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I’ve seen some unsafe gun handling in my day. Looks like today’s my day.

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59 COMMENTS

      • This video is not a joke. This is a great service and I use it I work at a nearby Post Office in Huntsville and I cannot have a gun in my car at work. The padlocked safes are inside a vault. I am accompanied every time I drop off or pick up my gun. You do have to show that your gun is unloaded to enter the vault. I have never seen less than 2 armed employees on site. You have to be buzzed into the door to get to the area where you unload your gun. The ad may seem funny to some of you, but it is a good service and it is well liked in Alabama. They have another video that shows many of these things. It does however contain the jingle. It doesn’t seem quite as loud this time.

  1. I think I’m missing something. Holding a gun with your forearm pressed aginst your chest is not brilliant, but I’m not sure if it’s the type of unsafe handling that deserves mention here.

    I’m more interested in people being ripped off because the .gov can’t provide free storage lockers when disarming you (if ever there ‘oughtta be a law’ that would be it).

    • The guy shown starting at 1:09 sweeps first himself and then the attendant while awkwardly juggling his gun, the padlock, and the key.

      • I am positive they clear-check-clear before you can take your weapon into the vault.
        Yes I know rule #1, and yes this isn’t doing anyone any PR Favors, but I don’t think anyone is in danger of an ND.

      • He swept them with the gun in his hand? The one in its holster? Every time I put my holstered gun into my pants, I sweep myself. If my gun were to spontaneously discharge right now, I would be injured.

        I’m okay with treating a holstered gun where the holster fully covers the trigger guard as a composite object that can be momentarily pointed in almost any direction with minimal risk.

        • Almost every day I remove my holstered firearm from a lockbox before leaving the house and later replace it in said box. The holster fully and securely covers the trigger guard. I still make a point to direct the muzzle in the safest available direction when I’m handling the “composite object”.

          Not because I think there’s any realistic chance that the gun will “go off” without a trigger pull, but because it seems prudent to make a habit of risk mitigation and muzzle awareness whenever handling a firearm.

          Analogy: I have a Glock; I have to dry-fire it before I can field strip it for cleaning. No matter how many times I’ve checked that the chamber is clear and the mag well empty I still don’t point it at someone else while pulling the trigger. Do I think my gun can fire without a round in the chamber? Of course not. But there’s no downside to keeping it pointed in a safe direction, and infinite potential upside to being in the habit of always doing so.

        • Hugely different situation pulling the trigger to take down a Glock vs holding a gun in holster. If you honestly think those two situations are similar… then you go right ahead and think that.

  2. I had to go back and endure that god-awful jingle a second time because I wasn’t sure I had seen it correctly. I couldn’t believe that at this facility the attendant was not armed and could provide no actual security for your weapon or that of the others stored there other than the supposed bank-style vault. A crew with a bolt cutter could make quite a haul.

  3. Lived in Huntsville 23 years and NO idea this place existed! Great idea. Had a student in one of my self-defense classes who left his gun at home because he worked on the Arsenal. One evening he stopped at the ATM and two robbers followed him home. He was robbed in his driveway. No injury, but his pistol was in his house, just yards away.
    I nominate their jingle as the “Worst In Any Commercial for All Time.”

    • If I was in Alabama and I wanted to mug someone, and I wanted to make sure I mugged someone who wasn’t armed, I’d sit in front of the Security Vault and watch to see who was leaving their gun at Security Vault, and then I’d mug that person.

  4. Some body should clue these dudes in… I am speechless as to the unprofessional manner in which the firearms were handled. Everyone should should have been safety checked for live ammo before and after retrieving from the lockers. The dude who pulled the pistol out near the end of the video and cradled it in between his arm and body is a great advertisement for why GUN safety course should be mandatory for any gun owner.

    • I would rather it stay loaded and in a holster than allow customers to fondle loaded weapons in the process of unloading them. If they did require the unloading of weapons, a separate room/area with a clearing chamber and hearing protection should be provided.

      • Agreed. Much safer to set down a loaded gun and not touch it anymore than to fiddle with it twice for every transaction.

    • Just because it didn’t happen on camera doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. This is a low budget ad, not a documentary. Ease up.

      • Seriously… first of all, they DO show someone unloading and safety checking their gun. Secondly, OOOOOH are the scary guns going to shoot you through the monitor?

  5. You guys didn’t notice the guy with the revolver showing the guard that his piece was unloaded, did you?

    Yes, they should recheck when they pull it out of the locker.

  6. Judging from the first bit of the video, the guns are checked before going in the vault. I could be wrong, but it did look like he was showing her empty chambers.

  7. I especially like those thin-gauged security lockers like we had back in high school. Anyone with a screwdriver could pry that thing open.

    • On balance, half the people you meet every day are below average.

      Related: About 75% of people will tell you they are above average drivers.

  8. After seeing what appears to be racks of computer tapes in the background…

    This is just a records storage company that saw the opportunity to develop a new market, using their existing facilities. I use a similar service in my work to guarantee we have a recent copy of our computer server backup tapes at an off-site location.

    As a data storage customer, I’m not sure I’d like the idea of lots of fairly random folks going in and out of an environmentally-controlled media storage space.

  9. I don’t know which is worse, the idea or their “jingle” playing incessantly in the background.

    • I know what you mean. They’ve been in business for 22 years, and that lame, annoying “Security Vault” jingle is the best they could manage? You know,
      you only have one chance to make a good impression. This isn’t it.

  10. Ummm…maybe I missed it, but how was this the most hyperbolicaly unsafe gun handling video ever? The ubiquitous jiggle? The gun was in a holster after it had been cleared of ammunition, it’s not like the old guy was juggling loaded firearms while texting. Hyperbole for the win.

  11. This isn’t too bad of an idea as a long term solution for those among us who can’t afford a safe, but not a daily thing for your carry piece IMO.

  12. That was a terrible video, but that was it? All guns were either holstered, or being shown clear. Mistakes were made, but man, I was expecting something on the level of the DEA agent with the “Glock 40” shooting himself in front of the class. That was lame and I think I’m not the only one that watched that crap more than once for some attrocious gun mishap.

    • And the danger (going postal), apparently is inside, exactly where you would WANT to have you pistol. Seems hard to justify, we can carry in National parks and forests and not in a post office? Very strange.

      • Eh, I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole “going postal” thing was an invention of the media back whenever it hit the mainstream. Post office shootings were not a huge trend, just a few repetitions of a small anomaly that got a lot of attention. It’s no different than what they do today with “assault rifle” or “war on [whatever]” in that it just shows a lack of imagination and parroting of what gets headlines. The only difference is we’re less naive now than we were 20+ years ago when that phrase was coined. If the “going postal” thing happened today, quite a few people would recognize it for what it was, simply a statistical outlier, not a “thing.”

  13. Thanks for clueing Ahmed as to where his cell can find the guns they need to attack the Arsenal and take ID badges off the dis/ unarmed employees at the same time

  14. It didn’t look all that alarming to me. If I remove my EDC (secure in its holster) from my belt and stick it in a little locker, and as long as it’s me doing it, I think the chances of a ND are awful small.

  15. Very obvious printing through the vest around 1:26. I guess they don’t ask/enforce that customers be totally disarmed when entering the vault.

  16. Lock it in your glove box, or leave it home. I have never been asked to allow a search of my vehicle on my employer’s property. If I am, I will politely decline, if pushed, I will ask to see a warrant. Unless you advertise it, no one will know. Military installations and federal property, leave it at home.

  17. while i think its stupid; if i lived further away from the base (less than 2 miles) i would carry on my way in. i would have loved to have it when i was living in the barracks. and i know allot of guys from college that would have loved it too

  18. Could be a good thing for people who have to live in the barracks but don’t want to give up their guns. I have actually been looking for something like this in the Virginia area so my service doesn’t infringe even more on my right to bear arms. The place would have to be close to base, secure, and accessible all the time to limit time spent not carrying.

  19. Use a deposit box in a bank for crying out loud.

    I would suppose if they did long guns that might be a value add, as would be the climate control. But in no stretch of the imagination would I consider that setup secure.

    A gun shop/range I frequented in the past had lockers like those, and what made those more secure was the always armed attendants and the security system of the gun store itself.

    • Why would I use a deposit box in a bank for dropping off a gun as I enter a secured facility and picking it up as I leave?

      Unless your bank is right next to the entrance to the secured facility where you work, that safe deposit box idea isn’t going to be nearly as convenient as something like this.

    • IIRC my bank’s safe-deposit box agreement expressly prohibits storing firearms in the box. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s common.

  20. They aught to branch out with a location at every major border crossing. While their ad is corny, the idea is solid.

  21. >> The dude who pulled the pistol out near the end of the video and cradled it in between his arm and body is a great advertisement for why GUN safety course should be mandatory for any gun owner.

    So, would this be an example of a reasonable gun control law?

  22. I immediately noticed the customers’ unsafe handling of their weapons during the lock/unlock procedure and although it is somewhat reassuring that they are required to clear their weapons before entering the vault, it is nonetheless a terrible handling protocol that breaks the cardinal rule of weapons handling, which is to assume that every weapon is always loaded. This kind of protocol creates a very bad habit by exception, essentially saying that it is OK to be sloppy if the weapon has been cleared, which is the exact kind of bad habit that results in a negligent discharge. I have a solution that will make this procedure safe, but I need to build a prototype and patent it before I can approach this organization for exclusive licensing and supply contract.

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