I've been doing this hobby for over 40 years and have seen numerous attempts by the archaelogists to gain control over our hobby. There was a big push in the mid eighties and a white paper published which included gems like the site permission scheme which would force clubs and individuals who have new land to detect on to submit the request to the governing committee who could refuse if they believed there was an archaeological or historic interest. The other was that there would be an arbitrary payment made for finds classed as treasure regardless of value. Licensing was also a major part of this with with an exorbitant price to get a license but gave no explanation how this money would be used. Giving control of our hobby to these people would be the death knell and force us to go cap in hand just to detect and would do absolutely nothing to weed out the night hawkers, use your common sense how could it.
Things have changed a lot over those 40 years, and the past is not a window on the future. We now come under the DCMS, who take direct action on advice from the British Museum, and there's plenty in that camp who don't like metal detecting.
You're right, we'll never stop night hawking, but the point is we don't do enough to distance the hobby from the crimes, so that we can be judged entirely on our own merits. That proactive step could reduce the amount of change for the honest side of the hobby.
Working closer with archaeology is better than sitting on our hands and ending up with no hobby at all.
