Big Boys Hobbies

For battlefield thefts, man gets 366-day term

What a dummy!!! Glad to see justice was done, but I bet he will be back again, somewhere doing the same thing
 
All in all I think he got a good sentence outa it, the one day over a year so he goes to federal prison. I dunno if he will ever do it again after a year in prison.
 
Again the double standard is in effect. It is portrayed a "metal detecting" crime. Not just what it is, a crime. If we applied this same standard to everything the use of telephones, vehicles, package and mail delivery, ski masks, firearms, and anything else that can possibly used to commit any crime would have to be limited or banned.

Where is the outrage? Everyone needs to understand that this double standard is not coincidental, and it can be undone. I hate banging this drum, but the NRA makes sure that the government doesn't limit the use of firearms just because they are used to commit crimes, and those are deadly weapons. For that matter, if we wanted to get down to the brass tacks of the Constitutional definition of firearm they could limit the ownership of firearms to muzzle loaders ONLY because that is what a firearm was at the time it was made law.

My point is that there is no difference between the rights guaranteed in the Constitution that protect firearm usage, and metal detecting activities. Rights are rights. The rights we exercise to engage in metal detecting are backed by a host of laws. It is ALL about representation. The law helps those who help themselves, period.
 
The "Archaeologists" were complaining that this guy had more bullets in his home than their museum...maybe they should have hired him instead of putting him in jail
 
Regardless of what we think I think we should go back up a few posts and see what Milhaus wrote. We need to make it understood that it was the man that committed the crime and not the tool he used.

True this guy will go away, but the rest of us get to suffer the stigma of the labels left to us.
 
Fiskamon said:
Regardless of what we think I think we should go back up a few posts and see what Milhaus wrote. We need to make it understood that it was the man that committed the crime and not the tool he used.

True this guy will go away, but the rest of us get to suffer the stigma of the labels left to us.
Click to expand...

IMO, Milhaus is dead on. Stealing is stealing regardless of method. I am just amazed at those who rationalize stealing relics/coins/minerals from others. The media spins these stories as "metal detector" crimes. In reality, these are just common crimes committed by people with an absence of values.


Brian
 
ATLfun said:
The media spins these stories as "metal detector" crimes. In reality, these are just common crimes committed by people with an absence of values.

Brian
Click to expand...

That's about the size of it. They should refer to these individuals as ,

"Thieves armed with metal detectors".
 
Amazing that he was able to do it so many times. He must have been a secluded part of the battlefield.
 
First Federal land so he got what he deserves. I understand why they are upset he dug artifacts and now they can't be documented, on the other hand wouldn't most just rot away and never be found? It's not like there are enough historians to get out and dig the stuff. I wish the laws would shift to something more realistic like England.
 
Yeah they are making an odd comment considering that this board has a thread discussing the difficulty of overcoming feelings of anxiety while metal detecting. (and by the way it was nice to see people so supportive of the OP in that thread)
I understand why his attorney is getting that message out, it's his job, but the implication that metal detecting is outsider behavior is annoying.

TECTONATOR said:
>>disorder that prevents him from working or socializing with people<<
Ahhhh. So that's why I love this hobby so much.

Seriously, the guy's a thief. If he wasn't stealing from the park, he'd be stealing it from your backyard.

Maybe they could have signed him up for this event:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...vil-war-parks/2012/03/23/gIQA9Hg9VS_blog.html
Click to expand...
 
JimboG said:
........... I wish the laws would shift to something more realistic like England.
Click to expand...

Although in cases like this, he would have probably just got a slapped wrist
over here.
Nighthawking of historic sites is just as big a problem in the UK, if not
bigger. We all end up getting tarred with the same brush though :mad:

On a small number of battlefield sites, organised digs have taken place
with archaeologists in attendance. As realistically, it's only metallic finds
which are going to be made. If for instance a lot of musket balls are
found and their find spots logged, it can give an idea of where they might
have been fired from and add to the history of the site.
 
Milhaus said:
Again the double standard is in effect. It is portrayed a "metal detecting" crime. Not just what it is, a crime.
Click to expand...


Oh I'm so gunna' get ragged on for this one i'm sure but you are dead wrong in my opinion!

Yea.....new guy posting here saying an elite member is wrong. But show me in this post where they are posing this as a "metal detecting crime"?

The post basically started with "The defendant's journal is a tell-all of his misconduct, identifying with a high degree of specification where he engaged in metal detecting/relic hunting and when and what he recovered,".

I feel your post is is the type that puts the negative spin on an otherwise harmless article.
 
Prison was a little to harsh if you ask me. Do the battle fields say no metal detecting? He never hurt anyone. Maybe a little jail time and a big fine whould have been good enough. You all sound like you want to string him up like a mob with metal detectors
 
The number of posts someone has doesn't matter. Perhaps you are missing some background information about the treatment of the metal detecting hobby in recent times. I will just let the article speak for itself. Thank you.

Diver1 said:
Oh I'm so gunna' get ragged on for this one i'm sure but you are dead wrong in my opinion!

Yea.....new guy posting here saying an elite member is wrong. But show me in this post where they are posing this as a "metal detecting crime"?

The post basically started with "The defendant's journal is a tell-all of his misconduct, identifying with a high degree of specification where he engaged in metal detecting/relic hunting and when and what he recovered,".

I feel your post is is the type that puts the negative spin on an otherwise harmless article.
Click to expand...
 
Milhaus said:
The number of posts someone has doesn't matter. Perhaps you are missing some background information about the treatment of the metal detecting hobby in recent times. I will just let the article speak for itself. Thank you.
Click to expand...

My point is exactly that....you were not letting the article speak for itself. You were calling out the article as portraying a "metal detecting crime". The "double standard" of metal detectorists (not sure that's even a word but i'm going with it) as criminals and relating us to criminals with guns when the article did no such thing.....but you did.

I have no quarrel with you, nor trying to start one. I'm simply stating that you called out a simple article as portraying metal detecting as a double standard crime of some sort when it didn't. I feel you are reading too much into the article and understandably so. Our government really is stepping in too far.

In fact, the reality is, this stuff would have never even been discovered had he not found it. He was still in the wrong and he knew he was doing wrong.

Maybe some sort of extreme permit process that allows you to hunt in those areas with a GPS and digital camera to record the finds.
 
When a U.S. Attorney makes a statement specifying metal detecting as the primary factor of the crime, rather than the theft itself then the meaning is clear. Now, after reading his statement the uninformed will be tacitly informed that metal detectorists are innately criminal. Unfortunately, these kinds of perceptions are the way of the world and they have real consequences regardless of the truth.

Let me qualify that.

Most people do not have any information about the metal detecting community, and are highly susceptible to interpreting his comments incorrectly. He was speaking under an assumption, that the readers know that metal detecting itself is illegal at battlefield parks. How many people really know that, who don't live very close to one? Therefore he unknowingly transferred the actual illegality of Santos' actions at the park onto all metal detecting hobbyists.

My comments about a double standard does assume a body of knowledge and for that I apologize. I think this is the root misunderstanding. Again, it requires background knowledge about actions taken by special interests in this country against metal detecting. Chiefly, their spotlighting of the few criminals using a metal detector to commit thefts to lawmakers in order to have the legions of honest, law abiding detectorists banned from public land. So in effect it is ok to ban metal detectors from public land because a few people use them to commit crimes, but it is not ok to ban other things much more commonly used to facilitate crimes because more people like them. That is a double standard.

Lastly, I do not agree that MDing should ever be allowed on battlefield parks. There should be places that will forever remain laying in state to capture our imaginations, and for future generations.

I hope that I have clarified my statements.

Diver1 said:
My point is exactly that....you were not letting the article speak for itself. You were calling out the article as portraying a "metal detecting crime". The "double standard" of metal detectorists (not sure that's even a word but i'm going with it) as criminals and relating us to criminals with guns when the article did no such thing.....but you did.

I have no quarrel with you, nor trying to start one. I'm simply stating that you called out a simple article as portraying metal detecting as a double standard crime of some sort when it didn't. I feel you are reading too much into the article and understandably so. Our government really is stepping in too far.

In fact, the reality is, this stuff would have never even been discovered had he not found it. He was still in the wrong and he knew he was doing wrong.

Maybe some sort of extreme permit process that allows you to hunt in those areas with a GPS and digital camera to record the finds.
Click to expand...
 
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