I am amazed that the hobby could get banned in the US , the US has only a few hundred years of history not counting the native Indians . Think what they would do if the US had history going back a few thousand years like parts of Europe or the UK.
It would also mean jobs lost in the metal detector dealers and manufacture of metal detectors which could have an effect on military machines if companies went out of business.
Minelab has just released a new machine called the CTX3030 for beach and relic hunting and its main market must be the US and Australian although it will sell elsewhere , at the cost of around £2000 ? $? would it be wise to buy one if the hobby was going to be banned ?
There is also something else that the authorities will have to think about and that is if you ban something it will go underground and thats when the damage starts.
There is possibly 200000 detectorists in the UK for example and it would be a nightmare for the police to patrol every single field ,park and beach just to stop detecting taking place.
Sounds to me its another Liberal do gooder who thinks there is a fortune in treasure in every field waiting to be found when there is not , most stuff that is found is rubbish like pull tabs , cans,bottle tops,scrap metal bits ,buttons and that does not count the huge amount of plastic waste that is being littered all over the place these days. What do the authorities want ? for it to be left there polluting the countryside and parks? and what about syringes ? do they want them in the ground where they can stick in there children?
In the US is there a insurance for metal detecting like we have in the UK ? here we have 2 that i know of , i am in the Federation of Independent Detectorists which i pay (2012) £4 for a year. If something like that was in the US that might make the authorities feel that detectorists are more responsible and stop any bad feeling.
As for historic finds , do they want them to rot in the ground and be lost forever or do they want the important stuff to be put in museums so they can be seen by all?
Some finds like single coins found could be kept by the finder after being logged on a database or the finder can sell to the local museum.
As for beaches , the rubbish issue is if anything like the UK worse than land and detectorists should maybe point this out to the authorities, not everything is picked up by litter pickers, detectorists are not being paid to pick up the litter that so many people just throw away without a thought, they pick it up when detected because its a hobby and if they are lucky enough to find a ring or a few $ or £ then so what. That is enough to keep them at it.
A few weeks ago i found a womans body on the Brighton UK beach , she was in the water for maybe a week or 2 ? or days ? but would they rather a child or less desensitised person find her that would have cost money sorting out their bad nerves in a overstretched health service? not likely ! We detectorists expect the unexpected.
We are in effect unpaid litter pickers that use a detector to find rubbish that is buried in the ground , if we find something nice its rare , and most of the time just old knackered coins and the occasional ring , better that way than to pay someone to clear the litter and cost the state how much?
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« Last Edit: May 14, 2012, 11:04:39 pm by Rich N »
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