I have been trained to have at least one reload on my person from day one. Unfortunately this is somewhat difficult in boxers. I want to keep a spare magazine on my nightstand but I'm concerned about it just laying in the open, I prefer to keep it in a mag pouch but I want to be able to access it one handed.
do you store a spare magazine on your nightstand? If so how?
Thank you
I usually have a bunch of different spare magazines and speedloaders & speedstrips in a "nightstand drawer", but they're there for availability as I may decide to use them as "spares" when wearing one or another of my common retirement weapons.
Yes, when I may leave one of my CCW pistol choices available against the unlikely need to access it during the night, I've sometimes placed a spare magazine (usually in a spare carrier) next to it. When it's one of my 5-shot snubs or LCP's that have been carried during the day/evening, and they're left out of the safe against the unlikely need for having a weapon during the night, I don't usually place a speedloader/strip or spare mag with them.
Before I retired, and my children were grown or had left home, I'd often leave my duty weapon outside the safe, alongside my double or single spare mag carrier (I carried either at one time or another, in my plainclothes duties), but that was mostly so it was available when I got ready to return to work. If I felt like carrying a different weapon on my days off, I'd usually leave a single or double mag carrier next to the holstered pistol (or spare ammo when I commonly carried one or another full-size revolver, like going back to my issued revolver days).
Naturally, when there are minor children in the house (children or grand children) some common sense and caution has to be used when it comes to safe storage concerns and unauthorized access to firearms by minor children.
Some folks seem to have a preference for a designated "HD weapon". Me? Not so much. It's usually either whatever I've been wearing, or plan to wear the next day. The few times I've actually thought there was an increased potential for a threat (based on news or knowledge I'd learned via LE sources), I went to the safe and pulled either my Rem 870 or Colt HBAR to keep available.
One time I learned there was an outstanding armed suspect who had fled into the foothills near our area in a semi-rural part of our community. The suspect, along with some others, had just been engaged in a shooting incident with the area's drug task force, at a "grow" in the nearby harder to reach area of the hills, and was possibly in possession of a select-fire weapon and body armor when he fled in the general direction of our semi-rural part of the community. I removed the AR from the safe after securing the doors and windows of the residence, turning on the outside illumination. It was returned to the safe when the suspect was no longer outstanding. I did NOT use it to "inspect" the rear orchard and sheds on our property. That would be a job for the local SO, if they believed the suspect might've made it as far as our property.
I did my job at my work, and would willingly invite them to do the same at my place when I wasn't "working".
Yes, shooting a LOUD shotgun or rifle anywhere indoors is LOUD, and is a serious health hazard regarding hearing damage, but that's why having hearing protection is a good thing, especially with the advent and increasingly affordability of electronically enhanced hearing protection (which also lets you better hear ambient sounds, such as a potential threat close by, making it potentially doubly advantageous).
