Local Gun Shop vs. Home Security of Guns?

[Solomonson]

I was in a typical local gun shop today at lunch. While waiting I thought about how much of an effort it would be to take all the firearms on display (perhaps 200 long guns and 200 sidearms) and put them into a safe at night. I asked the owner and he said that he doesn't do that.

That made me look around and I did notice the windows were barred, the entrance had two sets of doors -- the glass doors I have always noticed and the steel doors that close over them when the shop is closed.. He also has an alarm system, video, and he chains his parking lot. It also happens to be a low-crime town.

I should note he does keep four and five figure firearms in a safe, along with customer-owned firearms because they demand it.

Back in the day, people often did that in their own homes. Many times they had nice, beautiful gun cabinets in their living rooms, parlors or studies. Some people even had secured gun rooms -- usually spare bedrooms.

Today though, if you don't keep your guns in a safe, you're not only a fool in the eyes of some, you're also being negligent. While I appreciate the fire protection aspect of safes and realize that in some cases, people HAVE to keep their guns locked-up (children, loonies, etc.) I also recognize the joy of being surrounded by one's collection on display -- whether or not its shared with others.

Have we fell victim to the demands of political correctness and/or the slick marketing of safes at least to some degree? This really makes me wonder...

 

[Hanzo581]

Having a young child I have all my guns in a locked cabinet, with only one loaded in a quick access lockbox. I personally do it because (outside of keeping out of the reach of my kid), while I know anything can be broken into, I want to slow down a thief that may break into my home while I am away. I have an alarm, but I think we all know response times. My biggest fear is having one of my weapons used to harm an innocent person.

 

[Hokkmike]

The term "fool" applied to anyone without a gun safe is an unwise generalization.

 

[1911 guy]

Part of the direct comparison between home and business is just that, business. Gun shops will have insurance to cover the loss completely and an immaculate record of exactly what was taken. Most people don't bother to record serial numbers.

The average private individual has insurance to cover a portion of the loss, little to no records and doesn't want to put bars on their windows. We take what measures we can. For some people, a safe or RSC is a good option. But it's not the answer for everyone. Evaluate your actual risk, what measures will not be so onerous you eventually discard them. For the majority of gun owners, security is putting a shotgun and .22 rifle in the closet, maybe a handgun in a dresser drawer and keeping ammo separately if there are kids around.

 

[Solomonson]

Part of the direct comparison between home and business is just that, business. Gun shops will have insurance to cover the loss completely and an immaculate record of exactly what was taken. Most people don't bother to record serial numbers.

I don't think that's true in the least. I think those that go through the trouble and expense of buying a gun safe also keep immaculate records (including S/N's if possible, pictures and receipts) and plenty of insurance to replace their firearms should they be stolen.

The average private individual has insurance to cover a portion of the loss, little to no records and doesn't want to put bars on their windows. We take what measures we can. For some people, a safe or RSC is a good option. But it's not the answer for everyone. Evaluate your actual risk, what measures will not be so onerous you eventually discard them. For the majority of gun owners, security is putting a shotgun and .22 rifle in the closet, maybe a handgun in a dresser drawer and keeping ammo separately if there are kids around.

It would only take bars on one room of a house in most cases. Bars which could not be seen from the street.

 

[1911 guy]

And what percentage of gun owners own a safe? Small. Those that do own a safe likely do have serial numbers, but most gun owners do not.

As far as bars on one room of a house, that is akin to locking only one door of your car. Rather pointless.

 

[Solomonson]

And what percentage of gun owners own a safe? Small. Those that do own a safe likely do have serial numbers, but most gun owners do not.

As far as bars on one room of a house, that is akin to locking only one door of your car. Rather pointless.

I think a fair number of gun enthusiasts own gun safes. A fair number of just plain gun owners too -- be they top of the line safes, built-in safes, el cheapo Costco safes, single pistol safes, etc., etc.

Bars on one room of a house could be extremely effective depending on how difficult or easy it is to otherwise break into the room. In simpler terms if the room's other point(s) of entry were hardened, the room could become extremely secure. "Pointless"? No.

 

[hdwhit]

Solomonson wrote:
That made me look around and I did notice the windows were barred, the entrance had two sets of doors -- the glass doors I have always noticed and the steel doors that close over them when the shop is closed..

In essence, the entire gun store was itself a safe.

Have we fell victim to the demands of political correctness and/or the slick marketing of safes...

I don't think so.

We used to have wood and glass gun cabinets that displayed guns without securing them. When the kids broke in the tragic results didn't make the cut to be on the Huntley-Brinkley Report. But then CNN happened. And Bono happened. And we got a clear unambiguous message about how leaving guns where kids (or burglars) could easily get them was little more than inviting tragedy. It's like having an unfenced pool in the backyard.

There's no reason why you couldn't take a room in your house and do what the gun store did; essentially turn it into a walk-in safe. Of course, that would make the room look like a gun store and you would have to lock it up every time you left and that might get old pretty fast.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

I grew up with family homes having guns on open racks over the fire place and guns in simple glass door cabinets. I find it appalling that the anti gun culture has tried to force, and has even convinced some gun owners that we need to have a safe within a safe within a safe within our homes to secure our firearms.

Your HOME is your CASTLE. We do the best we can to secure it but in a worst case scenario if someone gets in, to the victor goes the spoils.

I don't think most folks take their $1k+ flat screen off the wall at night to put it in a safe, nor do they take all of their knives out of the kitchen and "secure" them when they go to bed.

If you want to have a safe in a bunker below a panic room in your home that's cool. But I don't look down on the guy that keeps his firearms in a classy glassed front cabinet.

 

[jmr40]

My safe's are primarily to keep guns away from my grand kids and years ago kids. They would only slow down a thief. I could have invested in a better safe and other measures, but you can quickly spend nearly as much as the guns are worth.

It would be impractical for most gun shops to lock guns in a safe when closed. But most have pretty good security measures. You hear about smash and grab thefts at times. But almost all of those people are caught pretty fast. Usually within days and often hours.

 

[Solomonson]

I grew up with family homes having guns on open racks over the fire place and guns in simple glass door cabinets. I find it appalling that the anti gun culture has tried to force, and has even convinced some gun owners that we need to have a safe within a safe within a safe within our homes to secure our firearms.

Your HOME is your CASTLE. We do the best we can to secure it but in a worst case scenario if someone gets in, to the victor goes the spoils.

I don't think most folks take their $1k+ flat screen off the wall at night to put it in a safe, nor do they take all of their knives out of the kitchen and "secure" them when they go to bed.

If you want to have a safe in a bunker below a panic room in your home that's cool. But I don't look down on the guy the keeps his firearms in a classy glassed front cabinet.

VERY refreshing point of view. Thank you. As a kid -- beginning as a little kid I used to be blown away by the gun cabinets on display in neighbors', relatives' and friends' homes. I remember a local CPA that had 15 guns (imagine that! LOL!) in his cabinet.

I think something has been lost as you suggest. A part of Americana.

 

[Zerodefect]

I have a lit vertical glass display case for my pretty stuff. But there's something missing.......

Firing pins.

 

[Mn Fats]

I know of 3 guys who got broken in to with gun cabinets and lost all their firearms. One was just a guy talking about his guns at Walmart and got followed home. This is in rural Minnesota too, nice and quiet. I have a few big cannon safes. Even then I feel a couple big guys could remove them while I'm at work. If there was a big safe to put my safes in, I'd have it. Its not a conspiracy of marketing or gun owners telling other gun owners what to do. Its the world we now live in.

 

[pintler]

"In simpler terms if the room's other point(s) of entry were hardened, the room could become extremely secure."

Most interior walls are two sheets of drywall; you can kick your way through them and step between the studs in short order.

Once you bring cordless tools (or sledgehammers) into the equation, exterior walls, floors, and ceilings aren't much more secure.

 

[dbmjr1]

I have a RSC. It's bolted to the slab using anchors, in a closet where it would be difficult to use a pry bar.
I can't fit all of my firearms in the RSC, so I store some bolt actions in the same closet, with the bolts removed and placed in the RSC.
I know that my inexpensive RSC won't stop a determined thief. That's not my goal.
I only want to slow them down.
I have a monitored alarm system. The police will be notified once the alarm sounds. They'll have to break into the RSC while a very LOUD siren SCREAMS, knowing the police are on the way.
My alternate line of defense is attack kitties. They are specially trained to rub up against intruders and purr.

 

[bassjam]

It's really all about insurance. Are you a person that always gets full coverage vs liability, or an expensive life insurance policy, and the best health insurance? A gun safe is just another layer over your homeowners policy. All I ever had was a cheap stamped steel Homak safe that I never even bothered to lock. It was just a cabinet that was essentially a dust cover that stored my firearms.

A few things changed that. My 8 gun safe contained many more than that and was pretty stuffed, so I needed either a second one or something larger. Then, I happened to work from home a few days and noticed more than one odd instances where cars/trucks that didn't belong came down my long driveway, and quickly left when I came outside (I did make sure to visibly hold up my cellphone and take a pic of their vehicle). And lastly, kids came into the picture. A decent, large safe seemed like a good idea since I needed a new place to store my firearms anyway. But that's what makes me feel comfortable, I really don't care what others do. I live in a rural area but I'm still the type of person that always locks my truck at night when its sitting in the driveway. And not only do I write down the serial numbers of my guns, I also have that recorded for all my tools (chain saws, generator, power tools, etc). I don't live in a high crime area, but I still have heard of way too many break-ins over the years to risk anything.

 

[.308 Norma]

I grew up with family homes having guns on open racks over the fire place and guns in simple glass door cabinets. I find it appalling that the anti gun culture has tried to force, and has even convinced some gun owners that we need to have a safe within a safe within a safe within our homes to secure our firearms.

Your HOME is your CASTLE. We do the best we can to secure it but in a worst case scenario if someone gets in, to the victor goes the spoils.

I don't think most folks take their $1k+ flat screen off the wall at night to put it in a safe, nor do they take all of their knives out of the kitchen and "secure" them when they go to bed.

If you want to have a safe in a bunker below a panic room in your home that's cool. But I don't look down on the guy the keeps his firearms in a classy glassed front cabinet.

Good Ol' Boy, I wish I could have clicked "like" twice, or a dozen times! That's exactly what it was like in the home where I grew up - dad and mom's guns, and even my guns (after I got my first one for my 10th birthday) were on display on a couple of gun racks. And the ammo was handy. Most of it was in the bottom of a fancy gun cabinet dad had tried to build. He was a great guy, not much of a wood-worker though, so the gun cabinet never did get finished.
At any rate, that's pretty much how our two daughters grew up also, except we've never had room on our walls for gun racks. So we keep most of them in locked cabinets in a couple of closets. But our daughters always knew where the keys to the cabinets were. And they knew where the "not locked up" guns were too. Just like my siblings and I did, our daughters lived though it. One of them is even an avid big game hunter now, and I posted in another thread how she showed up her old dad about a month ago by buying a better 9mm for concealed carry than he had.
I'm sure many rabid "lock them up" advocates will disagree, but I believe the way to keep children safe around guns is to teach them early on how to safely handle and use guns. As far as that "$1K+" television thing goes though - I agree, except we don't have one, and a couple of our guns are the most valuable (dollar wise) things we have in the house. I wouldn't want to lose them, but honest to goodness - that's why I pay for insurance! I know, some guns have more sentimental value than dollar value. We have some of those too. But I'm 69 years old and my wife is not far behind. The "sentiments" we have for some of our guns aren't going to be around for too many more years, and they're not totally transferable to our daughters. Then they'll lose even more of their sentimental value if and when our daughters pass them to our grandsons.

 

[HOWARD J]

I purchased a gun safe when I had my business in Detriot.
When I moved to another city I kept my safe as my relatives thought that everything I owned was theirs also.
I felt so bad that I made sure that I went to all their funerals.
All of them.

 

[Solomonson]

"In simpler terms if the room's other point(s) of entry were hardened, the room could become extremely secure."

Most interior walls are two sheets of drywall; you can kick your way through them and step between the studs in short order.

Once you bring cordless tools (or sledgehammers) into the equation, exterior walls, floors, and ceilings aren't much more secure.

If the door/windows couldn't be breached, it would take a good 10 minutes to cut through a bedroom wall in my house. Enough time for the cops to respond if no one else was around.

 

[Sunray]

"...windows were barred, the entrance had..." And there's very likely an alarm system. Business solutions are not the same as residential solutions.
We always speculated that a smash and grab thief in the shop years ago would get cut in half by the top part of the window coming down. Until some thief smashed a 2 foot hole in the 8ish by 8ish(big store front window) window and took the replica MP-40 displayed there.
"...everything I owned was theirs also..." Happens with tools and camping kit too. And the stuff that I left in my ma's house that disappeared after she died.

 

[Walkalong]

Have we fell victim to the demands of political correctness

No, we have just adjusted to today's society. It is both smart and responsible for us to lock up our guns. If you want to keep some out for display, go ahead, but don't cry if they get stolen, and I hope you would be able to sleep nights not worrying about them being used for crime, and at worst, killing.

IMHO, it is simply irresponsible not to keep weapons locked up.

But it is a decision everyone must make for themselves.

 

[entropy]

I have a lit vertical glass display case for my pretty stuff. But there's something missing.......

Firing pins.

Like they can't get a hold of those anywhere. It'd be an annoyance at most.

 

[Hardtarget]

For years I kept my seven long guns and two handguns in a cabinet...nice glass front my dad made. My kids knew the rule, so everything went well. They started hunting...more guns. I developed additional interest...more guns. In comes a safe. They've married and moved on...but I need a second safe. Nothing will stop a determined thief. It just slows them a little. I did like to turn on the light and see those rifles lined up in behind the glass. Kind of miss that.

Mark

 

[JR24]

When I do my basement remodel I fully intend to build a vault room for my guns and reloading equipment.

Until then they get to live in the safes.

 

[Hanzo581]

Like they can't get a hold of those anywhere. It'd be an annoyance at most.

I'm picturing a gangbanger on brownells website looking at an exploded schematic of whatever gun trying to figure out what piece is missing and why their stolen gun goesn't work.

Yeah, if it doesn't fire it's getting tossed in a lake.