Tom_in_CA
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2013
- Messages
- 20,729
If there are laws that apply to what a private farmer can do on his own land, then : Sure. Then it would apply. But I'm talking about locations where the laws-in-question (protecting antiquities, for instance) apply to public land only.
This has sometimes, for example, been the mistake made in the USA too, when a skittish person tries to make sense of the "laws" here as well.
For example: There was an oft-circulated couple of links, where past entities or persons (like the FMDAC, for example) tried to make compendium lists of what the state park's rules were, concerning md'ing, for all 50 states. So that you could just alphabetically look up the name of your state, and ... presto: See what the rules were for your own state's parks. (putting aside, for the moment, whether or not they were accurate or applicable in the first place).
And in the states with an outright "no" in their column, I saw the following curious conclusion that some people were coming to : They concluded that this "no" meant: All parks in their state. After all, the column heading was the name-of-their-state, and there was a resounding "no" in their column.
It had to be EXPLAINED to them that this only applied to STATE administered parks. Not other type parks (city, county, federal, private, etc...). And when trying to explain this to some folks, they even pushed back and noted that the website did not make that distinction. It merely said the parks in their state. They simply could not grasp that, in context, it meant parks RUN BY THE STATE.
So too am I suggesting that : When you read the laws of far-away countries, SO TOO might, at first glance, they appear to be applying to "border to border" . Ie.: even private land. Since perhaps the law doesn't specify . Yet *in context*, it is for public land.
For example: If the speed limit is 70 mph in your state, .... I'll bet you can go 80 mph on your own farm roads, that are not public roadways, and not be guilty of violating the speed-limit laws. Right ?
And again: If there is a country that .... by specific inclusion ... loops in private land to any cultural heritage "artifact" laws, then sure. But I'm talking about countries where private property is private property, and farmer bob can do whatever-the-heck-he-wants on this land (and , gasp, keep a coin he finds on his land).
I had this conversation with someone from Spain, who had bought a detector I'd listed on Ebay for sale. In the ensuing conversation, dealing with the shipment details, I couldn't help but be the devil's advocate, and link him to some "dire sounding material" I'd found on the net (someone's attempt at a compendium) about Spain. And asked "how do you detect there, in-light of this link ?". He replied back that , that only applied to public lands. And they detect farmer's fields with permission, ad-naseum, no problem. And if you were to look at the link I'd linked him to, you'd find no such specific exclusion to private land. It's only when TAKEN IN CONTEXT, that you arrive at concluding this fact.
