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Home carry, people. Home carry. Because when seconds count you’re self-defense firearm is — how far away? As yesterday’s Defensive Gun Use of the Day proved, the time it takes to bring your firearm to bear on the bad guy or guys can be the difference between life and death. To drive the point home (so to speak), please time your gun retrieval process for us. Unload your home defense firearm, safety check it, safety check it again and replace it its usual location. Time how long it takes you to go from your front door to your bedroom, gun safe, wherever your gat may be, and back to the front door. Keeping the firearm pointed in a safe direction. I made the sprint in 29 seconds, from a standing start. [Dr. Petit was lying on the sofa when two felons broke into his basement, climbed the stairs and beat him senseless with a baseball bat] Post your result below.

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105 COMMENTS

    • About the same here – maybe 2 or 3 seconds… but I don’t home carry. Home carrying requires wearing too many clothes or putting up with restrictive holsters.

    • If I am awake it is on my person… so yes I home carry.
      but we had a B&E a couple of months back and my wife missed it by about 10 minutes. SO, I worry about my wife when she is alone and having kids complicates things when responding to a forced entry when answering the door as she hasn’t started to carry though she has her LTC.

  1. Always on my hip, headboard or the table directly next to me. Which one depends on whether I’m wearing pants.

    After a while it becomes so habitual that you feel “wrong” without it.

  2. I do home carry, period. Something is within arm’s reach throughout. We don’t have a whole lotta crime in this small rural town in northern Vermont but there are bad guys, including dope dealers and associates and of course the B&E scum. We got a dog who barks, and our comings and goings are random, all hours. Neighbors watch out for each other’s places.

    We’re dead asleep at 3AM? The doors are locked up tight, no basement entry, the dog barks, and anyone busting in is gonna wake up the entire ‘hood here (village). Shots fired? The sheriff’s department is a mile up the road. (not counting on them). State police and town police and several Fed agencies, including Customs and Immigration and Border Patrol within three miles. (not counting on them, either).

    Me? Combat vet of three U.S. wars, ex-cop, competition target shooter. 6’5″ and 250.

    That all said, any of us can be taken by surprise and if a shooter wanted to take me out, he’d be smart to do it from cover while I’m stacking firewood and hauling in groceries.

    None of us is invulnerable.

    • “That all said, any of us can be taken by surprise and if a shooter wanted to take me out, he’d be smart to do it from cover while I’m stacking firewood and hauling in groceries.

      None of us is invulnerable.”

      This is absolutely true and scares me much more than some random thug trying to break the door down.

  3. I don’t know about you folks but my SIG, or HK, goes on when I dress comes off when I take a shower. Then goes into a safepacker till bed and then get attached to the bed, with a flashlight and spare mag. Don’t you???? Hell it’s the same from when my daughter was an infant( 24 years ago).

  4. I don’t know what to do for home carry. I get naked the second I get back into the apartment after work.

    As you all can figure, I’m a bachelor.

  5. I home carry, when i sleep it’s on the dresser next to my bed loaded, which has a flash light (next to the gun) which has a strobe feature on it.

  6. Home carry always…… but nearest “next” gun is less than 10 seconds from the front door and back again…scattergun or backup pistol in hand. The dogs will keep any would be BG busy for at least that long. Children are grown and gone so unless the dogs grown an opposable thumb a discharge requires human interaction. If a longer ranged tool is needed add at least 30 seconds but then said BG is really in deep kimchee.

  7. I do not home carry. However, the gun safe is within a 10 seconds, always unlocked when I’m home and contains multiple loaded weapons.

    I expect the dogs will run interference long enough for me to grab a firearm or two.

    If the gun safe is a no-go, well, I might just have a backup plan.

  8. I just timed it. Took 5 min, 44 sec. to get to the safe, unlock it, load my mag, and get the gun operable. I Usually keep cans of aerosol cleaning spray with bleach throughout the house. If something ever happens I bet I can stun the intruder long enough with the spray to get my gun out.

    • This perfectly explains why laws requiring gun-safes and trigger locks are counterproductive to home defense. If you have a home invasion, all the gun-safe does is level the field—in favor of the criminals! A gun-safe or trigger lock makes some sense for protecting weapons from theft (maybe) or unwarranted entry by children but I question their utility for other purposes. When you need your weapon the safe is just a state imposed impediment.

      • It’s not state imposed and I don’t have any kids. I have quite a few house cats and I don’t want them fooling with my guns when I’m not home. They chewed up a gen 4 G19 awhile back and they’ve used my old 870 wood stock as a scratching post before.

        • I had that issue once. I noticed that the cats always avoided cleaning chemicals, so I rigged a slot for a sidearm on the bottom of the shelf above them — even if I forgot, and left that cabinet open accidentally, they never bothered it.
          A friend’s solution was to have an old VCR sitting in the living room, with a pistol in the tape slot. He strengthened the “eject” spring, and all he had to do to retrieve his defense weapon was hit the eject button on the VCR. And my old gunsmith deal with his cats by turning one of those fancy coffee-table books into a gun case.
          You just have to think like a cat, and then be creative.

  9. If you have a loud dog, you may not need to get to your guns. More criminals fear dogs than guns because dogs WILL bite, but armed homeowners often hesitate too long

    • True that. A now-deceased veteran friend just down the street had a small dog that sounded like a German Shepherd. Twice it frightened off some skinheads who tampered with his side door.
      He need his backup system when some tweakers hit the house, though: the dog barking made them hesitate, but then they brought a steel prybar back to the side window — that’s when he tapped the shotgun shell icon on his computer screen, running a quick file that made the sound of a pump shotgun being racked.
      He sold the prybar for five bucks the next day.

  10. Longer than it should… Really need to get that carry permit as soon as I can or at least get into the habit of house carry. Biggest problem there being I don’t have a suitable firearm or holster system to do so. At least not ATM.

  11. Due to children, I don’t home carry and keep it unloaded and locked up. So I’m only marginally quicker than the cops.

    I probably could trust the kids to not touch the guns, but I’m a bit of a control freak for safety sake.

    • Understandable (I have kids too), but home carry is the most secure storage method possible — if it’s on you, your kids can’t get to it. If your kids are little and like to wrestle, I suggest pocket carry with a good pocket holster.

    • Yeah I’m in the same boat. You may trust your kids but the price of failure is WAY too high for me to roll the dice on that. If its not on my body it is locked up. I have started home carrying a lot more recently. I cant have a gun at work so I make a conscious decision to tool up as soon as I get in from the office and change clothes. In the even that I have to retrieve a gun I do keep several loaded magazines for any defensive firearm in the same place that firearm is stored(and of course my electronic ears on a peg on the door). If it gets to that point, shit is very real.

  12. The joy of an LCP is that it’s light enough to carry holstered even with peejays. Barely know it’s there. That’s always there and the Mossberg 590A is never more than five or six seconds away. It’s weird how you end up thinking of your proximity to firearms even when there’s absolutely nothing of note going on in or around the home.

  13. I’ve been hitting 1.14s from concealment to first round hit @ 7 yds with a Glock 42. Granted, square range, no one punching my face and appendix carry.

  14. I’ve home carried since 1992, when a good friend was shot and killed in his own kitchen by a wandering lunatic. My friend’s handgun was in a kitchen drawer just 6 ft. from where he was sitting. I figure, if the gun isn’t on you or within a short reach, it’s of no use.

    • A co worker answered the knock on her door and was shot and killed. She hated guns and would not own one. The 2 turds that killed her thought, mind you thought, that she had seen them committing a crime and in typical tweaker mindset they decided spur of the moment to kill her. Over a car they were stripping.

      Nobody knows if she actually saw them. She was too dead to tell her side of the story.

      Murder is that random. Have you passed any potential drug addled crooks today that might have gotten enraged or frightened at the glance you gave them?

      Carry. All. The. Time.

  15. I did this about a year ago, old way 23 seconds, currently 1.8 second average. Blade tec makes some very comfortable and fast holsters

  16. Bachelor in an apartment like Doop. My question would be which one? When I’m on the couch there’s one on the arm rest pointed at the door. It follows me to the kitchen table again pointed at the door. Bedroom, bathroom & desk. It’s a pain locking them up when I leave but, worth it.

  17. I’m with several others here, now I make it a point to keep mine with me , either on me or on the table right at hand until I go to bed, where it sits right next to the head of the bed. I’ve had several occasions to get up and see what the dog (who sleeps near the front door) is barking at, and the pistol is right there in my hand

  18. It takes me less than ten seconds to get to my 12 gauge wall-leaner. It takes me about one second to get to the thirty-eight on my hip. Home carry, people. It’s easy.

    A little J-frame in a nonslip holster can be tucked into the elastic waistband of any garment you choose to wear around the house, or pocketed in your jeans or cargoes if that’s your preference. Because of its ease of carry, reasonable firepower and ability to be used as a contact weapon without going out of battery, I consider the Airweight to be the best close quarters SD handgun ever invented.

    And if something truly absurd occurs, the little snubby will let my fight my way to my home defense howitzer.

  19. For my handgun: (1) drop hand to hip, (2) grip pistol (3) clear holster (4) bad news for bad guy
    For any of my rifles: about 15 seconds from front door, to unlock safe, to rifle in hand (ammo/loaded mags in safe) to the front door.

  20. If I am at home no longer than 2 seconds…no matter where I am at. If I am on the road and not carrying on my person about 10 seconds. If I am carrying…immediately.

  21. Request “Please time your gun retrieval process for us. Unload your home defense firearm, replace it its usual location. your home defense firearm, Time how long it takes you to go from your front door to your bedroom, gun safe, wherever your gat may be, and back to the front door”

    People have been reporting their home carry drawspeed. That was not the question.
    The point was to give yourself a number so that we all can realize how long it takes to recover from a non-prepared state. That knowledge may be the impetus to start home carrying if you don’t already and a piece of knowledge if you do. It wasn’t to give you the opportunity to brag that you home carry and have 1.5 second draw time.
    I guess that is why the HC people responded so quickly without taking the test.

    • As I understood it, the “test” was to get to “wherever your gat may be”. When I’m at home , the place my “gat may be” is right next to my hand. I don’t keep it in a safe, or in a drawer, or under a bed. Having said that, it may in fact be useful to see how long it takes to get from the front door to the bed and back just to remind me never to check out the dog’s barking without the pistol in my hand.

  22. No matter how many warnings I’d give, I think my children are precocious enough that they’d probably make a game of snatching my pistol if I took a nap on the couch.

    Yes, I’d make sure that’d only happen once, but I’m worried that once would be enough.

    I carry a knife at home.

      • So… then the trick would be to firgure out how to make sure the home invasion happens when you are not taking a nap? Or… Waking up, running to unlock the safe, etc, etc… How do you get criminals to give you a long king’s X that way?

        And if your children are that unreliable, they’re going to be perfect angels while you sleep and not get into something else? Your idea just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Home carry. Save nap time for when your spouse is there… or your kids grow up.

        I’m too old to run get a gun. I carry one, and have others in every room. Locked doors at all times, dog, other stuff. Anyone who wants to get in here and get shot will have to work hard at it.

        But yes, anyone is vulnerable, especially outside, if someone really, REALLY wants to kill you. Ambush and long range sniper fire is something almost nobody can anticipate or prevent. Makes you wonder why more of that doesn’t happen, actually…

    • So you haven’t bothered at all to teach your kids about gun safety?

      I grew up in homes where loaded guns were kept under the pillows, long guns in the closet with boxes of shells on the shelf. no injuries at all.

      My parents teaching obviated the need for safes, etc.

  23. William Petit was sleeping on a couch on the porch. That is where they baseball batted him. They restrained him in the basement. After the assailants (two) found out he had escaped and was loose they roasted all their rape victims (including children) in large gasoline fire. So… lessons learned for me:

    1) Don’t nap on your porch unless you feel assured that your friends/family inside can defend themselves appropriately. That means your kids, wife, etc know how to get the gun and use if they must. This requires practice and training. Don’t rely on the cops as they set up a perimeter for 45min while your wife and kids are being raped, strangulated, and doused in gasoline.

    2) Women shouldn’t marry a loser husband who would escape from his restraints and run to the neighbors for help while you and your kids are being raped, strangulated, and doused in gasoline. Seriously, what loser cowardice scum.

    3) Own a gun, know where it is, be prepared.

    I could beat 29 seconds as Robert detailed above. But only because I wouldn’t go to the safe. There is no time to fiddle with combinations. Maybe I need one of those quick button combination pistol safes. However, I would be going for my shotgun, and I don’t know of any quick open small safes for a full length shotgun.

  24. 3 seconds on average. Don’t home carry, live in a mobile home and the front door is right next to my bedroom door. I have, many times though, planned how and what I would grab and attack with should I need to get to my home defense gun. Thankfully the wife has lots of knick-nacks en route to the bedroom that would cause serious damage or even kill someone.
    I plan on getting something smaller to keep unobstrusively on my person though. KELTEC, Tcp, maybe a CURVE lol

  25. Only time my gun isn’t on my hip is if I’m taking a shower, going to school, or sleeping. While I’m sleeping, it is locked and loaded in the nightstand drawer. No kids in the house. The school thing, well, here is to getting that fixed this year.

  26. 5-10 seconds to get to the gun on my nightstand, but since I am usually at my computer desk, I have a Kukri in a drawer to help me make the trip.

  27. It takes far longer to “pack ’em up and put ’em away”, when leaving, than the time to deploy one when home.
    That even ignores the one that is always on my person.

  28. Im the guy that has it within a few ft all the time – even when i shower its loaded and ready on the toilet seat right outside the showerdoor and i always lock last door i closed. I cant have my firearm at work but its in my car whereever i go – legally stored, so useless for immediate use. Im considering ccw at work anyway but fear losing job, felony carry etc. (im in commiefornia). Ill think it thru. Anyway good thread. Lots of good info. Im getting a carry holster for home. Thanks everyone.

    • Mike, I had the same situation at my work sites but I packed heat anyway. Small snubby .357 in a pocket (multi-pocketed utility work pants), loose, with handkerchief, small Leatherman Micra, etc. No one the wiser. And many times was stringing network cable under the raised floor in the data center or through the ceiling with co-workers around, or just hauling racked servers in and out, stuff like that. A small semi-auto would be even better, like the S&W M&P Shield (9mm) and there’s good 9mm ammo now. I laughed to myself every time I walked past the “no weapons” signs at the entrances; unless they have metal detectors or guards walking around with them you may be OK. Too many “workplace violence” incidents to be walking around in there unarmed, esp. when there were a lot of weird-looking IT/tech-type male employees there. For all I knew any of them coulda been packing heat, too.

      • +1, unless they’re providing armed security they’re not keeping up their end of the “deal”. They don’t want to get sued; I don’t want to die. I think I win there.

      • Thanks David – Good info. I checked out the pocket holsters by Crossbreed and Elite Survival and they look promising. Currently I have the Taurus PT92 – way too big to carry at work but fine for home carry. I have a membership at a great range nearby with a huge proshop that allows free rentals (with the membership) of their huge supply. Im going to start trying out the ccw’s to find the perfect fit/quality. Again thanks for info/support.

  29. Pistol on my desk next to this keyboard I am typing on or in my holster when I get up. AR-15 is 3 feet away, shotgun 6 feet away, other rifle (Mosin Nagant 91/30) 6 feet away, so I would say ZERO time.

  30. I don’t accept the question. We can’t all live like we are under siege. If you live in an area where this kind of thing has happened more than once, I’d move. If your house is not secured well enough that you would not have at least 30 second’s notice of a home invasion, I’d fix it. These guys broke in and climbed the stairs to get to him?

    At my house, the dog would have been going ballistic before the BGs even got to the entry point. Then they would have had to do some major smashing to get in the house. When they got in the house, they would have had to deal with dog. Our dog is not a confronter, she is a noise maker, and she evades really well when she is threatened. They would have would had a heckuva time catching shutting her up. By the time they got up the stairs, I would have been wide awake with my .357 would have been pointed at the door.

    Add to that the fact that I have visibility in the front from four other houses and in the back from four other houses, so we are just not that attractive of a target. We just moved in, but soon add to that the electronic alarm system I’m putting in.

    All I’m saying is timing how long it takes to get your gun is not the right question.

    • If your dog is not going to confront the intruder then they will ignore it if they have decided to enter anyway. My dogs are confronters and after seeing the way my Plott Hound has behaved recently I think he would do more than confront. If you don’t know, a Plott is a North Carolina bear hunting dog. They are normally quite placid but if they get a notion they will not back down and their canines are out sized.

      Turns out Mr. Jethro is not pussy

  31. Our home defense handgun is in a biometric safe. In my opinion they offer the best compromise between securing the weapon and speed of access. I would love to just leave it in the nightstand but with a 3 year old running around that just isn’t an option.

  32. Maybe 10 seconds to get the shotgun. Currently my only gun…however I always have a pepper blaster in my pocket as well as a knife. And I have 2 axes, a machete, abaseball bat and other deadly items nearby.

  33. My Shield .40 sits in a DeSantis pocket holster in my right front pocket at all times. I keep a loaded XD .45 or my M&P .40 pro series in my nightstand safe which I unlock when I go to bed. This does not include any of my rifles or shotgun in the main safe in my office. So about 2 seconds max in any situation.

  34. To the question–
    it actually depends. Where I usually am in the house, the second half doesn’t apply; I can get to my weapon in under four seconds, and from where it is I can see both main doors.
    In the kitchen end, I can go for the rifle in the basement that hides behind a loose 4×4 between the stairs wall and shelves. That takes under three seconds (usually 2, but if we’ve had heavy rain I have to slow to be careful of possible wet polished concrete.
    But this made me realize that when upstairs, I’m presently not covered. Since all the rooms up there got emptied, I haven’t really thought about it, but sometimes the downstairs bathroom is occupied and I have to go up, and sometimes I’m up there to work. I’ll have to think on this.

    OTOH, I’m kind of spoiled right now: right across the street there’s a sheriff’s deputy who works “flex shift”, which means she has no regular schedule — since she moved in, theft in the neighborhood dropped over 90%. Then just around the corner is another sheriff’s deputy, who works four on and three off, so unless someone knows his schedule they’ll never know if he’s home, and four houses down the other street (we’re on a corner) there’s a guy who is mainly a city cop but also a part-time deputy. Since the three have been here, it’s been safe to the point that a neighbor left about $400 of good tools out on a pickup tailgate over a weekend while gone and the only thing that happened was a spider moved into the wrench case.

    • I’d drop a dime to Immigration right away and have them check on whether that spider has a green card.

      Oh wait–that doesn’t matter anymore.

  35. minus 3 seconds. I hear a knock and I put a few shots through the door and 3 seconds later I open it. Don’t shake your head, I’m only slightly more paranoid than most of you.
    Joking aside I would never live in an area where I really felt the need to always carry in my house. Sometimes if I return from somewhere and I’m carrying I will continue to carry but normally I don’t.
    From door to gun and in a position to fire at the door opening is about 5 seconds (why would I go back to the door if someone was there that was a threat? I’d take position at the top of the stairs and wait for them to bust through the storm door that is locked most of the time.)

  36. About 15 to 20 seconds to my choice of pistol, rifle or shotgun. I am paranoid and twitchy, but not to the extent that I really consider home carry. And if needed I have my atlatl with broadhead and field point darts in the corner of the living room. Something tells me that in shear shock value, a 7 foot long spear being thrown at you at a couple of hundred foot a second is at least as effective as a .45 or a 12 gauge.

  37. When I come home my carry goes on my computer desk. So around 1 sec to get it. From the farthest point in the house: about 5 seconds (I’m a college student in a tiny ass apartment). The down side would be if I was in the shower/bathroom and someone came in there would be a loaded gun just lying there on my desk. I risk I’m willing to take I guess.

  38. Less than 3 seconds to present the Glock 23. Another 30 seconds or so and I can get to the safe with enough materiel for a prolonged firefight.

  39. Dont need to get it out of a safe, dont need to load it, and don’t need to rack the slide. It is within arms reach 24 hours a day. The farthest it gets from me is resting on the toilet inside my towel during a shower. So 1 second and the time it takes for me to walk to the door.

  40. I think I’d rather spend the time hardening my home so I can delay/detect a unlawful entry, thus giving me more time to retrieve my ideal HD weapons. But it’s whatever you feel comfortable with coupled with were you live I guess.

  41. It takes me approximately 3 second to reach one of three strategically placed firearms throughout my home. I also have a motion sensor at the only point of entry giving me a 3-5 second notice.

  42. One of my agency buddies used to make fun of me for home carrying so I ask him to do a little drill with me. I had him start from several places in the house and gave him a ten count to get one of his guns and into a defensive position. The only time he made it was when the start point was in the same room as his gun safe. He stopped making fun of me.

  43. I have multiple lines of ‘defense.’ First, all entrances are lighted or have motion activated lights. Second a 8 camera security system w/DVR…on a 1000W UPS. I can view it from my bedroom and so can my adult son in his.

    Oh…yes..my firearm[s]! Of course…like others I home carry. Replaced 100FT of fence last weekend. Changed oil and antifreeze in truck. Walked dog. Talked to neighbor. Used blower to get the leaves out of the gutters. [The street! Not the house as I installed gutter guards 2 years ago!]

    Not ONE minute during all of this was I unarmed….and am not unarmed now….next question!

  44. 0 seconds.

    I wear mine in a Galco Escort fanny pack (about 20 years old – has lasted all this time). keeps all my other “EDC” stuff handy, too. doesn’t matter what i’m wearing, either; very convenient.

    I started home carrying right after the story I read about a man running to get his gun out of his room…
    …and being shot dead on his way down the hall.
    I can’t have my final thoughts be that my family’s going to get hurt because I didn’t want the hassle of keeping my gun on me.

    A cool side effect is the reaction I get when folks ask why I’m wearing (and I quote) “a fag bag” at home. I tell them and the instant perspective change is entertaining to say the least; has led to some good discussions. You’d be surprised how many folks are pro, or at least ambivalent.

  45. Why don’t you send Mongo and his friend over to my place and find out.

    I never intended to become a “home carry” kinda guy, but my CCW holster (Bladetechs) are so comfy that I don’t even bother taking it off my belt. And I’ve always got my back up gun on, even when I’m not carrying a gun.

    And then there’s the hardware scattered throughout the house. I have to do a disarmament tour when kids come over, but it’s worth it.

    YMMV, of course.

  46. I don’t carry at home usually, though I have a loaded, available pistol on the main floor, 2-3 seconds from the front door, which is the farthest away. On the bedroom floor, pistols and shotgun equally available.

    I carry 100% of the time outside the home.

  47. I live in Canada, so long guns need a lock and pistols and AR15s need two locks (unless they’re in a safe then just the safe is enough). So my P226 is too hard to get to since I haven’t got a safe yet, but my long guns, including short barrel shotguns, are more easily accessible.

    So my guns are not my first choice. My knife that I always have, even in the shower, is to get me to my bedroom, there I have a sword and dagger, and from there the ideal would be barricading the door and getting the guns out.

    I’ll time it later for accessing the guns, I’m not home now. It will be long though, even just to get a trigger lock off my coach gun with 12.5 inch barrels and get some buck out of a nearby container.

      • In Canada, they can inspect but I’ve heard it may only be after 10 firearms. I’ve never heard of anyone actually being inspected. But they have to make an appointment and the date has to be convenient to you. Also it has to be a specific inspector and not just random cops. So if anyone just shows up, they better have a warrant.

        What I meant by two locks is lock on the gun then locked in a case. Two layers of locks. Not like a trigger lock and then a cable lock through the mag well and action.

        That shotlock seems interesting. Not sure if it would be legal here. I’d have to look on a Canadian gun forum to see what people think. Canadiangunnutz is the big Canadian gun owner forum.

        • To add on, the main problem with the storage laws is that you get screwed if you ever manage to defend yourself. Of course it does vary from province to province as it does state by state, but you can end up fighting charges for years.

          The well known case in Canada is of a man named Ian Thompson. He lives on a rural property in Ontario and he woke up early one morning to the sounds of people yelling and throwing molotov cocktails at his house. He grabbed a couple of guns out of his safe and fired shots over their head to scare them off. It worked. The attack was caught on film as he had security cameras.

          Initially he was charged with careless use of a firearm and pointing a firearm and a bunch of other things. Eventually I guessed they realized most of those charges would never stick based on his claim of self defence, so all but an unsafe storage charge or two was left. He spent years fighting it, was finally cleared, got his guns back, but it cost him like tens of thousands in legal fees.

          He lived alone on his property so, whether or not his guns were stored, it really endangered no one. Perfect example of a victimless crime.

          But I’ve heard of people in like Alberta (more conservative) shooting at people without any actual threat and not being charged. So it really depends on where you are.

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