Every now and then TTAG commentators reveal that they keep multiple guns stashed in multiple places around the house. Nope. Not a good idea. While I don’t support any gun laws (except those relating to their criminal use), there’s a reason why some legislatures mandate that gun owners must keep their weapon under their direct control at all times, or locked-up. It’s the right thing to do. On at least three levels . . .
1. A hidden gun is a gun waiting to be discovered. The more guns you secret around your crib, the greater the likelihood of uninvited search and seizure. Kids, visiting kids, grandkids, the cleaner, a burglar, a friend staying over for the night—anyone who enters your abode could tool-up with [one of] your guns. No matter how good you are at the ballistic Easter egg thing, hiding guns is a tragedy waiting to happen.
2. Foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but consistent storage isn’t. If you store a number of guns in a number of different places, you’ll need a number of highly-honed retrieval skills to bring them to bear on Mr. Bad Guy. An under-the-cushion extraction isn’t the same as a behind-the-books draw. The last thing you need in a life-threatening emergency is a motor skills test.
If your gun is on your hip and you’ve practiced your draw, you should be able to deploy it quickly, efficiently (i.e. not shooting yourself) and effectively in a wide variety of situations within your digs. If the firearm’s in a safe, you should also know how to extract it in a timely, safe and, uh, effective manner. For quick access at night, I recommend an INPRINT safe or a small, pressure-pad GunVault. Even if you leave it open at night.
Shotgun under the bed? I don’t think so. Just try to reaching through a warren of dust bunnies to get ahold of that bad boy during an adrenal dump. There are plenty of quick access shotgun locked storage systems on the market, like the V-Line Quick Access Keyless Shotgun Safe. Use one. If you don’t, if you keep your handgun or shotgun readily accessible at night, remember that it’s readily accessible to other folks as well . . .
3. Accidents happen. Sterile (i.e. clutter-free) storage equals safer storage. “A 5-year-old girl was injured early Saturday morning when a gun hidden between mattresses in a Marquette Park neighborhood home discharged as she was jumping on the bed,” chicagotribune.com reports. “The girl was in a home in the 6400 block of South Artesian Avenue when she jumped on a bed about 12:20 a.m. . . . The gun, hidden between mattresses, discharged and a bullet hit the girl.”
She’s OK, but who needs that kind of tsuris? Either keep your gun on your hip (yes in the house too) or in a locked safe. That is all.