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Spokane man accused of assembling weapons cache ordered held

Bill Starks

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Man accused of assembling weapons cache ordered heldhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/397254_arsenal24.html?source=rss

By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
P-I REPORTER
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler on Friday ordered that a Spokane man who allegedly assembled a formidable arsenal of military weapons and stored it in a Bellevue commercial storage unit be held at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac pending trial.
In reaching her decision, Theiler determined that Ronald Struve -- whose alleged stash includes dozens of machine guns and C-4 plastic explosives -- is a potential danger to the community and could not be relied upon to show up for trial. The 65-year-old Struve, dressed in prison khakis and sporting a trimmed white beard and mustache, sat impassively as Theiler ruled.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Woods, in arguing for Struve's continued detention, noted that he had assembled an "arsenal of dozens of weapons."
"He stored these items with complete disregard for public safety," said Woods. "If there had been a fire, for example, the consequences could have been devastating."
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents charged Struve earlier in the week after his arrest in Spokane. A man discovered the cache of weapons after buying at an auction the contents of the storage unit at 12863 Northup Way. Rent on the unit had gone unpaid.
Woods also asserted Friday that federal agents found "anti-government material" among the grenades, silencers, flares and munitions and that Struve said that there may be a time at some point in the future when he'll need to use the weapons. He told Theiler that Struve should remain locked up pending trial.
But Struve's attorney, Jay Stansell of the Federal Public Defender's office, argued that his client has never been in trouble with the law and there's nothing illegal about Struve having a negative opinion of the government.
"We are allowed to have anti-government feelings," said Stansell. "It's just political opinions."
Prosecutors initially charged Struve with one count of unlawful storage of explosives and one count of possession of unregistered firearms. The firearms charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Because Struve was charged by complaint, the case likely will be referred to a grand jury, which could return other charges against him.
An ATF source said earlier in the week that there is no evidence that Struve assembled the arsenal for terrorism purposes, but declined to elaborate on what motivated him.
P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky can be reached at 206-448-8072 or paulshukovsky@seattlepi.com.
 

compmanio365

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"Unregistered firearms"? What's that, in Washington? I must be in trouble, cause all my firearms are "unregistered".......

Seems like they are playing the game of "let's throw a bunch of charges against him and see what sticks, cause we don't really have a law that he broke, but we don't like what he's doing"........wondering if DC vs Heller might be called into play here somehow as well.
 

Johnny Law

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sv_libertarian wrote:
I'm sure they are talking about unregistered machine guns and other Class III devices.
There were only a couple guns (about 4)in the lot that were even legal (not select fire or full auto) as the autos were not registered. There was some serious hardware including mg34's, mg42's, m-16's, ar10's, ak47's, several g3's, and assorted Brit and Russian smg's. There were several 40mm grenade launchers, silencers,and an unbelievable amount of military ammo for all the weapons.Also there were rockets, pineapples, and foreign grenades (all live), a case of old dynamite, some c4, and numerous claymores. All of this stuff was the real deal straight from WW2, Korea, Russia, and Nam.

That is why this guy is in such deep s*#t!
 

FE427TP

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Johnny Law wrote:
There were only a couple guns (about 4)in the lot that were even legal (not select fire or full auto) as the autos were not registered. There was some serious hardware including mg34's, mg42's, m-16's, ar10's, ak47's, several g3's, and assorted Brit and Russian smg's. There were several 40mm grenade launchers, silencers,and an unbelievable amount of military ammo for all the weapons.Also there were rockets, pineapples, and foreign grenades (all live), a case of old dynamite, some c4, and numerous claymores. All of this stuff was the real deal straight from WW2, Korea, Russia, and Nam.

That is why this guy is in such deep s*#t!

Yet sadly this man had proven to be much more of a perceived or imaginary threat and much less of a REAL threat than pretty much every gang member in our state and most likely would have died without ever having found the future threat he feared and prepared for.
 

shad0wfax

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M1Gunr wrote:
So my question of the day would be:
You bought the stuff in the storage unit at the auction. What would you do with it?



If I bought the storage unit contents at auction at this very moment in time and was truly ignorant of what was there when I bought the stuff, I'd probably do the same thing the actual purchaser did; I'd call the BATFE up and turn over all of the Title II weapons and destructive devices to them.

They'd probably want to take it all though. I wouldn't want to give up legal weapons that I had lawfully purchased just to be used as evidenceto corroborate the BATFE's case against the owner. However, that might put me into a situation where I'd be tampering with evidence or obstructing justice. The last thing I want to do is end up in jail for doing something I thought was legal. So, I'd probably just turn the entire cache over to the BATFE and hire an attorney to ensure that I'm not indicted for anything and also to ensure that I receive every legal weapon back from the BATFE if they take any out for evidence. I'd also try to get form 4's for anything and everything in there that I possibly could, but something tells me that it wouldn't be possible because it would have to be the BATFE who was the transferor to me, and I doubt they'd go for that.



EDIT: removed redundancy in the post
 

Tawnos

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heh... I stored my stuff at that very location (in fact, I was a few doors down from the "cache". They had a "no firearms are allowed to be stored in the facilities" clause, in bold, red, and highlighted...

...obviously the policy worked well :quirky
 

Mad Pick

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Be careful about sticking up for guys like this, or accusing the government of going overboard.

From the news accounts, it sounds like he clearly broke the law. People like this cause giant headlines (as we've seen), which leads to your average joe thinking, "We've got way too many guns in this country and we should do something about it." Then, more gun control.

In other words, situations like this can do serious harm to the effort to retain Second Amendment rights.

We should be on the side of the law here. They guy broke the law, he's therefore a "bad guy," and should be punished appropriately.

Of course, that's not to say that we can't drool over the stash a bit. :p
 

Johnny Law

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shad0wfax wrote:
M1Gunr wrote:
So my question of the day would be:
You bought the stuff in the storage unit at the auction. What would you do with it?



If I bought the storage unit contents at auction at this very moment in time and was truly ignorant of what was there when I bought the stuff, I'd probably do the same thing the actual purchaser did; I'd call the BATFE up and turn over all of the Title II weapons and destructive devices to them.
The guy who purchased the contents of the unit was an East Indian gentleman, and he wasTRULY ignorant of what he had, and of firearms in general. When a friend saw what he had and advised him it was illegal, he did the right thing and called the ATF. After the ATF picked through and took all the select fire, full auto weapons, and explosives, the guy was allowed to keep all the legal items and ammo, which was still a huge amount of stuff.
 

kparker

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Be careful about sticking up for guys like this, or accusing the government of going overboard. From the news accounts, it sounds like he clearly broke the law.

People like this cause giant headlines (as we've seen), which leads to your average joe thinking, "We've got way too many guns in this country and we should do something about it." Then, more gun control.

I quite agree, but why isn't the answer to the call for more gun control simply this:

There were only a couple guns (about 4) in the lot that were even legal

I.e.what he did was already illegal! And those laws are now having their intended effect (or one of them, at least): they are being used as the basis for punishing someone who broke them.
 

shad0wfax

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Johnny Law wrote:
shad0wfax wrote:
M1Gunr wrote:
So my question of the day would be:
You bought the stuff in the storage unit at the auction. What would you do with it?



If I bought the storage unit contents at auction at this very moment in time and was truly ignorant of what was there when I bought the stuff, I'd probably do the same thing the actual purchaser did; I'd call the BATFE up and turn over all of the Title II weapons and destructive devices to them.
The guy who purchased the contents of the unit was an East Indian gentleman, and he wasTRULY ignorant of what he had, and of firearms in general. When a friend saw what he had and advised him it was illegal, he did the right thing and called the ATF. After the ATF picked through and took all the select fire, full auto weapons, and explosives, the guy was allowed to keep all the legal items and ammo, which was still a huge amount of stuff.

Well that's great! I'm glad they let him keep all of the legal stuff.

That's what I'd be hoping for when I reported it all to the BATFE if I had bought the storage unit.



(Now I still disagree withFFA 1934 and GCA 1968 and I don't think the BATFE should even exist, but I'm going to abide by the laws we have in place now because I'm not keen on criminal activity.)
 

LongRider

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M1Gunr wrote:
A man discovered the cache of weapons after buying at an auction the contents of the storage unit at 12863 Northup Way. Rent on the unit had gone unpaid.
Some people are just too lucky... glad he was able to retain the legal items
 
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