ajf3 said:
I pretty much hate that law like the rest of you.. but where is the line? ie, why respect trespassing laws if not respecting lost/found laws?
That's kind of where I am too... would likely ignore the lost/found law unless engraved/important momento/etc, but I do respect private/restricted property. Maybe I should try to talk myself out of that and go detect some battlefields lol
You are hitting the nail on the head. Such is the dilemma of "just how crazy accurate" a person cares to be. I realize that "breaking one law does not make it right to break a 2nd law". But on the other hand, I bet there's not an md'r anywhere, that hasn't broken SOME type of law d/t the inherent nature of the hobby we are in.
Eg.: did they pay taxes on that clad ? Did they "take/remove/harvest" from public land ? Did they "deface & alter" during the evil task of digging the target ? If valuable, did they dutifully report to lost & found ? If old, did they violate some sort of cultural heritage laws ? THE LIST IS ENDLESS.
This was a bone of contention in our city's club: Someone would come in with a nice coin they found at a sidewalk demo. tearout (or some such old-town urban demolition). Sure as heck, someone else would raise their hand and ask: How did you get in there? Because, you see, the other hunter had seen some orange cones and yellow tape, so ........ bless their little hearts ...... they called the city or asked the contractor for "permission". And got told "no". Hence they object to hunter #2 as being somehow lawless ?
It's noble to try to be law-abiding, but in this hobby, it can be a slippery slope where you will one day wake up and realize that you are NEVER going to get every last person on the planet to roll out red carpets for you. Even if you found someone in a city office to tell you "yes", I guarantee you that I could walk into that very same office the next day, ask a different person and .... .depending on how I word the question, and their mental imaging, could get a "no". All very subjective and arbitrary sometimes.
Hence I have grown calloused in my 42 yrs. of this, and now use the "does anyone really care" test of things. And ... yes ... sometimes that means to use a little common sense in your timing, so as not to swat hornet's nests.
