I remember when they were first formed (mid 1980s?) our club got a sample newsletter. So we joined and started getting the mailers, etc... That was first ANY of us had heard about any legal problems, off-limits places, etc... It was quite an eye-opener, since, to us...... no one here had ever had any reason to think that parks, beaches, schools, etc.... weren't anything but "open". But ironically, instead of thinking of those articles as far away & isolated incidents, some people, based on these reported incidents, began to wonder "gee, I wonder if I'm allowed in such & such parks?", and began to ask. Whereas before, it never occured to us you needed to ask to hunt parks. Funny thing was, that some of the places they now got "no's" from, were places we'd been hunting, unbothered, for years!
So I think that while the cause is noble, it's had a funny effect of getting some folks afraid ..... as if .... "oh my gosh, I might be doing something ilegal?" and then they start asking and petitioning, in places that no one ever cared or noticed us before. And then it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, that you/we bring attention to ourselves, and then, bureaucrats, who's image is of geeks with shovels, start passing out even more "no's" and regulations. But like I say, this is no fault of FMDAC, it's just an unfortunate & strange by-product.
