty significantly.

So I would say, all in all, that homogenous populations are the greatest deterrence, followed by the magnitude of punishment being significantly more important at a societal level, though the risk of getting caught dominates the thought process for regulatory/low-punishment crimes.

When punishments are so disproportionately high a good chunk of the ofenders will stop caring. The preventative effect is gone, it’s more an incentive to escalate the crime to a level where it matches the punishment.

Also… mighty fast 'drone', to nearly accelerate to the speed of a landing jet. I don't think they make quadcopters quite that brisk yet.

We must be thinking of different encounter videos. In the one I saw, the drone didn’t move much. It sat in the flight path waiting for a jet to come by.

* Is that behavior already illegal under existing law?

* Do these new laws meaningfully address that behavior?

drones will eventually become so heavily licensed than anything outside of law enforcement, large news organizations, and politicians, will be restricted to the point of needing specialized parks just to enjoy them.

RC planes generally fall under 112-95 Section 336 which pretty much should work for drones

There is also a large community of builders and flyers [1], a network of clubs with actual airfields for the purpose, and a multi-million dollar insurance policy with membership.

Both the difficulty, the investment, and the training and peer pressure drastically reduces the number of participants who behave like asshats with their aircraft - to essentially zero.

With hobby drones, it is exactly the opposite -- just go buy some overgrown toy, and you can now put up in the air a device that with any of hundreds of failures of the device or pilot, can become a lethal projectile falling from the sky.

So, yes, serious requirements for anything over a few hundred grams is very reasonable[2].

[1] Academy of Model Aeronautics -- www.modelaircraft.org

[2](no, I'm not implying that the Govt automatically implements every reg in a reasonable & effective way, that could still end badly.)

[Edit: footnotes]

What would be important is forbid passengers planes from flying lower than 500ft.

  > What would be important is forbid passengers
  > planes from flying lower than 500ft.