Firearm Safety and Storage

Today, I would like to take a minute to talk about firearm storage and safety. This article was inspired by a horrifying incident that happened to Mama about 2 weeks ago. She was at her parents house, which was being inhabited by her brother. Her brother is an avid firearm owner and owns a number of handguns and long rifles. This never really struck us as odd because he had attended the proper safety classes and had even made references to having a concealed carry permit. This is what we thought, until Mama went with baby to the house to help in the moving out process. Baby was walking/crawling around when she saw a plastic drawer set, so she crawled over to it and pulled the drawers out. Fortunately Mama was watching Baby closely and notices the two handguns in the drawer that baby pulled out. Mama checked them and found that not only were they loaded, but they had a round in the chamber and the safety was off. Hopefully this horrifies most of our readers and they can pick out the flaws with this situation, but just in case, I am going to take a few moments and discuss some of the points of firearm storage and safety for any house.

The first step to firearm safety is proper firearm storage. A firearm should almost never be stored with ammunition loaded, or with a round in the chamber, and should never be stored with the safety off. Some may argue that it takes time to load, chamber, and take the safety off, and that those seconds are precious in a time when you must react to a threat. I will discuss this topic in a later article. Below is a picture of a properly cleared shotgun. Notice how the magazine is empty, the chamber is open and the weapon is on safe. 

    In addition to clearing and placing a firearm on safe, a firearm should be locked when not in use. There are many different kinds of locks available, from trigger locks, to chamber locks, locking gun cases, and even firearm safes. All of these are safe when used appropriately. Our family uses chamber locks that are essentially padlocks that use a cable rather than a hook, the cable is threaded through the chamber so that a round cannot be chambered. In addition to this method we also keep our firearms out of reach for a child. Our firearms are stored in a high place that a child under the age of 10 could not get to without the help of a step stool of some kind.

    The third part to our firearm safety plan is to keep the ammunition separate from the firearms. Many people do this by storing their ammunition in a separate location out of the reach of children, others do it by keeping their ammunition in their gun safe. We went with a secure, yet low budget option of storing our ammunition in military ammo cans and locking the front of it with a cable lock similar to what we secure our firearms with. The advantage of the ammo can is that it can be locked, it is supposed to be water and air tight, and it has a handle for easy transportation. This keeps our ammunition safe, allows it to last longer, and keeps it ready for transportation should the need arise. 

    As many of you know all too well, there are people in this nation that feel that firearms are too dangerous of the public to own. It is our duty to store our firearms in a safe way, so that our children, our friends and families children and anyone else who should not have access to our firearms, cannot easily obtain use of our firearms.