You can shoot them if they get launched in combat, but that can only happen in tactical combat versuse human players.
It is quite possible that PDCs could be used to target mines. Other ship weapons are too big to target them though IMO (much like targetting missiles, which are also quite small and fast). That, and mines have super cloaking, so normal weapons can't target them. They do have level 5 cloak afterall.
Some mods, such as Devnull, make it so that PDCs sweep mines instead of special Minesweepers (IIRC).
Essentially, Drones are big enough to be targetable by ship weapons. They are the same size as Frigates and such, afterall. Mines, on the other hand, are small, probably a bit bigger than missiles.
[ September 07, 2003, 18:40: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]