Do you know wherever guns are stored in your home? Storing guns safely within your house or apartment is extremely important. Guns should always be stored in a way that limits unauthorized access. Guns that are left unsecured could be prime targets for theft or unauthorized "borrowing," plus they can be hazardous if handled by somebody who isn't trained on gun safety concepts. You because the gun's owner have a responsibility to help keep them out of the wrong hands. It is possible that you could be held responsible for bad things that happen because of neglecting to secure your gun. Because of this and to protect yourself from theft, it is just a good idea to keep guns securely stored in your home. There are various approaches for effectively storing guns and keeping them out of the wrong hands. A few solutions are free-standing safes, mini gun safes, and built-in gun room/closet.
Free-standing gun safes are exactly what the name implies. They stand upright by themselves when placed on a level surface, and so are completely enclosed on all sides aside from one door, that can be opened by entering a secret combination. These safes, based on their size and dimensions, can hold between half a dozen and several dozen guns, documents, and valuables. One of the advantages of a free-standing gun safe is that it can also be used to store documents along with other valuables along with guns. The walls of the safes can also sometimes be insulated with a fire-resistant material, that may help protect your guns and valuables in the case of a home fire. Fire resistance ratings for these safes are normally measured in the number of minutes that the safe can withstand the temperature of a fully-involved home fire. You will probably pay several hundred dollars for an entry-level safe which has no fire protection and thin walls. Larger safes and those with fire-resistant qualities can easily cost between $600 and $2,500 dollars, depending on size and fire resistance rating.
Most devices used to store guns, are secured with a mix rather than a key because keys can fall into the wrong hands. Combinations cannot fall into the wrong hands unless they're distributed to others verbally or on paper. However, people might be able to watch over your shoulder and find out what your combination is if they are in exactly the same room and have the opportunity to see you open the safe. Safes could be equipped with mechanical combination locks (usually the lower-cost safes have these) or digital combination locks with a 10-digit keypad. It really is normally possible to re-program these digital combination locks with a fresh combination. If possible, this can be a good idea to change the combination on a gun safe periodically (every 3 months or every time you think that someone might have seen you open it). There are also safes that you can buy which have biometric scanning devices installed on the locking mechanism. These are programmed to learn a finger or thumb print, making them potentially better than other types of locking mechanisms.
"Mini" gun safes are an option for individuals who need quick-access to 1 of these smaller guns, or for many who own just one single gun for home defense. These kinds of safes typically cost between $150 and $300 depending on the type of locking mechanism and degree of security (those that have Biometric scanners will typically cost more). They're typically large enough to hold one full-sized pistol for instance a Ruger GP100, Springfield XD9 or Glock 21. The advantage of this sort of safe is that it's cheaper than a larger safe but nonetheless helps maintain one gun out of your wrong hands. These safes can be found in models that sit on a flat surface and also in models which might be installed on or recessed into a wall.
If you purchase a safe for your home, you should choose the location for it very carefully. You may not want it out on view, as this will advertise to all or any who see it that there is a gun inside; this may encourage break-ins, as thieves would rather steal things that are easily re-sold such as guns and electronic equipment. You need to locate your gun safe in the area or area what your location is probably to be during a break-in, or in the area or area what your location is most likely to go to first when something bad happens. For instance, when there is a central hallway away from exterior doors that you will probably walk down in the event that you hear a noise in the middle of the night, that could be a good spot to mount a recessed mini wall safe (you can even mount this kind of safe in a wall, then hang an image before it if you do not want people to be familiar with it). Consult with your local law enforcement office and find out what forms of break-ins typically happen in your community. Especially ask questions about what time of day break-ins occur. Discover more here may be surprised to find oftentimes that break-ins frequently happen throughout the day rather than in the middle of the night. That information, combined with your knowledge of what times of day you are normally in your home, will have an impact on where you decide to place a quick-access safe. If most break-ins in your town happen during the night, mounting a mini quick-access safe on your bedside table is actually a good idea. In the event that you expect that someone might try to break in while you are at work in your home office where you spend most of your entire day, you then should probably keep carefully the safe in that location.
For an additional level of security, most safes have the ability to be bolted right down to either a floor or perhaps a wall so that they cannot be easily stolen or moved. That is especially important when considering the purchase of a "Mini" gun safe. Since a "Mini" safe could be easily carried away to another location and broken open, it is very important bolt these types of safes securely to a table, wall, or inside a drawer so they can't be stolen or moved as easily.
Another option for security is to secure your guns inside a locked closet or room. Closet doors and interior-room doors within a home are usually flimsy double-wall hollow construction and will not hold up to much abuse. If someone really wants to get through among those doors, they will achieve this without much trouble. However, you can replace a closet door or room door with a strong, solid wood or metal door to make it harder to break in. If this door is then built with an electric push-button combination deadbolt lock (these cost between $100 and $200 and will be purchased from Lowe's or Home Depot), then you have just made yourself a built-in safe. The advantage to the technique is that should you have a lot of guns and possess a downstairs basement room that has concrete walls, you can save some money by converting a spare room to a secure "Gun Room" instead of spending $5,000 to $10,000 on multiple gun safes. The disadvantage to this technique is that you will spend about as much money on a fresh door and door lock as you'll spend on a safe that would hold several dozen guns, and that means you really would have to have plenty of guns for this to create sense financially. There's another consideration - YOU MUSTN'T secure the closet or room door with a keyed lock (keys can be misplaced or left unsecured) and you cannot consider going this route without installing a heavy-duty exterior-style door or commercial-grade steel door. You should not consider doing this to any rooms with windows.
You may also see or hear of gun racks that may be locked or gun racks which have provisions for securing guns by attaching them with cable locks. These kinds of gun racks will be the least secure solution apart from leaving a gun lying around out in the wild. They can easily be taken off walls unless they have been bolted directly into wall studs. Many of these racks are made from wood, which is an easy task to break or cut through. Most usually do not prevent a gun from being loaded or fired even when it is locked in to the rack. There could be some people who believe that this is a secure enough solution for their particular situation, however in general it isn't safe to store guns in a rack, even one that can be locked.
Remember that when considering different solutions, you'll typically get everything you pay for - this is also true when shopping for secure gun storage. The least expensive gun safe is also going to be smaller, weaker and better to break into, and can offer the lowest level of protection from fire damage. Choosing a good brand name is also important, because you desire to buy a quality unit that is not going to malfunction or fail. Some examples of top quality manufacturers are (not in virtually any particular order, which isn't all-inclusive): Sentry, Remington, American Security, Liberty, Patriot Safes, Stack-On, Winchester, Browning, and Barska. Some safe manufacturers will offer you better versions of particular sizes or models than other manufacturers, and some companies may offer certain features while others do not. For example, during this article's writing, companies such as Remington, Browning and American Security are more centered on making larger safes with electronic keypad combination code access, while companies such as Barska offer products which are smaller (holding someone to three pistols) and so are equipped with Biometric fingerprint scanner access control.
Hopefully this information can help you make an informed decision about how and where you can store guns in your house. Remember to talk with all family members about the importance of gun safety and educate them on basic concepts. Everyone should treat every gun as though it were loaded and keep carefully the gun pointed in a safe direction; never point a gun at anybody or anything you usually do not desire to shoot; keep your finger off the trigger; and continue to keep and store guns unloaded and away from ammunition if possible. Establish with all members of the family a procedure for what to do if they find a gun that's not locked up securely, or should they observe that a gun safe isn't completely shut and locked. Normally the very best steps to check out are to leave the area immediately and notify a parent or adult immediately in order to take care of the problem.
You could find out more information, including schedules of course offerings and free training materials, at [http://www.aafirearmstraining.com]. We've trained a huge selection of men, women and children through the years through classroom and online instruction. Follow us on twitter @aafirearmstng and check us out on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/All-American-Firearms-Training-Group-of-Columbus-GA/183355874520. This article was compiled by Patrick Sleem, owner of All American Firearms Trained in Columbus GA. He is a nationally ranked marksman on the Army Reserve Marksmanship Team and something of the "Presidents Hundred," an honor conferred only to the very best 100 competitive target shooters in america at the National Rifle Association's National Championship Match.