I moved from Wisconsin to Illinois. What was I thinking? On a more positive note, 20 years later I'm moving from Illinois to South Carolina and am slowly getting back in the game.
I had probably 10 machineguns at the time of the move. Almost all Safe Deposit Boxes in the country have a common depth - the h/w may vary, but they are all pretty much something like 27.5" (guessing). The M60 and the M2HB were the first to go - they wouldn't fix in the box. Everything else I could put in two of their largest Safe Deposit Boxes. I put things like the mini uzi in the box whole, the M16s were just the lower. The MP5, HK53, etc., all pretty much fit in two boxes.
The bank was in a small town on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. For the first year or two, I'd drive up every few months, get the guns and go stay with friends in Wisconsin and shoot the guns. That got old fast. My trips to the bank got further and further between visits.
Five or six years into it, I get a letter from ATF stating that they wanted to meet with me to discuss my abandonment of all those machineguns. WTF, over? The bank drilled the boxes for non-payment.
I get on the phone with the guy from ATF and from the start they took the position that I had abandoned the guns and they were forfeit. The first thing I checked was whether I had paid the box rental fee. Thank God I had a canceled check showing payment. I told the guy from ATF that the bank had fucked up and that I had in fact made payment. It took a few iterations before he believed me - and believe me, their (ATF) position was Always Think Forfeiture. Period. I told the guy from ATF that I understood the law, had selected a safe deposit box on the well known advice from ATF, and you know what? Fuck it, I could care less if kept the guns. He was surprised when I said that and I explained that I would just sue the bank and ATF would likely get dragged into it as well.
He told me that they would release the guns if I could get the bank to admit they fucked up in writing.
I called the bank. They were all nice and pleasant until I said I was the guy with all the guns in the box. They didn't want to say shit to me. Until I told them I had a canceled check and they fucked up. They were still, "meh, too bad, go talk to the cops" until I told them that I could give a shit, but could you spell your name please? My lawyer wanted to make sure that he spelled it correctly when I sued the bank for the $100k or so worth of property that the bank had improperly disposed of. That changed their tune a bit.
I told them that fuck ups happen and all I wanted was them to write a letter saying they fucked up. After some back and forth, with me agreeing not to sue the bank, they wrote a letter. I took it to ATF and they said they'd give me the guns back if I had a properly completed 5320.20 to move them from Wisconsin to wherever they were legal. I moved them to Indiana and waited a few weeks to get a 5320.20 and then drove up to Milwaukee to get the guns.
All told? Probably 3-4 months that I fucked around with this. I honestly thought the guns were gone for a while. And ATF had reviewed the access logs to the box and wanted to know where some cans and a SBS were. I told them they were out of state because I didn't need a 5320.20 for cans and the SBS was not in SBS configuration when it went out of state. They were definitely gunning for me for a while. I think my "don't give a fuck, I'm suing the bank" attitude may have helped.
Ironically I left a "read me if you drill this box" note in both boxes, with copies of the forms and a letter asking the bank to call me if they ever drilled the boxes. If they couldn't get ahold of me, please call the nearest office of ATF as these guns were worth serious dollars. I figured, you know, people die. I could die and not pay the box. Did any of that happen? Nope. They called the local cops and the local cops finger fucked the guns for who knows how long. Then they eventually made their way to ATF, and ATF wrote me a letter. Honest, I'm shocked they eventually tracked me down.
Pissed that the bank didn't give me the courtesy of a call.
So... would I do it again? No. I wish I had just sold everything when I moved. It was a huge hassle. Ultimately I sold everything but the cans and made great money through appreciation, but that was more a factor of timing. Nothing that I really did.
So, depending upon what you have, and whether you have a safe place to store them? Go for it. But don't think that a SDB and a bank is necessarily all that secure. Again, I'm shocked I didn't lose everything.
