Do you use a night stand gun around kids?

[20cows]

My solution

My "bedside" gun when my children were small (and not old enough to understand gun safety) was a 1911 with a full magazine but empty chamber. The gun has a 26 lbs. recoil spring and my children are not physically capable of chambering a round. Way before the time they are old enough to rack the slide, they will be well versed in gun safety (as I was as a child).

My children are now in that "middle" stage. They are knowledgeable on safety issues and shoot with supervision, but at 11 and 13 (girl oldest) neither can chamber that 1911 yet.

 

[Mark13]

You need to compare the relative risks involved here. The chance that you will need instant access to a gun is far less than the risk of a child having an accident with a gun.

If your circumstances are such that you need access to a gun all the time, keep it on your person.

At night, if someone can get into your house while you are sleeping faster than you could get a gun out of a quick access safe then you need to focus on better home security.

I have young children and I *never* leave a firearm in a condition where if the trigger is pulled the gun can fire, safety or no safety, when not on my body.

 

[Stickjockey]

May I suggest a Lifejacket?

 

[blacksuit]

sure do

I go to sleep with the ole P95 on the bedstand. I have a 5 year old son and he knows not to touch any of the guns in the house, and yes they are out of reach. The minute I get up for work the pistol goes back to the shelf and out of reach. I haven't figured out yet what I am going to do when he gets big enough to get up on the shelf. I trust that he won;t mess with them but what about friends...I am thinking about a safe

 

[Instinctivshot]

simplex lock box

I don't trust any device that requires a dead battery or lost key.
Simplex locks are user programable and if you open them regularly become second nature to use. Easy to use in total darkness and kid proof.

 

[Mannlicher]

I have always had a handgun a available and ready when going to bed. When the kids were younger, it took a lot of explaining, and training, but then my kids were a lot more disciplined then the current crop, and tended to listen to 'ole dad'.
Now what I did is not advise to anyone here. Something like this is a intensly personal decision, and the decision on gun availability and access should not be made based on what one reads in an online BBS.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

I go to sleep with the ole P95 on the bedstand. I have a 5 year old son and he knows not to touch any of the guns in the house, and yes they are out of reach. The minute I get up for work the pistol goes back to the shelf and out of reach. I haven't figured out yet what I am going to do when he gets big enough to get up on the shelf. I trust that he won;t mess with them but what about friends...I am thinking about a safe

My 16-month-old is a pretty good climber. My 3-year-old drags chairs around the room to reach things.

Don't kid yourself about the shelf. Get a lockbox or a safe NOW.

 

[gaston_45]

You CANNOT child proof a gun. You can, however, gun proof a child. It's kinda hard to teach inanimate object a certain behavior but kids are veeery easily taught. When was the last time your child played with the kitchen knives? The blender? Toaster perhaps? They see those objects every day and know their uses, there is no mystery to stir their curiosity, the same needs to be done with guns.

My children grew up with unloaded guns left in the corner, easier to get at that way. It was made clear they could touch all they wanted once they asked first, but if caught messing with them without permission the consequenses were so severe they would never forget it. They are three and five now and if I test them by leaving an unloaded gun on a coffee table or some other random location one or the other will come up, say " daaaady! you left your gun out AGAIN!". They don't play with them, don't touch them, and at this point have no real interest in them other then when I take them shooting once in a while. That may work against me once I actually WANT to get them into shooting but I don't have to worry about them playing with them.

Here's a question for you. What do you do when they go to a friend's house or the babysitters? Do you check for guns left out first? If there were any left out and my kids were there they would simply go tell the nearest adult. I don't have to worry about that situation like all the lock 'em away folks will and that is a great piece of mind to have.

If you reeeally want to lock up your self defense rig, you might consider a bianchi carrylok holster. It's a LOT faster than a safe but securely locks the gun in until the release is activated. Some good quality time spent teaching your kids will go a lot further then any commercial product you could ever buy, that goes for ANY topic too, not just guns!

 

[Andrew Rothman]

You CANNOT child proof a gun. You can, however, gun proof a child. It's kinda hard to teach inanimate object a certain behavior but kids are veeery easily taught.

Baloney. Malarkey. Dangerous and irresponsible and untrue.

Kids under a certain age do not have the brain development necessary to exercise good judgement. If you have kids, you've seen them do the most incredibly irrational things when the ideas popped into their heads.

It's NOT either-or. You have a responsibility to 1) physically prevent kids (your gun-proofed kids, as well as their idiot spawn-of-blissninny friends) from gaining access to dangerous items, AND 2) to train your kids on what to do when they run across their idiot friends' parents' gun, locked and loaded, in the nightstand drawer.

 

[torpid]

I really don't get the "complexity" of this issue- it's a really simple fix (and can be accomplished cheaply if desired).

As has been said by others here:

Get a simplex mechanical lock handgun box .

Add some door/window alarms (very inexpensive ones abound these days that work ok in my experience.) and/or an affordable motion detecting alarm (from your local hardware store) for a nice advanced warning system.

The (bolted down) box keeps the gun away from children/teens, yet it can be retrieved instantly ready to go (mine takes 2 seconds to go from fully locked to gun ready in hand).

to quote Mark13

At night, if someone can get into your house while you are sleeping faster than you could get a gun out of a quick access safe then you need to focus on better home security.

.

 

[c_yeager]

Is your objection that the existence of a mechanical backup indicates to you a propensity to malfunction, and therefore unreliability?

I think the objection to the mechanical backup is that kids are REALLY good at finding keys, and in doing so, could completely circumvent the security offered by the safe.

One could simply fill the keyhole with glue to solve this problem if it was considered an issue.

 

[gaston_45]

Do you lock up your kitchen knives so they don't go running after the kiddies Matt? Or did you just train them to sit on the counter? If you did get them trained let me know how you did it becuase if am having a terrible time house training mine!

It's NOT either-or. You have a responsibility to 1) physically prevent kids (your gun-proofed kids, as well as their idiot spawn-of-blissninny friends) from gaining access to dangerous items, AND 2) to train your kids on what to do when they run across their idiot friends' parents' gun, locked and loaded, in the nightstand drawer.

Uh.... did you happen to read past oh, the first sentence of my post??? Here's a good part but it was near the bottom.

Here's a question for you. What do you do when they go to a friend's house or the babysitters? Do you check for guns left out first? If there were any left out and my kids were there they would simply go tell the nearest adult.

I think that adresses your number two rule and if rule two is addressed properly then you do not need your rule one.
This whole you can't teach them you have to remove access thing sounds a whole lot like what our friends the Brady's have been peddling for a few decades now.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

Do you lock up your kitchen knives so they don't go running after the kiddies Matt?

Just the ones with legs.

Seriously, though, no, I keep them out of reach.

I think that adresses your number two rule and if rule two is addressed properly then you do not need your rule one.

Wrong. Wrong and dangerous. Kids simply can NOT be counted on to exercise good judgement all the time, and you are courting disaster by believing they can.

You do everything you can to reduce the chances. That means locking up your guns AND gunproofing your kids, for reasons I explained pretty clearly above.

What do you do when they go to a friend's house or the babysitters? Do you check for guns left out first? If there were any left out and my kids were there they would simply go tell the nearest adult.

That's why you do both.

Need an analogy? "I don't need to drive carefully -- I wear a seat belt," or "I don't need to wear a seat belt -- I drive carefully!"

This country has some awfully sad ex-parents who thought their kids knew better.

 

[pax]

Matt's right.

When my kids were very small, I baby-proofed the house.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered that there's no such thing as a baby-proof environment. Dang kids showed me that no matter how careful I was, there would always be opportunities for them to hurt themselves.

I realized I was going to have to teach my kids a lot of things I thought they were way too young to learn, if I was going to have any peace whatsoever. Stuff like how to safely navigate the stairs when they were still too small to walk up or down stairs, or how to get a plate into the sink without breaking it when they were still too short to even see the sink, stuff like why they should never ever take medicine mommy or daddy hadn't given them. Amazing how much trouble one small child can get into, if his parents trust their "baby proofing" and don't teach him anything!

Nevertheless, I still kept the baby gates in place, kept the outlets covered, and latched all the cabinets. How stupid it would have been if I hadn't! As much trouble as my kids got into with the baby proofing and patient instruction, I hate to think how much more they would have gotten into if I'd neglected either half of those two inseparable essentials.

The most remarkable thing about kids is that they grow. What might be "too dangerous" for them to try today, or too difficult, soon becomes an easy conquest -- and the next time you look, whatever it was has become too boring to even bother doing any more.

I think some of these arguments are based on people thinking about their own kids, at the stages the kids are now. My thirteen-year-old, for instance, is about as gun-proofed a kid as you'll ever meet. He knows the Four Rules. He knows why those rules matter and he has seen with his own eyes what damage a gun can do. He knows he can go to the range with me any time he asks, and thus my guns don't have the temptation of the forbidden to him; the guns are simply tools that we use somewhere besides the house. I don't worry about him getting into my guns because I know he's smarter than that. Of course I'd think you were silly if you told me he couldn't be trusted to leave my gun alone.

But when he was two? Heavens no! I'd have had to be out of my ever-lovin' skull if I'd left a gun, loaded or not, anywhere near that child! What kind of an idiot parent would leave a gun where a two year old could get it? A two year old, no matter how well he might be able to parrot the rules, is simply not capable of internalizing the rules -- or of consistently, absolutely, obeying the rules in the absence of an alert parent to remind him what the rules are.

So when you hear someone make an absolute statement like, "No responsible parent would ..." you have to ask yourself: what age of kid are we talking about here?

pax

You can't teach 'em anything until you teach 'em to obey. -- my dad.

 

[gaston_45]

How did we ever make it this far in this country? There were no gun locks in existence, nor could the common man afford a safe for the first 200 years of our country's existence, how come all the kiddies didn't play with guns and kill off the future generations??

I agree Barbara, any statement that begins with " no responsible parent would..." cannot be correct for everyone, but your statement " what kind of idiot parent would... " also fits in this category. I would be that idiot parent in this conversation according to you. But you know what? My kids are both gun proofed and have survived to the ripe old ages of 3 and 5 so that has to say something about the method. No blood has run in the streets, or the cribs, my house has not turned into the wild west... even though we live in the oldest town west of the rockies.

Mostly it depends upon the child and the parents' parenting skills. If you don't teach your kids and hide everything then of course they are going to try to play with the "forbidden fruit", even at age two.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered that there's no such thing as a baby-proof environment. Dang kids showed me that no matter how careful I was, there would always be opportunities for them to hurt themselves.

That is the most true statement in the thread, it is also a rewording of the exact quote that stated this exchange between Matt and myself pax. And your dad is absolutely correct also, smart man.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

You may have been effective and successful in training your kids about guns and gun safety, but if you read through these various responses, you'll see that "kid-proofing" your house and guns ALSO has to do with the kids YOU haven't had an opportunity to train...

Its not unusual for a household's kids to have friends over to play.

Its not unusual for those "visitors" to go places and do things they shouldn't go or do. "Tommy, where's the bathroom..." and then, on the way back...

If you are confident that the other "idiots'" kids (who haven't had the benefit of your training or guidance) will be safe in your home and NOT a danger to themselves or your kids, then you are perfectly correct to feel unconcerned.

Down through our history, handguns weren't all that common; its only been in the last 100 years or so that they've really gotten popular. A long gun was often a necessary family tool; a handgun wasn't. The sheer size and weight of a long gun, suitable for military use or hunting, makes them less attractive to kids. Handguns, however, are different.

 

[torpid]

Yeah- what Walt said.

.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I just bought a new Gun Vault (made in April 05 with improvements to fix past issues).

I kept a loaded gun in the night stand for years. However, with kids on the way it wasn't an option. I think it's a great way to go and have been very impressed with the safe so far! Also, they have great customer support.

It's also good to know that the odds of me coming home and facing my own weapon are much lower now.

 

[torpid]

I loved the Gunvault's concept, but I found it had problems for me in practical use.

My gunvault really ate the batteries (which also were a big pain to change if vault was bolted down on a high surface, due to their placement) and therefore would be dead every few months when you'd go to open it- requiring the key (or a Bic pen ) to open and change the batteries.

I also never liked that there was a key, but you couldn't fill in the keylock with epoxy/glue to disable it, as you needed the keylock to keep changing the damn dead batteries.

The "dead safe" issue was the main reason I wanted to go mechanical, but once the "open with a Bic pen" issue was revealed (and Gunvault's shamefully ignoring all customers- do a search here on THR) I went with a mechanical safe with no lock instead.

After doing some research I got a new safe, and I'm really happy with the Handgun Box safe, and it is WAY sturdier, but there are also other good non-battery ones out there too if you look.

Perhaps Gunvault has finally cleaned up their act, but I've moved on to (in my experience) better alternatives.


(Note- I am in no way affiliated with the makers of the Handgun Box, just happy with the product.)


.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

An inexpensive gun safe can be found for well under $100.

Mine -- made by American Security, I think -- has only push buttons (which can be worked at night, in the dark. Its screwed into the floor with heavy brass screws.

No batteries, not power required.

 

[Linemup]

Mossberg pump

Yes had kids around here for many years too Boat. I like your idea of the Mossberg high in the closet. A shotgun is probably one of the best home defense guns made. And if and intruder is about, there is nothing quite like the sound of pumping the slide to load in a round.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Re: the sound of a shotgun being primed.

I like the idea of this approach, too.

But I like even better the idea of a bad guy not even knowing I'm around, and having absolutely NO WARNING of what might be waiting for him. If you really want to warn them, just say, "I've called the police on my cell phone, and they're on their way..." and say it loudly.

If they're going to leave, they'll leave. If they're not going to leave, I'd rather the bad guy come around a corner looking for me without realizing that I have a loaded weapon ready for him.

I've also started, recently, keeping a set of electronic muffs handy near the gun safe in my bedroom. Not only will it keep me from destroying my hearing if I ever have to shoot, in the house, it also lets me AMPLIFY what sounds there are to be heard. Very useful.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

(entered in error.)

 

[chopinbloc]

"As to the knife. You're better off investing in even a simple alarm system "
that reminds me of an ad i saw on tv for little battery powered alarms for window, drawers and doors. you could mount one on the inside of the nightstand drawer and they make a pretty loud screech when you open the drawer. ought to work just fine and you could put your pistol back in the nightstand.

 

[dfaugh]

Well..

some might call me stupid...But, I've never kept a loaded gun in the house...Even now my kids are older, and capable of using (effectively I might add) any gun I have... I just keep loaded magazines seperate, but handy. I can insert magazine, and work the bolt in a split second. I do have early warning system (dogs) but even so, I've never felt that I needed to keep gun laoded at all times. At most I would keep gun in "condition 3" (mag loaded, chamber empty) or as usually applied to shotguns "cruiser ready".