Before I had kids, I’d put a 1911 on my night stand and go to sleep knowing I had a weapon that I could fight my way to my shotgun with.
And while my kids weren’t walking around too much, I kept with that system, but moved the pistol into the drawer. However, every now and then, my then-three year old would come into our room in the middle of the night. I wasn't worried about shooting him, I became concerned that he is just too darn quiet. He doesn’t raise the hue and cry of the dogs, and he doesn’t call out. He just gets up and pads on in. Sometimes he crawls into bed, and others he’ll gently shake me or Mom and whisper something about monsters or whatever. We thought about closing the door, but we'd have to lock it, and we both disliked that option for reasons of the dogs, cats, and getting the door thumped on is even more startling than encountering my son.
Anyways, he started doing this about six months ago, so it prompted a discussion about the night stand gun. With the night sights on it, arguably it is something that could be toyed with in the dark. So I went and tried every quick access safe I could get a hand on. I settled on a Gun Vault.
I hate it. There is nothing wrong with the safe, it is more that the concept doesn’t work for me. Some nights I’d wake up, and just to see it work under “real world conditions†fumble with the safe for what seemed an eternity, only to realize I was blowing the sequence while coming to alert status. I don’t see how another product short of one with biometrics would do any better. I have looked into biometrics and I am always put off by the fact that they come with “emergency override keys.†The vault is now for locking up my CCW for when I encounter forbidden territory.
So I have employed a new night stand weapon and strategy altogether. I took my Mossberg out of the big safe and mounted it on the wall above the inside of the closet door with two cut down bicycle hooks so that I just pop it up and off and I am good to go.
A Ka-Bar Black Fighter now resides on the night stand, a proverbial black cat in a dark room which is still a very easy knife to index by touch and certainly more than lethal enough for anything short of certain bears.
Am I wrong to not be losing any sleep over the switch? It has been about four months now and not having the pistol on or in the night stand seems to bother me not at all. Sure it is conceivable that I might be taking a knife to a gun fight if said fight begins in my bedroom, but we certainly feel better about our now four year old wandering son who is not reliably “gun-proofed†yet, (not for lack of trying, but for his age), and the shotgun, a much more potent weapon, is only two strides, and no combination, away.
And while my kids weren’t walking around too much, I kept with that system, but moved the pistol into the drawer. However, every now and then, my then-three year old would come into our room in the middle of the night. I wasn't worried about shooting him, I became concerned that he is just too darn quiet. He doesn’t raise the hue and cry of the dogs, and he doesn’t call out. He just gets up and pads on in. Sometimes he crawls into bed, and others he’ll gently shake me or Mom and whisper something about monsters or whatever. We thought about closing the door, but we'd have to lock it, and we both disliked that option for reasons of the dogs, cats, and getting the door thumped on is even more startling than encountering my son.
Anyways, he started doing this about six months ago, so it prompted a discussion about the night stand gun. With the night sights on it, arguably it is something that could be toyed with in the dark. So I went and tried every quick access safe I could get a hand on. I settled on a Gun Vault.
I hate it. There is nothing wrong with the safe, it is more that the concept doesn’t work for me. Some nights I’d wake up, and just to see it work under “real world conditions†fumble with the safe for what seemed an eternity, only to realize I was blowing the sequence while coming to alert status. I don’t see how another product short of one with biometrics would do any better. I have looked into biometrics and I am always put off by the fact that they come with “emergency override keys.†The vault is now for locking up my CCW for when I encounter forbidden territory.
So I have employed a new night stand weapon and strategy altogether. I took my Mossberg out of the big safe and mounted it on the wall above the inside of the closet door with two cut down bicycle hooks so that I just pop it up and off and I am good to go.
A Ka-Bar Black Fighter now resides on the night stand, a proverbial black cat in a dark room which is still a very easy knife to index by touch and certainly more than lethal enough for anything short of certain bears.
Am I wrong to not be losing any sleep over the switch? It has been about four months now and not having the pistol on or in the night stand seems to bother me not at all. Sure it is conceivable that I might be taking a knife to a gun fight if said fight begins in my bedroom, but we certainly feel better about our now four year old wandering son who is not reliably “gun-proofed†yet, (not for lack of trying, but for his age), and the shotgun, a much more potent weapon, is only two strides, and no combination, away.