Moving Your Gun Collection
30 June 2010-Moving your gun collection is the most difficult and complicated of all the movings as it involves so much of legal work. You can have a gun collection because you are a licensed hunter or skeet shooter, or you have the hobby of collecting antique guns or you have the collection of civil war muskets. The reason can be any but the procedure of moving your gun collection is almost the same. Moving gun collection depends upon the state law rather than federal law. In most of the states the gun collection owner must have the concealed carry permit holders in order to keep their guns in their vehicles. The gun collection must be moved in a locked container and in an unloaded form.
Safety-The Prime Issue
Safety is the prime issue while moving the gun collection. Make sure that none of your gun is loaded as this can give you a trouble. Also cross check if safeties of gun collection are on or not. Store all the unloaded guns and their accessories in a safe place. Take you time and ensure that there is no danger associated with this move. You can use the gun safe to pack your gun collection as this will provide extra safety. You can have a digital or dial lock i n gun safe. Also the gun safe should be fire-proof. Along with this the size and interior of the gun safe matters a lot.
State Laws
Every state in US has its own law for moving gun collection. So if your move is cross country then you must know the rules of different state and must abide these.
Like if you are traveling in GA then you must keep the guns and ammo in a separate parts of your vehicle. Like you can keep the guns in the rear and can use cab to keep the ammo. Same law is applicable when you travel through South Caroline.
As per the
Federal Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986
"If your guns are legal where the trip begins, and legal where it ends, you can legally move them through states with more restrictive laws. The guns need to be unloaded, packed and inaccessible to passengers; a trailer or the back of a moving truck meet that criteria."
Packing of Gun Collection
You can also pack the guns in boxes but try not to make one box as it will be too heavy. The gun collection should be packed in a secured way kept separately in a non readily available manner.
Lift Gate Truck
It is a good idea for traveling and moving your gun collection on
lift gate truck if you are moving on your own. The gun safes weigh more than 1000 pounds and it is impossible to do it manually. The lift gate truck will make it is easy.
Tips on Moving Your Gun Collection
Thoroughly check the truck that you have hired for moving your gun collection.
Make sure that the truck is loaded correctly. Keep the heavy stuff like ammo and safes as low as possible so that the center of gravity remains low. Placing guns and safes in front also has the another advantage. In this case robbers and thieves have to make through all your belongings before reaching to guns.
Use padlock to lock the cargo.
Try not to move along for moving your gun collection. You can move in a group of 3-4 people. You can also keep the replacement trucks moving with you.
Do not stop everywhere and whenever you stop pay full attention to your surrounding. If any thing suspicious then better not to stop.
If night stay is required then make sure that truck can be parked at a location visible from your room and with its back door against the wall or fence so that no one can enter into that. Also make sure if you can disable the truck by removing the batteries or not. Also better to chain the trailer to bumper so that no one can roll it over to their trucks.
If you are stopped by the police then do stop and be polite while giving answers to their queries.
