Personally I'm no fan of drones, either, but I think you're mistaken that "one side wants to allow drones near airports". A tiny minority of fuckwits will wish to fly their drones wherever they please, the majority of drone owners are sufficiently sensible to understand the risk and the need to avoid airports and other sensitive areas. Those fuckwits aren't taking any side in this debate, they neither know nor care that it is even being held.
And when government pass this legislation regardless, those same fuckwits won't be registering their drones, and won't obey the (existing) rules. So the government proposals are expensive, pointless bureaucracy, that affect the law abiding drone users, without stopping the idiots, AND as the article explains, the justification is essentially half-baked. We've had radio controlled aircraft for many decades, with few problems; the hysteria over drones looks to be founded on the idiocy of a tiny number of incidents where morons are playing with drones mostly because they're new and techy. And more than a few of the near miss reports are unproven - they could refer to helium balloons or chinese lanterns. Think of the moral panic over 3D printed guns. This phase will pass, the morons will move on to misuse some new toy, and the world will move on with fewer drones, used for specific purposes by competent hobbyists. We don't need a drone register.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
