The biggest threat to our hobby is all the people watching those detecting shows and then going out and asking all the stupid questions about detecting public places.....does the guy letting his dog poop in the park ask permission,the guy riding his bike,the guy flying the Frisbee.... NO and if they did ask all those activity`s would be banned .look up the rules yourself as we did years ago....or are you to lazy. Heck that is i use the park to recreate,but you newbie will screw it up soon.
IF WE ASKED ALL those QUESTIONS 40 years ago NO ONE and i mean no one would be aloud to detect today....there would be so many laws against it.
So i see the new people asking all this crap as our enemy........those fools have all ready closed down some parks around here by running there mouths.
Just shout up and go MDing while you can....and try not to rune this hobby.
Tom in ca. has got it RIGHT if he asked all those stupid questions 40 years... CA. detecting would be banned a long time ago
Gary
Gary, sounds like you've been at this for awhile then, right? Then you too remember back in the 1970s, when it never DAWNED on any of us, that you should "ask permission" (or inquire of potential rules, or ask "can I?" type questions) of city or county halls. Oh sure, we had the "presence of mind" not to go during school hours, and to avoid lookie-lous when in the middle of retrievals, and avoid obvious historic monuments. But ...... never occured to any of us that "something might be wrong" at regular beaches, parks, schools, etc.... If someone back then had asked us "Is it legal to detect such & such park?" we'd have looked at them wondering "why would you think it isn't?". In other words, such things never occured to us, since .... afterall we'd have reasoned: "It's a public park isn't it?".
But all this changed in the early to mid 1980s. I remember it distinctly. There was some random stories that appeared in some treasure magazines, well intentioned mind you, about far-away states with some rumors or stories of bootings or laws. You know, simply an editorial lamenting and reporting some state park something-or-another. And then the BIG clincher, was when the FMDAC came out (mid 1980s?) and started mailing out their monthly periodicals. AGAIN "well intentioned" (who can argue with solidarity on our behalf?). But oddly, when all such stories of "bootings" and "laws to head off" and "arrests", and "confiscations", were reported, an odd effect started to occur with the hearers: Persons who PREVIOUSLY would never have given thought to such things, and perhaps there's no issues where they hunt, nor ever was, yet ........ if they are inherently "skittish" types, guess what their pyschological reaction will be, to hearing such stories? They will "play it safe" and go "ask" wherever they're at. I mean, afterall, you "don't want to get arrested", and the "code-of-ethics" says you must "know and abide by all laws". And to them, they interpretted that by thinking the best way to know if there's any laws, is to go ask "can I?"
So you see, prior to scary stories making the rounds (only further compounded by today's internet), then no matter HOW REMOTE or isolated, the human mind takes over, and people .... who understandibly want to "avoid trouble", will go ask. THEN the trouble becomes, as you note: that places where it was never an issue and no one ever cared, started getting these "no's". So you see, it was as if laws were "invented" to address this "pressing issue" that people were bringing to states, cities, counties, etc... (afterall, it's the "easy" answer).
And oddly then, when stories of these "no's" therefore "make the rounds", guess what that makes the next generation of newbies do? GO ASK EVEN MORE. Thus only snowballing into even MORE "no's". It became a self-fulfilling vicious loop, all started with sincere intentions to "join in solidarity" and spread stories of fellow hobbyist's woes.
Yes there are probably some places that are off-limits NOT by the above mentioned psychology. There could be places off-limits only because truly someone left holes. But I'm of the opinion that a bunch more are off-limits NOT by holes, but by the psyschology I spell out. Oh sure, the person saying "no", may give "holes" as his reason (causing the md'r to say to himself "durned those people who must've left holes"), but in reality, that's just their "go to" answer to justify the "no" they just gave you, when in fact, it might have never crossed their mind.
why weave around beach goer's and pi$$ them off, and why would you want a crowd when you are finding Gold rings, suerly better to wait until the beach is less busy.
Are you saying they have more rights to use the beach than I do?
