The topic of conversation has come up in our relative domain in regards to my collection of firearms and the inherent safety. My view is this, kids are some pretty sharp cookies and can put together just about anything. I've lost some sleep over this, but have gotten nowhere. Do you own firearms? How do you store them safely until respect for them can be known? Did you get rid of them? We have nightstand weapons on both sides, but this will even become a problem early on in the game. I'm thinking gun safe, she's at a loss. What's a guy to do? Any help would be appreciated.

Well, I can tell you this much. My 19 month old son has already disabled every child-proof lock in the house. He's figured out the gate at the top of our stairs & it's not long before he's strong enough to get that open as well. That all being said, I believe you can NEVER be too safe when it comes to something like guns, knives, etc. It shocks me how much smarter (& sneakier) he is at this age than I could have ever imagined.<br><br>This isn't about the right to own guns, it's about never having to live with the outcome of what could God forbid happen. I hope you can find a truly safe place to store your firearms, but please don't underestimate how quickly kids can get into anything. I was a pretty resourceful child myself. When I was only a few years old, I had already found the key to the liquor cabinet, found something to step on to reach it (it was very high up), & un-locked it and drank quite a bit before my parents found me. Luckily, I was ok. Imagine if that was a gun that had been locked up instead of alcohol.<br><br>Good luck to you! Be safe!

If you are a female of child bearing age, the only way to guarantee that you will not become pregnant is if you abstain from sex.<br><br>And the only way to guarantee that someone will not get shot in your home with your gun is to abstain from having a gun.<br><br>While both of these issues have subtle philosophical and political intricacies, the gun issue in my house is pretty cut and dried. No Gun No Bang.<br><br>I support the right of individuals to bear arms, and will teach my children to properly and safely use firearms when they are older. However, I choose not to have firearms in my home with young children . No matter how careful you are, weird shit can happen.<br><br>A former student of mine was shot and killed two months ago cleaning his gun. Very sad.

I used to belong to a firing range and collected firearms (gave it up and sold all of them because it was too expensive to get all the permits to continue to use them here in Canada).<br><br>Safe storage was always a big concern for me. I had a safe where I kept all of my firearms and I always kept the ammunition in a separate locked container in a different place. They always had trigger locks on them, including when they were locked in their gun cases and kept in the safe.<br><br>Whenever I didn't use one for a long period of time, I used to remove the firing mechanism of the semi automatics to ease tension on the springs and to prevent condensation causing rust.<br><br>Other types of locks are available to make different firearms unusable.<br><br>I short I always had 3 levels or more of safety in place; trigger lock, case lock, gun safe and lastly no storing ammunition in the same safe with the firearms.

I've never been a gun proponent, but we do have a handgun we keep in our safe locked away. Now, it'll technically be safe from our child, unless of course someday our sharp cookie finds the hidden safe key. But my question is also what's the gun's value to us locked up in a safe, that by the time we got it out to protect our family, we could all be hurt or killed? For now we're keeping it and keeping it in the safe. I agree with Daddy Brad, though - No Gun No Bang.

We don't have a gun in our house, but I've considered getting one. I've already decided that I would definitely need to figure out the best gunsafe solution before getting an actual gun. So I've carefully considered the question that you posit, Daddy K,....i.e. what good is a gun it if it's hard to get in an emergency..??<br><br>A few weeks ago I was at the local locksmith and he was displaying a gunsafe that I think actually makes sense. It's about the size of a lunchbox, and it is designed to bolt to the underside of the bedframe. You can only open it with the correct numeric combination. And the numeric keypad is molded in to the shape of a human hand. The idea is that you could reach under your bed in the dark and tap out the combination using touch only.<br><br>Of course, as Daddy Brad points out, weird stuff happens. And I certainly wonder if I could really trust this electronic lock, which obviously has a software element, with my kid's life.<br><br>What do other people think about this particular gun safe solution?

The no gun, no bang concept is the certainly the safest when it comes to the firearm itself.<br><br>However, either emergency is tragic... needing to protect your family and not having the option, or being able to get to it... OR the tragedy of losing a loved one because you had a gun in the house... YIKES.<br><br>I guess I'll take my chances with my deadbolts and window locks. Definitely considering the security system though.

I've looked in to these security systems for other applications (i.e. not in my home). Note my use of quotations.<br><br>The type installed by ADT, et al are basically just a total scam. The criminal enters the house, hears the alarm, and either rips the unit off the wall or picks up any phone extension. Either action prevents the security system from ever dialing out to notify anyone. Total waste. And now the criminal is pissed, and knows the cops are not coming (and you don't have a gun). These systems are really bad news.<br><br>A couple of things you can do to prevent this: (1) silent alarm so criminal doesn't even realize he has tripped anything, and the system has time to call the police (2) alarm system connected to hidden cell phone transceiver (very expensive option) or (3) zero delay alarm.<br><br>The zero delay alarm dials as soon as the alarm is tripped. Note that ADT, et al, will refuse to install a zero delay alarm because there are too many false alarms and it would cost ADT too much money to answer all those phone calls.<br><br>There are many security professionals who believe that systems like those installed by ADT are actually worse than nothing at all.

By the way....if anyone would like to *really* get freaked out, Google lock bumping. Or watch: dont' say I didn't warn ya....!

Holy chit! That's indeed scary.<br><br>I wonder how long it will be before OnStar-Home Edition is established. (ya heard it here first)

I'm not a big gun proponent either, but if you're going to have one in the house - presumably for the sake of protection - what would be the point in it being unloaded with the bullets stored separately? But then you deal with the very real safety risk that accompanies a loaded gun within your house. And then there's this little nagging feeling I have that if the need for me to use a gun arose, I'd likely be rattled so fiercely, I couldn't hit the side of a barn - although I probably could manage to blow my own big toe off quite nicely. No gun, no bang makes a lot of sense to me.<br><br>By the way, after reading just a couple of weeks ago about a local 5 year-old boy who shot himself in the face with his Dad's handgun, I'm prompted to go so far as to say that handguns should simply be banned. Now yes, that Dad should be strung up by his giblets, but we don't live in a society where things that ought to happen do happen as often as needed.<br><br>So, I believe that we should ban handguns from the citizenry. Sure, law enforcement officers, military personnel, and other emergency responder types have very legitimate need for these, but citizens do not. Sure, let's uphold our 2nd Amendment right to keep & bear arms - but only rifles or similar form-factor legal firearms. Seems like this could go a long ways towards ensuring that a great number of senseless shootings or random crimes never have the opportunity to occur...

CCertainly appears to be working in other countries (look at gun violence to population ratios)... but it'll never happen here. The NRA is huge...<br><br>I don't get the opposition to gun regulations and laws. To me, only the irresponsible gun owners and criminals have anything to lose by regulating gun sales and requiring training.

I think I could make a pretty convincing argument that we have a much higher ratio of gun violence than other countries because our country has chosen to create a very dangerous black market for plants....errrr....maijuana....

Uhhhh....they tried this in the District of Columbia for like 20 years, and the city remained one the most violent cities in the nation, per capita.<br><br>Just recently the Supreme Court ruled that their handgun ban was unconstitutional. Can't wait to see the crime statistics in a year or two, and see if crime goes up or down. It will be a very, very interesting real-world test.