... You need a permit to find ONLY a specific item and nothing over 50 years old can be kept. They are trying to protect the 'copper culture' artifacts I imagine....
You think that the genesis of this is that they are "trying to protect the copper culture". Ok ,sure, this may be their "go-to" answer (if some md'r asks them "why ?"). Ok. But guess how it arrived on their desks, needing this-type-princely answer, IN THE FIRST PLACE ? I have a sneaking suspicion that no one in those positions-of-decision had any concerns or worries whatsoever, decades back. I mean, do you really think someone all-of-the-sudden started worrying 'gee, md'rs might find native/natural copper, oh me oh my !" and hence, made this rule ? No, I doubt it. Something put it on their desk as a "pressing issue" that needed a "pressing answer", hence, the rules/laws you lament. Care to guess what got that ball rolling ?
And these VERY SAME powers-that-be, who perhaps truly did roll out such rules, perhaps might never have given the matter a moments thought (even if/when driving past md'rs), UNLESS it were on-their-desk for decision-matters. Then gee, the ramifications must-be-processed, and their signature/decision must go on this "pressing matter". Presto, another law is born
... My question is, has anyone ever had their metal detector confiscated? Has anyone gotten fines?.....
My challenge and suspicion is, that whenever you read on md'ing forums about "fines" and "confiscations" for md'ing, is that the ONLY time you will EVER get examples, is when it's for someone night-sneaking obvious historic monuments, or someone being obnoxious who can't take a warning, etc.....
Google might give you the answer.
When I have floated my challenge in the past, various people have done JUST THAT. And they have a pretty-durned hard time to find ANY examples of "fines" "confiscations", "tickets" etc... for md'ing . As long as it's for the parameters I'm giving : Any examples of such "imminent risk" (tickets, confiscations, etc...) they can find will invariably be for sensitive historic spots, or someone sneaking around, or someone being obnoxious, etc... Or someone who, with an ounce of common sense, could have known better for certain locations.
On the RARE occasion that someone can find an example of someone being "roughed up" for detecting a seemingly innocuous spot, here's what I have to say about that :
It's true that if you scoured the entire USA's newspaper headlines for decades of google news searches,
that, sure: You can ALWAYS find flukes in life. For example, I have a newspaper article of someone who got a ticket by a cop for eating a hamburger while driving. (I think the cop called it "distracted driving" or whatever). Ok, will you now stop eating munchies while driving ? Or do you realize that this is a fluke ?
I suppose there's been people who got the riot act for taking the tag off of their mattress. I mean, at what point will you even step out your front door in the morning ? Sheesk
By all means, don't throw caution to the wind, don't waltz over other people's beach blankets at an archie convention, etc..... But at a certain point, I think that we md'rs can worry ourselves silly, as if we're doing something evil that "everyone supposedly hates", blah blah.
On the contrary, when I'm out and about, it's just the opposite. People come up and ask "what's the best thing you've ever found", and "where can I buy one of those ?", etc.... Cops just drive past and pay-no-mind, etc..... So why this attitude that we must worry at every turn that we're somehow "doing something wrong", blah blah ?