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Sometimes it's a policy or rule created by the agency in charge of the property or property owner and not a written state or federal law.
However, a policy or rule carries almost as much weight as a law except where fines and jail time are concerned. If you break a policy rule you can be asked to leave the property. If you refuse then you can be arrested for trespassing which is a law and can be punished by fines and or jail time....
GG, thanx for this input: Yes, there is a difference between a law and a policy. And by the way, I would not define/lump "policy" and "rule" together though. A "rule" can indeed by written down somewhere, posted on a sign, and so forth. However, a POLICY is just a matter of interpretation of a written law or rule.
So for example: While there may be no rule or law forbidding flying RC planes, yet if some duly appointed official thought you were annoying or disturbing other park patrons, he could ask you to stop. Notice in that case there wasn't a law forbidding RC planes. However, there WAS a law forbidding annoyances and disturbances. Thus is the same for md'ing: In cases where there isn't a law forbidding md'ing, yet we all know that a duly appointed official can claim you're "altering" or "harvesting" or "collecting" or some other such morphing.
I used to consider such things to be arbitrary, capricious and subjective. It sounded ripe for abuse. I mean, what's to stop some cop or ranger from walking up to you and saying "you can't wear blue tennis shoes, simply because I say so". But alas, the law DOES put powers into the hands of rank and file officials, lest everyone in the field be perpetually debating semantics, and the cops wouldn't have any power to get their jobs done. In other words, laws and rules can NOT be written so detailed as to contains lists of every last conceivable thing on the planet that is dis-allowed. Hence broad things like rules that forbid "annoyances", are there, so as to fit to a myriad of circumstances, as they may arise, in the field.
Find out first if the no detecting notice is a law, a policy, or a rule.... If it's not a law then proceed as common sense dictates.
Yes, if one person is "appraised" of some whimsical interpretation, I do not construe that to be a new law for everyone else on forums. Ie.: not to be construed as a "new law" or "new rule". There has been many cases of "isolated incidents" where someone catches flack from a bored gardener or mis-informed individual. Or capriciously arbitrary morphing interpretting, by just one person to another. Yet years roll on, and it becomes painfully obvious they were just that: Isolated incidents. Perhaps just a singular booting, or some LEO responding to a call so he had to justify his coming out, etc.... Or someone asking a bored desk-bound bureaucrat, and getting just that one bureaucrat's position/interpretation. All such things do not constitute a new law or rule, in my opinion.
I'm not saying to go flaunt it in that particular person's face! Sometimes in this life you gotta give lip service, and avoid certain kill-joys. Sometimes in this life you have to accept that not everyone in the world will sign off 100% on everything you or I do. You can certainly run around and try to get every last person in the world to love you and your hobby if you want. But at a certain point, you will realize that this is futile, and .... perhaps there's certain people to simply stay clear of, so as not to offend them.
