06/04/2026
In 2009, a Spokane man found himself at the center of one of the strangest fi****ms cases you’ll ever hear about.
65-year-old Ronald Struve had accumulated what can only be described as an impressive Cold War-era collection: 37 machine guns, 2 gr***de launchers, 54 gr***des, and even C-4 explosives. The problem? He was storing much of it in a Bellevue, Washington storage unit.
When Struve stopped paying the storage fees, the contents of the locker were auctioned off. Fortunately, the buyer who discovered the arsenal did the responsible thing and contacted authorities.
Federal agents eventually traced the collection back to Struve and arrested him in January 2009. Additional machine guns were reportedly located in other storage units he rented.
Investigators also noted that Struve possessed anti-government literature and items, including an “End the Fed” bumper sticker (which, depending on who you ask, may have been the least controversial thing in the collection).
Despite the size of the arsenal, prosecutors acknowledged they found no evidence advocating violence against the government. Struve’s attorney pointed out that his client had never been arrested, was not a Vietnam veteran, had owned many of the fi****ms for decades, and had never harmed anyone.
As his attorney famously argued:
“You can’t shoot 43 machine guns at the same time.”
The defense characterized Struve as a loner with unconventional political views rather than a violent extremist. The court, however, remained concerned that the weapons and explosives had been stored in a manner that ultimately allowed them to fall into the hands of the public through a storage auction.
The judge ordered Struve detained pending trial, citing both public safety concerns and risk of flight.
There are a lot of lessons here:
✅ Pay your storage unit bill.
✅ Secure fi****ms and explosives responsibly.
✅ If you own NFA items, maintain meticulous records.
✅ And if your emergency preparedness plan involves enough firepower to invade a small country, maybe don’t store it where it can be auctioned off for unpaid rent.
