My DW is anti-gun leaning......buys into the misinformation and her liberal NE upbringing.
Anyway, when we got together....against my better judgement she insisted that they be locked up. Ultimately I bought this lockbox for my large revolver many years ago. It's a basic key lock, box and built more like a tank then anything else I've ever seen like it. Heavy and stout...and it has a secret puzzle way of getting into it without a key. By far the best built and best engineered pistol box I've ever seen, and very secure. Sadly, some years later when I went to buy a second one for my smaller CC handgun the company was no more and there were none to be found anyplace. So I ended up going with a Liberty Safe HD-100. Opted against the biometric locks. That was several years back though, maybe they're better now. The HD-100 is probably not perfect but I feel like it's pretty good.
The thing that concerns me most though, since i don't open the box regularly I fear that if I ever do need to get in I'll be rattled and won't remember the combination. That's where biometric makes a lot of sense.
Anyway, the locked up thing bothers me, but with kids in my house, and visiting kids coming over from time to time I do feel better about them being both hidden and locked.
I don't know why I did not think about the transition to a no kid situation. Do you 'under the pillow' folks just make it part of a checklist to move the gun to a locked status when, say, the toddler niece and nephew visit once a year? Or would it be best to 'train like you fight' and just leave it locked if there is ever a chance you need to put the weapon under lock?
I grew up around dad's guns, hunting, had my own bb gun at this point, cap guns, playing cowboys, playing army, etc.....but was a suburban kid. When I was a young kid, early elementary age, very young at this point
went to visit my grandparents who lived on a farm way out about 50 miles outside of the boonies limits in the mountains of Eastern KY. TV reception was non-existent and so us kids would sit around the living room at night listening to the old folks talk. I was sitting on the floor next to the sofa end table and spotted a revolver lying on the floor...probably a .38 as I think back on it....just right out in the wide open just centered under the table. No effort to hide it. Why would there be?...Grandparents didn't have young kids that don't know about guns living at home, or even visiting often. Well I guess I thought it was a cap gun and I had the great idea that I was going to wake up this boring party....so I picked up the gun and pointed it up to the ceiling. Was pulling the trigger when dad and grandpa both moved simultaneously about as fast as they probably ever had, yelling Nooooo!..stopped me just in time from punching a hole into that tin roof and busting some eardrums!
I think that my exposure to toy guns played a big role in that mistake...but at least even at that age I knew to point the muzzle in a safe direction.
