This is sad really, and yes it’s why we are being banned, restricted, etc. and it is only going to get worse. If people cannot use common sense, all of us get grounded, it’s just the way it is.
I was filming in the Serra Nevada the other day, in the one or two spots it’s still legal to do so. Noticed a subscribed burn about a mile away. Everyone was stopping to take pictures. I decide against sending the drone out. There were no aircraft in the area, no ground crew, no personnel in sight at all actually, but none the less decided it wasn’t worth the risk or the potential hassle.
A few miles down the road, I was filming a beautiful mirrored lake surface with a peak looming above. It was quite striking. Just as my light was fading, some random lady walks over and asks if I have a permit. I tell her I am a registered and licensed drone pilot and ask what I can do to help her. Note, I took care to set up well away from the road or any people. There was no one on the lake, and the for the life of me I’m not sure why she felt the need to trudge over to where I was at, a good 50 yards from the road. She gets up in my face and starts telling me I can’t be there and these “drones” are ruining the environment, etc. I calmly told her that I was in a National Forest, not a National Park, I wasn’t on private property, that I had every right to be there and that she should probably mind her own business. She stared at me for a minute, took pictures of me, and then back at the road of my car license plate and disappeared.
So, yes, people tend to get emotional over our hobby. I don’t get it, I can’t understand why, but they do. So, if some knuckle head, films a house fire and the result is even the risk of a bad thing happening as a result, expect some new ban, restriction or other rules that make it hard to fly our drones at all.