[mdd]

Armoredman: At least in KS, any type of device or structure implemented for the specific purpose of damaging property or causing personal injury without the landowner's presence to monitor the event and provide specific warning is illegal and opens massive liability to said landowner. In other words, a wolf in sheep's clothes is still a wolf & a booby trap with soft/smooth edges is still a booby trap.

SIXGUN: My reason for posting is to address you specifically. I'm torn over your posts and with good reason which I'll try to relate in as non-confrontational manner as possible. So that you may understand my point of view let me state that my family & I all farm/ranch for a living. To put food in our children's mouths and keep a roof over our families at night, we tend to our land & cattle very carefully. We know quite well that meticulously sustaining & maintaining our land will allow us to continue the way of life we love for our lifetimes and beyond. I personally am walking the same land that my great-grandfather walked; a man whom I missed the privilege of meeting by nearly a decade. My family has farmed for as far back as I can find records and this way of life is in my blood deeper than you could ever understand. I know the disgust you speak of with your leased acreage because I could take you to any of a hundred places and show you evidence of the same disrespect although possibly not as brazen or destructive.
The difference is that you can never understand the deep-rooted ties to land that people like my family & I have. You refer to that leased acreage as "your" land and that feeling comes from the work you put into it and the pride you take it seeing it clean and well-kept. Imagine what it is like when land is your life & livelihood, not your getaway spot. When my family & I get together at Christmas time, our table will represent control of almost 35,000 acres of land across three counties. That land is our life.
Here comes the part you won't like. To people like me, people like you are a bigger enemy than drunks sneaking in & leaving beer cans. People like you are only interested in land for recreational use and have no concern over whether it "pencils" or not. You visit for a few weeks total out of the year and then go back to your life in the city. We in production agriculture cannot compete with the likes of you when it comes to purchasing land. We have to make it cash flow whereas you do not. Land for us is a necessity; for you, a luxury. We raise the grain and meat that feeds you and your children then you come buy the very land we rely on to provide you with the abundance of food you've all come to believe is a right. Oh surely a quarter section (160 acres) isn't going to matter, right? Wrong. When it's 1,000,000 of you leaving your city lives to buy luxury real estate across the rural areas of America, that adds up to real acres and real losses in production. I attended a land auction two years ago where we were outbid on a 490 acre parcel of cattle pasture. Our final bid was for half a million dollars. We have known the attorney bidding in proxy for many years and he apologized to us after the auction for bidding against us. A Texas oil man had hired him to buy the ground in his stead but never gave an upper price limit, only instructions to "buy it". There is no oil on that land whatsoever. It was bought so he could have a place to hunt when he felt the inkling. We can't compete with money like that. Mark my words that if this trend continues, one day you will find the shelves of your grocery store sparsely filled and what is available will be tremendously expensive. Look around your life & take note of how many of your necessities are really just luxuries and extravagances. How many things could you honestly live without and not miss more than in passing? A helluva lot. Four things you cannot live without are food, water, clothing, & shelter. Destroying agriculture takes away half of those and converting production acres to luxury acres destroys agriculture.
Please don't misunderstand me on this post. This is not a personal attack in any way because I can relate to your disdain for trespassers and vandals as well as anyone on this board. It sounds as though your leased acreage was practically waste ground before you and your friends intervened. Yours is not the type of land of which I speak; your kind IS that of which I speak. In your case, your money has improved a parcel of land. In most cases here, it simply takes away from my way of life & ability to produce your food.