Do you know wherever guns are stored in your house? Storing guns safely within your house or apartment is really important. Guns must always be stored in a way that limits unauthorized access. Guns that are left unsecured can be prime targets for theft or unauthorized borrowing, and they can be hazardous if handled by a person who is not trained on gun safety concepts. You because the gun's owner have a responsibility to help keep them out of your wrong hands. It is possible you could be held responsible for bad items that happen because of neglecting to secure your gun. That is why and to protect yourself from theft, it is just a good idea to help keep guns securely stored in your house. There are various techniques for effectively storing guns and keeping them from the wrong hands. Several solutions are free-standing safes, mini gun safes, and built-in gun room/closet. Free-standing gun safes are just what the name implies. They stand upright on their own when placed on an even surface, and are completely enclosed on all sides except for one door, that may be opened by entering a secret combination. These safes, depending on their size and dimensions, can take between half a dozen and many dozen guns, documents, and valuables. Among the benefits of a free-standing gun safe is that it is also used to store documents along with other valuables along with guns. The walls of these safes may also sometimes be insulated with a fire-resistant material, which can help protect your guns and valuables regarding a house 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 can expect to pay several hundred dollars for an entry-level safe which has no fire protection and thin walls. Larger safes and the ones with fire-resistant qualities can simply 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 key because keys can belong to the incorrect hands. Combinations cannot belong to the wrong hands unless they're distributed to others verbally or on paper. However, people might be able to watch over your shoulder and figure out what your combination is if they are in exactly the same room and have the opportunity to see you open the safe. Safes can be built with mechanical combination locks (usually the lower-cost safes have these) or digital combination locks with a 10-digit keypad. It is normally possible to re-program these digital combination locks with a fresh combination. If possible, it is just a good idea to improve 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 out there which have biometric scanning devices installed on the locking mechanism. These are programmed to learn a finger or thumb print, making them potentially more secure than other styles of locking mechanisms. Mini gun safes are an option for individuals who need quick-access to one of these smaller guns, or for individuals who own only one gun for home defense. These types of safes typically cost between $150 and $300 depending on the type of locking mechanism and level of security (those that have Biometric scanners will typically cost more). They are typically large enough to carry one full-sized pistol for instance a Ruger GP100, Springfield XD9 or Glock 21. The benefit of this type of safe is that it's cheaper when compared to a larger safe but still helps keep one gun out from the wrong hands. These safes can be purchased in models that sit on a flat surface and also in models that may be mounted on or recessed into a wall. If you buy a safe for your home, you should pick the location for it very carefully. You may not want it out in the open, as this can advertise to all who see it that there surely 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 should locate your gun safe in the room or area what your location is probably to be during a break-in, or in the area or area where you are most likely to go to first when something bad happens. For instance, if you have a central hallway from exterior doors that you'll most likely walk down if you hear a noise in the center of the night, that could be a good spot to mount a recessed mini wall safe (also you can mount this sort of safe in a wall, then hang an image before it if you don't want people to be aware of it). Check with your local law enforcement office and find out what forms of break-ins typically happen in your community. Especially ask questions in what time of day break-ins occur. You may well be surprised to find oftentimes that break-ins frequently happen throughout the day rather than in the center of the night time. That information, combined with your knowledge of what times of day you're normally at home, will have an impact on where you decide to place a quick-access safe. If most break-ins in your area happen at night, mounting a mini quick-access safe on your bedside table could be a good idea. If you expect that someone might try to break in while you are at work in your home office where you may spend most of your entire day, then you should probably keep carefully the safe in that location. For an additional level of security, most safes have the ability to be bolted down to either a floor or a wall so that they can't be easily stolen or moved. This is especially important when considering the purchase of a Mini gun safe. Since Shotguns could be easily carried away to some other location and broken open, you should bolt these types of safes securely to a table, wall, or in the drawer so that they cannot be stolen or moved as easily. Another option for security would be to secure your guns inside a locked closet or room. Closet doors and interior-room doors within a home are typically flimsy double-wall hollow construction and can not endure to much abuse. If someone really wants to get through among those doors, they will do so without much trouble. However, you can replace a closet door or room door with a solid, solid wood or metal door to create it harder to break in. If this door is then built with an electronic push-button combination deadbolt lock (these cost between $100 and $200 and will be purchased from Lowe's or Home Depot), you then 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, it is possible to stretch your budget by converting a spare room to a secure Gun Room rather than spending $5,000 to $10,000 on multiple gun safes. The disadvantage to the technique is that you'll spend about just as much money on a fresh door and door lock as you'll devote to a safe that could hold a few dozen guns, and that means you really would need to have plenty of guns for this to create sense financially. There is 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 achieving this to any rooms with windows. You may even see or hear of gun racks which can 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 removed from walls unless they have been bolted directly into wall studs. Many of these racks are manufactured from wood, which is an easy task to break or cut through. Most do not prevent a gun from being loaded or fired even though it is locked into the rack. There could be some people who believe that this is a secure enough solution because of their particular situation, but in general it is not safe to store guns in a rack, even one that can be locked. Remember that when looking at different solutions, you'll typically get everything you pay for - this is especially true when shopping for secure gun storage. The lowest priced gun safe is also likely to be smaller, weaker and easier to break into, and will offer the lowest level of protection from fire damage. Selecting a good brand name is also important, because you desire to purchase a quality unit that is not going to malfunction or fail. A few examples of good 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 some do not. For example, during this article's writing, companies such as for example Remington, Browning and American Security tend to be more focused on making larger safes with electronic keypad combination code access, while companies such as for example Barska offer products which are smaller (holding one to three pistols) and are equipped with Biometric fingerprint scanner access control. Hopefully this information will help you make an informed decision about how and where to store guns in your home. Remember to talk to all family members concerning the importance of gun safety and educate them on basic concepts. Everyone should always treat every gun as if it were loaded and keep carefully the gun pointed in a safe direction; never point a gun at any person or anything you do not want to shoot; keep your finger off the trigger; and continue to keep and store guns unloaded and from ammunition when possible. Establish with all family a procedure for what to do if they find a gun that is not locked up securely, or if they notice that a gun safe isn't completely shut and locked. Normally the best steps to check out are to leave the area immediately and notify a parent or adult immediately so that they can take care of the problem. You can find out more info, 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 from Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/All-American-Firearms-Training-Group-of-Columbus-GA/183355874520. This short article was written by Patrick Sleem, owner of most 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 most notable 100 competitive target shooters in the usa at the National Rifle Association's National Championship Match.
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