Yes, it will definitely be more random and is in no way comparable to use of a shotgun, where the pellets quickly slow down and fall. Any rifle rounds that miss (and probably even those that hit, as a drone wouldn’t slow them down much) would go a long way up and fall to earth still with lethal potential. Hunting with rifles is only done in open wilderness or where the line of sight puts terrain behind the intended target to collect any wayward rounds. Aiming a rifle upwards would need the field of fire to be cleared for a few miles in the chosen direction, a practical impossibility near an airport.

When police or military snipers are targeting an active shooter, more risk can be taken because there is a need to balance risk to life of the shooter’s actual/potential targets against that to a possible single distant bystander. The number of potential targets is therefore a consideration, but there is still an imperative to reduce risk to bystanders to an reasonable minimum. In the aviation case, shooting at a drone with a rifle might be justified if an aircraft was on final reserve and needed to land immediately; otherwise diversion is ‘reasonable’ and from that perspective is the most legally defensible option.

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Military rules of engagement may sometimes give scope to use lethal force where activities such as intelligence gathering are potential (rather than imminent or actual) threats. That kind of freedom is less likely to be given outside conflict situations and very much less likely to police. Military counter-drone technologies include electronic options: possibly problematic for GPS and other navigation systems!

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