Want to share this video again, in hopes that maybe we can help the folks in Cook County, Illinois. This is not a new issue or problem, having started in the spring of 2012. This well done video by Treasure Fiend just brought it back to life.
Here is the legal mumbo jumbo that Cook County put out. After reading it I cannot help thinking that they had the input of an archaeologist when drawing up this ordinance. The detail is over powering, and OBVIOUSLY aimed at anyone with a metal detector. Let me also direct you to the Will County Historical Research and Recovery Association website, where you can read more about this ordinance. Click on their legislative news link.
Cook County
Again this is not a new issue, and maybe nothing can be done, but just perhaps a blitz of emails/letters/phone calls, WITH the help of the three national groups might get the ball rolling.
Let me also suggest that the Task Force contact someone from the Will County club, and offer financial support so they might at least talk to a local lawyer, who is knowledgeable about the Cook County system, it’s workings and it’s cast of characters (sometimes it’s not what you know but WHO you know). The Task Force has $40,000 in it’s coffers (given to them by Minelab), and I would think this initial legal contact would not put too much of a dent in their bank account.
I think the above video speaks volumes about this situation, and it’s just not right that the the TH’ers in Cook County should be singled out as the bad guys. Thanks Treasure Fiend for bringing it to our attention again…..good job.
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EDDY CURRENT’S NEW FACEBOOK PAGE
If you are a Facebook fiend be sure to check out Eddy’s page….lots of great information there. You can find it by simply plugging in his name in the search area, and looking for his logo….
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WASHINGTON CONTACT INFORMATION
Found this website and wanted to share it. Straight forward info on how to contact your respresentatives in Washington….
CONTACTING MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Stout Standards 
Wondering if anyone, Dick included, can cite even one substantial advocacy victory in the USA in 2013?
Assuming you are talking about metal detecting/treasure hunting….I cannot.
I don’t want to be a troublemaker really, but I’m thinking of making a report card for the existing organizations. I want it to be fair – and give everyone credit where due, but also be ruthlessly objective about each case where we lost ground on rights and access.
I only want to count successes that were a **direct** result of the organization’s efforts. Not things where an individual (e.g. Eddie Black in KY) or a club made things happen and the organization showed up later after the work was done asking how they could help.
I don’t have access to all of this information, so I will need help in understanding where each bit of legislation and ordinance was drafted and passed. A spreadsheet. That’s the start of it.
Not sure how you would do that Scott… While you could ascertain “when” a group or individual got involved I think it would be very hard to “pinpoint” that one definitive thing (effort/visit/letter, etc.) that tipped the scale so to speak.. JMO.
As far as I am concerned Eddie Black deserves knighthood for his efforts….
If you are going to start such a project I would think Mark Schuessler would be the guy to go to for specifics. He has been on top of most of the recent happenings.
And hey, this pastime needs a troublemaker right now. Might wake up a few people.
Dick/Scott,
I’ve been mulling this one over and this is thinking out loud more than anything else.
Since Scott graciously offered to do some kind of computer logistics along these lines I’m wondering if it would be worth approaching the local detecting group and acting as a sort of
project manager to push the campaign forward so to speak.
Just let the rest of the folks know what support is required monetary or otherwise to help the cause so to speak.
If any success or progress is made as a result….that approach could be used or refined as a sort of template to push our agenda on similar issues going forward.
Just some food for thought at this point.
Regards + HH
Bill
Food for thought is what we need Bill. Not sure Scott wants to get so involved, but if so that would be great. I will let him speak for himself….
Hey Dick:
Just waded thru the ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ and two things spring out at me;
1. Is this the same America that faced down the Soviets in the Cuban Missle Crisis?
2. If it is, then Kennedy’s reputation is up for grabs for re-reapraisal, as this Cook County garbage is doing and achieving what long-term communist ‘sleepers’ could not.
How can legal, law-abiding, hobbyists, many of whom have served thier country fighting for other people’s freedom, yet have this trash foisted on them? It beggars belief! I reckon at the very least, the Cook County legislators should hang their heads in shame.
Find out who voted this garbage in, then name and shame them!
John, have a feeling if you lived in Cook County you would be in jail now…. I agree with all you say but getting things like this changed simply based on what is right and just never seems to work.
Unfortunately we here in the colonies tend to chirp instead of shout, and therein lies our problem. It’s the ole “if doesn’t affect me, I don’t care”…..
This is kind of “out in left field”, and some of you may disagree. But if you want to make an impression on Ms. Preckwinkle why don’t you find some minority metal detector enthusiasts to go and talk to her. She has been an equal and civil rights activist for many years. And, if you have’nt seen a photo of her, she is black. Am I being out of line here? I am trying really hard to not play the “race card” .. but trying to help by utilizing any angle possible. How many African-American or Hispanic detectorists do YOU know. I know of maybe TWO who have posted on forums or elsewhere in the 4 years I have been back in the hobby.This Chicago native is not going to take the advice of a bunch of nerdy white guys and their geiger counters .. just a thought.
Dave, you are not being out of line, and your suggestion is a valid one. I would also suggest that if the local group might get the money for an attorney, and if that attorney was part of a minority group, it could help.
As for minority detectorists please see my post here of November 2, 2012.
Thanks for taking the time to comment….
… then again, if she is taking the advice of achaeologists, it is highly likely that they are extremely white and nerdy also. Hmmm ..
Good point. Never thought of that….
It seems there is a push towards stopping detecing to all but private lands. Slowly we have all been stopped from hunting schools, parks and public lands. This to me this has always been from the thoughtless hunter. From either leaving holes,trash or carrying a shovel in manicured parks or hunting where ones doesn’t belong.
I watch Youtube video’s by the thousands and cringe at the recovery techniques used by hunters. I belive that the use of the internet has made it very easy for the opponents to metal detecting to feed damming video’s right to the office’s of our elected leaders. Here they make rash decisions base on the only information on hand.
Here in NJ hurricane Sandy beaches are slowly opening back up. But metal detecting isn’t one of the activities you a currently allowed to do???? I have hunted several beaches and have not beed asked to leave, while several others have been told no detecting. In my little detective work I have done it was found that hunters just can’t seem to stay away from the work area’s or stay away from area’s that would clearly appear to be a danger zone. This leads to the rash desisions of NO Detecting allowed.
I have gone to the beaches only to see hunters climbing about wrecked boardwalks trying to scrounge a silver coin while falling about the pillings. Some even requiring medical treatment. Others running behind heavy equipment that is being used to move sand about the beaches.
I saw an ABC news report only a day after Sandy of people metal detecting on the beaches. They film a hunter with a pouch of silver coins and several gold rings. As they spoke to him they ask him how he was doing finding trreasure. His reply was so damming to the hobby.I’ll quote him. “look at all this stuff I found look at the hundreds of holes behind me” the camera panned behind him and there was hunderds of unfilled holes.
It’s no wonder we are faced with the fight of keeping our hobby going.
Steve, can’t fault anything you say, and indeed we need to clean up our act. In that regard we need to somehow let those who don’t care, that what they do is not okay, and that if they do not stop their destruction, they will soon have no place to detect .
Now, having said that, I doubt many of these buffoons will care, and there needs to be some sort of push all over the country for those who do adhere to our code of conduct to get tough with them. Not sure how that is done, or what methods can be used, but we need to find a way….
Thanks Steve for telling it like it is….
For sure, Steve D got it bang on in his first sentence. You are going to be snuffed out on anything other than private land…and frankly, US treasure hunters (yes, it’s still a legal term!) fully deserve, thru lack of fight, to reap what others (archaeologists) have sown in thier stead. Until US hunters realise that inaction spawns the laws others (the reptiles) want, the hobby is I’m afraid, consigned piecemeal to the trash can.
Unless US treasure hunters are prepared to be to utterly ruthless in fighting the rising tide of filth, they are on a lost cause. Here in the UK we fought tooth and claw and used every dirty trick, and I mean dirty, against those ranged against us. WE won! The legacy of that vicious campaign was it made my name the most hated amongst the reptiles. Of that, I am very PROUD!
Oh I don’t know…I know a guy in Warsaw who thinks highly of you!