Yeah, frankly, I have to kind of laugh at anyone who thinks they have hidden a gun, key, ammunition, whatever in such a way that their kids cannot ever find it. You are only fooling yourself. The kids WILL find it, if they want to!
Gun storage (with young kids)
- Thread starter BabaBlueJay
- Start date
Buick
Member
I have a metric **** ton of guns and they are kept in a locked walk in closet.
kbm6893
Member
Yeah. But how many burglars carry an angle grinder? A screwdriver can get into a Stack On cabinet. I know this because I did it to my old one.
AJ
US Veteran
Or a torch.
Kids are resourceful, more so than you think.
Cut through the wall or floor or ceiling.
Crowbar works too!
Any safe can be opened in some form after a fashion. Just takes some time and know how. Granted kids will not grind open or break through a wll. But they will get in.
Yeah, I took your suggestion and Googled the Lock Picking Lawyer.
I then watched the youBOOB videos that he made about how to pick a cylindrical lock.
Do you really think that a run of the mill snatch-and-grab thief - the kind that is likely to break into your (or my) house - has that level of skills or patience?
The Lock Picking Lawyer is making a living spending HUGE amounts of time to prove that ANY lock can be defeated - given enough time and effort.
FWIW, I readily admit that ANY and EVERY security system CAN be defeated. But ONLY if the thief is skilled enough AND the reward is great enough - and assuming that the determined thief has enough time to defeat it.
After watching the videos you suggested, I am still 99.99% confident that my guns are safe. The odds that a burglar with that level of skills is going to target my home to steal my meager accumulation of firearms is FAR less than 1 in ten thousand. More like 1 in ten MILLION.
Is it POSSIBLE? Sure. ANYTHING is at least THEORETICALLY possible. Is it LIKELY in the real world? Nope. Not even close.
In reality, the odds of that happening are so infitesimally small that I'm MUCH more likely to hit the PowerBall than to have someone actually succeed in breaking in, picking the double-locks on my gun storage cabinets, and then get away with my firearms - all before the police respond to my monitored alarm system.
In terms of the REAL risks, this one us right up there with the probability of getting hit by a meteor. It could happen, but I'm not going to go to any extraordinary lengths to make sure it can't happen.
Make sense?
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Gunhohulk
Member
Just a friendly reminder to point out that those kids are or will be smarter than you expect them to be. My brothers 3 young children (4-9) figured out where the keys to the locker were hidden and could get into the gun locker my brother has. They only found out when one of the kids let it slip to grandma and grandpa which instigated a change in security protocol in their household.
I would hasten to add that just when you figure for that, along comes another idiot who lowers the bar by 3-4 notches.
Never, ever underestimate the potential for rock bottom stupidity from someone with a firearm, IMO.
No offense, but that's bad parenting, IMO.
No one was more into stuff than I was when I was a kid. My Dad learned that early on.
So, he made me a deal. He agreed to show me his guns (only 2, .22LR Marlin & .410 single shot) whenever I asked to. I agreed to abide by this & not get beat to death by violating it.
Take the mystery out of it & a kid will leave it alone, IMO.
Again, no offense meant. Just trying to maybe save some kids life.
A change in security that will ALSO be very quickly figured out by the kids!
I will repeat... Anyone who thinks that they can hide a gun, key, ammunition, whatever in some place that the kids will never find it, is only fooling THEMSELVES!
You need to take other approaches, that do not rely on fooling the kids. The kids are not nearly as foolish as YOU are, if you think you can hide things from them!
I would hasten to add that just when you figure for that, along comes another idiot who lowers the bar by 3-4 notches.
Never, ever underestimate the potential for rock bottom stupidity from someone with a firearm, IMO.
Yeah, one of the maxims of engineering is that "just when you think you have something idiot-proof, someone creates a better idiot..."
No offense, but that's bad parenting, IMO.
No one was more into stuff than I was when I was a kid. My Dad learned that early on.
So, he made me a deal. He agreed to show me his guns (only 2, .22LR Marlin & .410 single shot) whenever I asked to. I agreed to abide by this & not get beat to death by violating it.
Take the mystery out of it & a kid will leave it alone, IMO.
Again, no offense meant. Just trying to maybe save some kids life.
Agreed 100%. The surest way to get a kid so curious that they just HAVE to get their hands on something is to tell them "don't you ever touch THIS" (whatever-it-is).
Normalize it, take the mystery out of it, and - in the case of guns - show them their destructive power, and it makes a real impression on them.
That's how my dad made sure I understood what guns are for and what they can do. When I was just 5 or 6 years old, he knelt behind me and helped me aim and shoot his 16 gauge shotgun at a big ol' fox squirrel in an old oak tree.
Then he took me to the base of the tree and showed me the dying squirrel. He told me "this is what guns do". It was one of those moments of my childhood that are permanently etched into memory.
I felt sad for the dying squirrel, but at the same time, I also knew that it was going to be cleaned, cooked, and eaten, and I was proud to have been the one to harvest it for my grandma's table.
It made a real and lasting impression on me, and I never tried to mess around with Dad's guns without him being there to supervise - because I fully understood what they could do.
There was absolutely NO more mystery about guns in my little pea-brain. I knew that guns aren't toys, and they must be treated with respect.
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kbm6893
Member
Taking the mystery out of the gun is wise, but it doesn’t mean kids still won’t take the gun out to show their friends. It doesn’t mean the kid who just lost his girlfriend won’t decide to end it all with his father’s gun. I know any safe can be defeated, but those $100 sheet metal cabinets are trash, and so are those cheap pistol safes at Walmart and Dick’s. They’re better than nothing, but not by much.
I suspect most of us on this forum have way more guns than they actually need. If you can own guns worth thousands of dollars, spend the money and get something decent.
I love having a safe, and I'm just talking from an organizational point of view! For a gun guy, It's the equivalent of having a nice tool cabinet if your a tool guy. With the bonus of Security and Humidity control, etc..
I agree that some gun security cabinets are way too flimsy. The newer ones are made of around 18 gauge steel - about as thick as the sheet metal in a modern car - around 1/20" thick. Those can be pried open with a big screwdriver.
The ones I use are older Homaks made from 12 gauge steel - twice has heavy - approximately 1/10" thick. Getting them open would be a LOT tougher.
FWIW, respect for the danger of guns, knowing about gun safety, and knowing what the consequences would be if I broke dad's rules were more than enough to ensure I and my siblings didn't mess with them.
Photog
Member
I may get flamed for my response, you can call me an old fa*t (I am 67), or whatever, but here goes. My Dad was a Federal Law Enforcement Agent(Bureau of Narcotics, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs). He retired before the name change to DEA. Anyway, he carried a Colt Agent as his duty weapon. When he came home at night, he took the gun of his belt, and put it on the top shelf of the hall closet. I would guess that the hight was about 5-6ft. He would put his hat (yes, a genuine G-Man style Fedora) on top the gun, close the closet door and not think anything of it. During that time, I was between the ages of birth and 8 years old, and my brother was five years older. He never unloaded it, as he had taught us respect and to obey your parents. We were told never to tell our friends about it, and we didn't, as that was what we were taught. I shot it for the first time when I was 5. As I got older, say 6 or so, I would ask my dad to look at his Agent. He would take it down, unholster it and unload it, making sure to show me how to properly handle a firearm. As time went on, when I asked to see it, he would hand me the gun in its holster. I would remove it, unload it, check and double check it. After I was done looking at it, I would load it back up, reholster it, and he would put it up on the shelf. I did the same with my 2 daughters, now in their 30's. I kept mine a little better hidden was the only difference. I taught them the same as my dad taught me. I realized, and firmly believed at a young age, that a firearm is a tool that can be used for many different purposes, both correctly and inccorectly, but no matter what having to be safely used.. Keeping it loaded and accessible is the proper way to keep that tool, ready to use if necessary. To my dad, it was a tool of his "trade" if you will. He started in 1951 and retired in 1972, with 32 years of government service including Dept. of the Navy, AEC Security at Los Alamos, and 4 years in Europe during WW II. During his BN/BNDD stint, especially in the early to late 1950's, he and two other agents were responsible for all of Colorado, a good part of Wyoming and northern New Mexico. He raised my brother and myself correctly, just as I raised my daughters.
CptCurl
Member
Here's my latest solution:
Curly
Curly
Yaworski
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The smart ones do.
Yaworski
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In grade school I had a friend whose father was a local cop. He hung his duty belt on a hook by the front door. Everyone who came into the house KNEW that you didn't go near it.
So many comments are directed at parents and children. They are great.
While that is certainly a primary focus of mine, it is the untaught, unlearned, irresponsible person who can get access to a gun in my home that concerns me most. An unsecured gun can be found by a home invader/visitor within a couple of minutes, as was shown on the TV Docu-series (Discovery; 2005-2006) “It Takes a Thief”. It Takes a Thief (2005 TV series - Wikipedia)
Just like the bullets you send down range, you are legally and morally responsible for your guns and the harm they may cause. This is not 1955 any more. When you lose a gun through your own lackadaisical negligence, you may be found responsible for the harm it will cause, legally. If the law doesn’t catch up with you, you should not rest well the rest of your life knowing you have probably been the proximate cause of harm to others.
We have locks and safes for easily understood reasons. If you are supposedly responsible enough to purchase and use a gun, you should certainly understand the need to secure it, and do it.
While that is certainly a primary focus of mine, it is the untaught, unlearned, irresponsible person who can get access to a gun in my home that concerns me most. An unsecured gun can be found by a home invader/visitor within a couple of minutes, as was shown on the TV Docu-series (Discovery; 2005-2006) “It Takes a Thief”. It Takes a Thief (2005 TV series - Wikipedia)
Just like the bullets you send down range, you are legally and morally responsible for your guns and the harm they may cause. This is not 1955 any more. When you lose a gun through your own lackadaisical negligence, you may be found responsible for the harm it will cause, legally. If the law doesn’t catch up with you, you should not rest well the rest of your life knowing you have probably been the proximate cause of harm to others.
We have locks and safes for easily understood reasons. If you are supposedly responsible enough to purchase and use a gun, you should certainly understand the need to secure it, and do it.
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