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In a thread named "guns stored in a car" AndyC really got me thinking about the state of my weapons when I'm not carrying them. Part of his statement was:

The concept of responsibility is black and white, my friend - you're either a responsible person when it comes to firearms, or you're not; there is no middle ground.

I realized that, since my wife and I live alone, I thought it was ok to leave several pistols around our home loaded. But there is some tiny tiny chance that a maintenance person or someone else who might enter our home when we are not there could find a loaded gun and well ... someone could be injured or even killed (like the maid who allegedly brought her son work with her and he found a pistol and shot her).

So ... Here's how my (and my wife's) pistols are now stored when we are not carrying them. Admittedly this takes a little time when I change what I carry but I think this is much much safer for everyone. By the way, we don't have a safe but we hide our guns well in their respective boxes.



THANKS ANDYC

Yeah, I'd recommend spending the dimes on a simple pistol safe that you can bolt down in your closet. I don't recommend "tearing down" a pistol that much either, unless you're cleaning it.

lkd wrote:Yeah, I'd recommend spending the dimes on a simple pistol safe that you can bolt down in your closet. I don't recommend "tearing down" a pistol that much either, unless you're cleaning it.

+1

One other thing to keep in mind is that 'gun boxes' aren't designed as storage boxes. That foam will cause moisture to build up in the box and could very easily cause rust. I second the motion of purchasing a small-ish handgun safe and storing them in there.

Hello again ... thanks for the comments. I disable only the pistols (2 out of 3 of them) that I am not carrying. Today, for example, I'm carrying a Kimber 45 CDPII pro which is ready to use inside my waistband or very handy and ready to use in my home. I shoot all three of my pistols each week and clean them afterwards so rust should not be a problem ... But thanks for the tip about it. I will consider a safe but for right now it only takes a few seconds to field strip or reassemble my pistols so I'll delay that decision for a few weeks and see how the 'disabling' works out. Thanks again for the comments.

My husband and I also used to leave pistols laying out since we live alone...but this proved to be a problem when apartment maintenance once dropped by unexpectedly while we were in class. They didn't say anything, but the note they left about having done maintenance assured us they had been there...and we know there's no way they COULDN'T have seen the guns! They should have given us advance notice, of course, but that's a different matter. Point is, we left unsecured firearms in our apartment -- not a good idea!

We bought a small cheap gun cabinet and locked them up there when we weren't at home. Once we moved into a house, we purchased a full-fledged gun safe and store our guns there. Now that we both have our CHLs, all guns remain locked in the safe except our carries. At night I put our shotgun next to the bed. Often the shotgun never needs to be put back up, as one of us is usually at home. In the rare instance we both aren't home, the shotgun gets stowed in the safe. It's a good system, I think, because we always know where everything is. I'm just excited I don't have to lock away my pistol when I leave the house anymore...I can finally carry!

To the OP -- I'd have to agree with not tearing down the pistol that far for storage, even if you shoot them every week. What if you needed it in a hurry? You'd have to take off a lock AND reassemble it. I like the saying that an unloaded ((torn-down)) pistol is only good as a club. Odds are that you WON'T need it in a hurry, of course, and your storage system should work for you. It's just something that I would consider and handle differently. I'm probably just paranoid.

AndyC wrote:It's a balancing-act, really - you don't want to put your primary means of defense out of commission, but you also have to keep in mind someone's fingers other than your own getting hold of it.

I couldn't agree more.

Especially if children are ever in your home. In fact, I think that a warning against unsecured weapons should be the 5th rule - thus my signature for the past few weeks.