Tom_in_CA
Gold Member
- Mar 23, 2007
- 13,837
- 10,360
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- Detector(s) used
- Explorer II, Compass 77b, Tesoro shadow X2
I was looking down the FMDAC's state parks list recently:
Federation of Metal Detector & Archaeological Clubs Inc.
And out of the 50 states, only 14 have a distinct "no" in their column. And from there I clicked on the name of the state, which brings up additional information relating to the "no". And in most of those cases, there is indeed an actual true "no detectors" rule in actual park wording code. Ok, so far so good.
But on a few of those 14 states, I noticed that there WASN'T any specific prohibition (distinctly saying "no metal detectors"). Instead they relied on verbage that dis-allows removing. Ie.: "taking", or "harvesting", etc..... And from that concludes "no".
Here's where the devil is in the details though: Because I bet that even those states that have an express "yes" in their column (or variations thereof) would ALSO have verbage that dis-allows harvest, remove & take. Then .... technically speaking, why doesn't that make all 50 states have a "no" in their column then ?
This just goes to show that whomever it was, in each state, that fielded the "pressing question" years ago, is up to their mental image of what metal detecting incurs, entails, etc.... In other words, sort of up to the arbitrary whims of whomever opens that inquiry, their mood, how they couch the question, etc.....
Federation of Metal Detector & Archaeological Clubs Inc.
And out of the 50 states, only 14 have a distinct "no" in their column. And from there I clicked on the name of the state, which brings up additional information relating to the "no". And in most of those cases, there is indeed an actual true "no detectors" rule in actual park wording code. Ok, so far so good.
But on a few of those 14 states, I noticed that there WASN'T any specific prohibition (distinctly saying "no metal detectors"). Instead they relied on verbage that dis-allows removing. Ie.: "taking", or "harvesting", etc..... And from that concludes "no".
Here's where the devil is in the details though: Because I bet that even those states that have an express "yes" in their column (or variations thereof) would ALSO have verbage that dis-allows harvest, remove & take. Then .... technically speaking, why doesn't that make all 50 states have a "no" in their column then ?
This just goes to show that whomever it was, in each state, that fielded the "pressing question" years ago, is up to their mental image of what metal detecting incurs, entails, etc.... In other words, sort of up to the arbitrary whims of whomever opens that inquiry, their mood, how they couch the question, etc.....
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Because if you read closely, I am "jail-house lawyering" AGAINST our hobby. Not FOR our hobby. I was being the devil's advocate here for reasons we should be FORBIDDEN to hunt. Not ways to allow it. 
