I'm curious, do the people who think that they should be allowed to fly their unmanned aircraft without restrictions also think that they should be allowed to fly their manned aircraft without restrictions, or should the rules be different because the pilot is on the ground rather than in the vehicle itself?
Last time I checked, commercial manned aircraft were regulated but not banned outright. In this case, FAA is banning commercial unmanned aircraft altogether, so unless you consider banning altogether to be a regulation, I don't think your comparison stands.
Not for lightweight craft, but then again I think that driving a car should require a licence but a bicycle shouldn't. The difference is that while it's possible to kill someone by crashing into them with a bicycle or a 20 pound drone, a car or regular airplane it's much, much easier.
There's a big difference between a 20-50 pound quadcopter travelling at 10-20mph and a 1500 pound Cessna flying at 150mph.
Regulations for airplanes are strict primarily because the consequences of failure is loss of human life. Secondly to prevent damage to property due to crashes. Given that drones are unmanned, it would mean to me that the regulation on them should be less than what a manned aircraft requires. I would imagine it would be more similar to rocketry rather than airplanes.
