Hi there. Let's talk about how to properly and safely store your firearms.
Previously I've talked about what a firearm is, their associated activities, how to legally purchase, and how to clean and maintain your firearms. If you've missed those posts you can read each of them here:
Introduction to Firearms: The Absolute Basics
Introduction to Firearms: So what do I do with this thing?
Introduction to Firearms: How to Buy a Firearm
Introduction to Firearms: Cleaning Your Firearm
Now, let's talk about what to do with your firearm when you're not using it. Keeping your firearm in a safe and secure state is absolutely imperative, particularly if you have children.
Don't be a tragic statistic.
If you have children, keep your firearms unloaded, locked or even double locked, store the ammunition separately and locked, and maintain control of the keys to your storage containers. In addition, do not ignore how curious children are, particularly about things their parents actively, deliberately, and explicitly try to keep from them. If you, for whatever reason, don't want to teach them how to safely handle and use a firearm, though I strongly suggest you do, then at the very least teach them what to do around firearms. The NRA has an excellent program, the Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program, that teaches four simple and basic rules to teach firearms safety to children:
Stop!
Don't touch!
Run away!
Tell an adult!
This should be the absolute bare minimum of gun safety to teach any child, but especially those that live in a household with firearms.
If you'd like more information about the Eddie Eagle program, I encourage you to visit their site here:
There are also other programs available, one of the largest being Project Childsafe, ran by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. This program also provides free trigger lock kits to local law enforcement agencies for distribution in their communities, with nearly forty million locks having been distributed as of 2018. You can visit their main page here:
And here is a map of participating local law enforcement agencies:
Project Childsafe: Get a free safety kit
If you have children and firearms in your home then I strongly encourage you to look into one or both programs, in addition to doing your part as a parent to educate your children about gun safety.
Before I get into the various safe storage methods, I want to mention that there are no federal laws regarding safely storing a firearm in your home. There are also very few states that have any mandatory safe storage at home laws. I will go into this further in a future post, but I wanted to at least acknowledge that fact. Mandatory safe storage laws are not a solution as they are unenforceable and potentially unconstitutional per the Heller ruling by the Supreme Court.
Firearms safety is the responsibility of the owner. It's up to you if you want to be responsible for injuring or killing your child because you couldn't be bothered to lock your gun away or teach them to not play with it. No law can ever be created that will force someone to not be an utter dumb ass.
Be responsible and safe with your firearms. Take advantage of the programs that are available. Use the tools that are on the market, the ones I'm going to talk to you about now.
Environmental Basics
The basic idea of storing your firearm is to protect not just yourself and others, but also the firearm itself. Regardless of the level of security required, it is important to keep your firearm in a cool, dark, dry place. This helps to protect the actual materials that constitute a firearm, the wood and metal pieces, from a variety of environmental factors.
Cool isn't necessarily an absolute, but it is easier to find a dry place that's cool rather than warm. You don't need a precisely controlled temperature or anything like that, but I would avoid storing your firearm in the freezer or inside the furnace or something. Room temperature plus or minus 10 degrees isn't going to harm your firearm, but it is important to maintain a fairly consistent temperature, particularly for the wood components which can potentially crack or split if subjected to wild and abrupt temperature changes over time.
Dark is mainly an issue with the finish. Depending on the materials of the firearm, direct sunlight can fade or discolor the finish or the material itself. Just about anywhere in your home that's not directly in the path of direct sunlight will be sufficient. This is also, in a somewhat abstract manner, a form of security. If the sun can see your firearm then so can prying eyes that may be interested in stealing it from you.
Dry is the important factor here. Humidity is absolute hell on both wood and metal parts. An overly moist environment can quickly lead to rusting of the metal parts, not just on the exterior surface areas but also the internal parts. Extreme humidity conditions, both moist and dry, can have an impact on the wood parts as well with excessive humidity causing swelling and excessive dryness causing cracking.
The basic standard you should aim for is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, around 50% relative humidity, and out of direct sunlight. This is, arguably, about the ideal environment in which to store your firearms. It is not, however, absolute, and I would bet very large amounts of money that very few firearms are stored in the ideal conditions. I know mine aren't.
But that's okay. Just avoid the extremes as much as possible. If humidity is an issue that can't be addressed for some reason then it is absolutely essential that you maintain a fine coat of oil on the metal components of your firearm. This is a good idea even in ideal circumstances, but is imperative outside of them.
Security
Now that you have an idea of what to protect your firearm from in the environment, let's discuss how to restrict access, be it from tiny curious hands or the criminal element. Let's make sure something is very clear though:
No storage method is foolproof.
This is very important to keep in mind. You could have the world's most advanced security system with some weird Mission Impossible laser grid and pressure sensors, but all of that is pointless if you forgot to lock the door, turn on the system, or dropped your keys and wallet with your list of guns and keycodes, and so on. There is no 100% effective security system, method, or device. In addition to this, always keep in mind:
Locks keep an honest person honest. I guarantee that your security is not as effective as you think.
If you'd like to stop sleeping well at night, I encourage you, if it's legal in your area, to pick up a simple lockpick set online, watch a couple of YouTube videos, and try to pick your front door lock. Standard locks are hilariously and depressingly easy to circumvent.
My favorite example to stress this point I have actually done personally. Those simple lockboxes that can be purchased at Walmart, the cheap Sentry Safe lockboxes? Those can be opened in literally seconds with a toothpick. Just a simple little wooden toothpick. I have also actually used the wrong key to open those.
This principle applies even as you go up in price and "security." Standard safes that you see with the dial lock are fairly simple to enter through force. If it's small enough it can be carried out and worked on at a different location. This also applies to full size standing safes. I personally know of two people that have had their homes robbed and the thieves simply wrapped a chain around the gun safe, dragged it out the door with a truck, threw it in the truck, and drove off.
Almost any safe, gun or otherwise, that you can find in most stores is not, legally, a "safe." It can be called a safe, but it's not rated as a safe, it's rated as a "residential security container." This classification is rated to resist unwanted entry for five minutes by a pry bar under 18 inches and a hammer under 3 pounds. That is the extent of the protection offered by a "residential security container," and unfortunately is the rating held by almost any "safe" you've seen at a big box store. This is also a stunningly low threshold to overcome.
You can check for yourself if you'd like, the container should have a small certification tag somewhere in or on it that has the letters UL in a circle and the classification, which will almost certainly be "residential security container" or "8M10." UL stands for Underwriters Laboratories and is an OSHA certified, federally approved testing facility that inspects and certifies an incredible variety of products and materials.
To make matters even worse for these common safes, they are not and will not even be tested for fire resistance under UL standards, because they do not even contain the materials necessary to qualify to be tested to meet UL standards. Any fire rating you see has been done by the company itself to unknown standards and is unreliable at best.
True safes will have a rating of TL15 or TL30. There are additional ratings but these are largely beyond what is even relatively easily obtainable on the open market. These ratings are classified as "burglar resistant" and are tested with a wide variety of entry methods, with actual tools instead of a tiny pry bar and hammer, on a 15 or 30 minute clock.
Fun fact, almost all legitimate security systems, even beyond safes, are tested and rated for the amount of time they will resist unwanted entry rather than being intended to simply deny entry entirely. Given enough time and proper tools, any system can be defeated.
Delay is the primary purpose of a security system, not denial.
Now, I get it, you may be thinking about how much steel plating costs and whether you need a moat and things of that nature, but there's a reason the common locks and security methods are common. That's because they work. They are not impenetrable, they are in fact scarily easy to circumvent, but about 99% of the time they perform exactly as intended. The vast majority of people are honest, or at worst lazy, and the vast majority of criminals are not masterminds, they're just scared opportunists.
One important thing to keep in mind is that the idea is delay, not denial, and delay is compounded and magnified by layers. Set something in an open field and all that has to be done is picking it up. Put your treasure in a cardboard box and you've both removed it from view and added the time taken to open the box. Put that box in a steel box and you've doubled the number of boxes that have to be opened. Now put a lock on the box. Now put your box-in-locked-box in a room. Now lock the room. Put that room in your house and lock the house. And so on. Throwing in deterrences like motion lights around the house and keeping your valuables out of plain sight in nondescript areas or containers adds even more layers.
So, after all that, don't stress out too much. Most secure storage methods are adequate for their intended purpose if the drawbacks are honestly and thoroughly assessed and addressed. Now, let's actually talk about some of them.
Secure Storage Methods
Keeping in mind the idea of layers, I'll go through the more common methods from least to most secure. Where it makes sense, it is entirely possible to double or even triple up on some of these methods if you find you have a reason to do so.
I also want to stress that, in every single situation except the very first one I'll describe, you should store your firearm unloaded. There is debate about whether magazines should be stored unloaded, but with high quality magazines it is largely up to you. I personally store some magazines loaded and some unloaded.
While searching for secure storage you should also keep in mind your ammunition and accessories.
I suggest storing ammunition in an entirely separate container, and even in a separate room from your firearms, if feasible. I especially like to keep ammunition entirely separated from the work bench and shop area where I clean and dismantle my firearms. It's much easier to prevent a negligent discharge if there's no live ammunition available.
Accessories can easily start accumulating a substantial value, particularly if you invest in quality optics. These can be stored mounted on the firearm or, if not installed, should be treated as any other valuable property you own.
Nothing
After all that talk about being safe and adding layers and all that, why would I even suggest doing nothing? Because one of the most common reasons to own a firearm is home defense and those layers also delay authorized access, not as much as unwanted access, but there are still one or more additional steps between you and your firearm.
This is absolutely the only situation in which you should store your firearm in a loaded condition.
Properly storing your home defense firearm is a whole other post in itself, but there are some points to keep in mind. If you have small children then I strongly suggest you don't keep a firearm just sitting on the nightstand or something. This is absolutely a recipe for tragedy. You can tell yourself you'll lock it up when you wake up every morning, but you won't. And you cannot guarantee that your child won't have a nightmare and come in your room where there's a loaded firearm within easy access.
I strongly support owning a firearm for home defense, especially if the purpose is also to defend one's family. However, if the choice is between no firearm and allowing a child unrestricted access, then there is no choice to be made here.
Do not allow children to EVER have access to a firearm, loaded or unloaded, without your full attention and direct supervision.
EVER.
Trigger locks
A trigger lock is a fairly simple device that does exactly what it sounds like, it places a locked barrier between the handler and the trigger. Depending on where you shop for firearms, you may see trigger locks in use at the store.
These are excellent and inexpensive tools to prevent unwanted handling, and a very large number of firearms, by either federal law or manufacturer's choice, will ship new from the manufacturer with a trigger lock. They can be found through Project Childsafe that I discussed at the beginning of the article or purchased for as low as just a couple of dollars.
Trigger locks should be the absolute bare minimum level of security if you have children in your home.
Cable locks
Cable locks are similar to trigger locks, as they are applied directly to the firearm, but instead of preventing access to the trigger they prevent the firearm from being loaded or put into a fireable state. Cable locks look like small bike locks and are threaded through the breech and, if there is one, the magazine well. Cable locks can be used on their own or combined with a trigger lock. If the two are keyed differently and the keys are stored separately then the combination of a trigger lock and a cable lock will slow unwanted access even further. Generally available almost anywhere for a few dollars.
Soft and Hard Cases
Primarily intended for storage during transport but adequate for home storage, cases are exactly what you think they are. Soft cases will generally have two zippers that can be locked together, while hard cases will have a locking point integrated into the case itself. A large number of handguns will ship from the manufacturer in a case but you'll usually have to buy your own for your long guns. Ask your gun store if they offer any deals or discounts on cases if you're purchasing a firearm, it's a fairly common practice. Otherwise, expect to pay anywhere from ten bucks and up.
Locking Racks
Ranging from small racks that fit one handgun to room-sized installations intended for an armory, locking racks can be a viable option. They come in a wide range of options and locking methods and allow you to safely display your firearms. Just keep in mind that racks can be carried away, so secure it to something if its purpose is theft prevention. Prices can be fairly low and go straight up from there.
Small Safes
There are safes designed specifically for handguns that are intended for safe storage in both the home and a vehicle that allow "quick" access if necessary, usually through a mechanical keypad or some of the fancier models use fingerprint scanners. I, personally, would not depend on one of these to not fail me in an emergency, but that's a choice to make for yourself. My suggestion is to test it thoroughly in a variety of situations such as total darkness or by dipping your hand in water and trying to open it. If it fails in good, controlled conditions it cannot be trusted in extreme situations. Expect to spend at least 50 bucks, but prepare your wallet for higher prices as you research and read reviews.
Cabinets, display cases, and gun "safes"
A thick walled locking cabinet is essentially the same as even the enormous thousand(s) dollar "premium" gun safes you can find at the big retailers. I would suggest trying to find something like a secure shop cabinet and repurpose it for your needs instead of dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on a gun "safe." One particular feature to look for is being able to bolt it to a wall or floor.
As the size of your storage container increases, so do your climate control options. The simple silica gel packets, like what you'll find in a new pair of shoes, are adequate for the smaller storage solutions, but if your collection is large enough to warrant a full cabinet or safe then it's large enough to spend the extra money to keep it in good condition. There's a wide variety of products available and I suggest doing some thorough research based on your particular needs and location.
Full sized cabinets and "safes" are fairly common big ticket sale items, so my advice is to find one or several models that fit your needs and wait for a decent sale. You're probably looking at, absolute minimum, a couple hundred dollars and can quickly break into the four figures if you let it get away from you. But, if you're at the point where your collection warrants a thousand dollar or more storage solution then I strongly urge you to save your money a little longer and invest in the next option.
Actual, UL-rated, legitimate safes
This is an enormous investment of time and resources, and if you're at this point you probably know it and don't need me to tell you about it, but there are some things to keep in mind.
These safes are heavy. The small models will usually come in around a thousand pounds at minimum and it shoots up from there. You will almost certainly be required to set up a true safe on a concrete slab or a substantially supported floor, so make certain your home has a suitable location that can actually be accessed. It's all well and good to have a poured basement, but if the safe won't fit in the door or down the stairs, or shatters the stairs as you're moving it, then you're gonna have to make some concessions. I would also advise putting off the purchase of a safe if you'll be moving any time soon.
Legitimate safes open up an enormous range of options. Some of them have integrated interior outlets, entry ports for network cables for secure hard drives, integrated climate control, lighting, and so on. The options are limited largely by your budget.
One of the more important features that generally comes standard but can be upgraded is fire resistance. The UL standard is tested by heating the entire safe to an external temperature of 1700 degrees Fahrenheit for periods ranging from half an hour to three hours and maintaining an interior temperature under 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This is substantial fire resistance, as residential fires generally "only" reach temperatures of around 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. But, similar to security testing, this is not a fireproof rating, it's a fire resistant rating.
Locating an actual UL rated safe is another issue. There are online companies that offer freight shipping and installation, but I can't personally recommend any so you'll have to do your own research. Your best bet is probably going to be local major cities and the Yellow Pages. Local locksmiths may also be helpful. There is a used market for these safes that can provide some astounding deals, but you're gonna have to do the work and be willing to make some concessions. I have personally seen a couple of enormously sized UL15 rated used safes for around $1500, but I would suggest preparing your bank account for multiple thousands.
The Gun Room
This one right here is, realistically, beyond most gun owners. There's a difference between a gun room, which is a room where you have guns like your man cave or study, and The Gun Room, which is a straight up secured and hardened armory. If your collection has reached the point where you can justify the cost of The Gun Room, then you're probably capable of deciding your own needs.
The Gun Room is, basically, just a giant walk-in safe, with secure walls, floor, ceiling, and entry points. It is potentially feasible to harden an existing room, but far easier to design from the ground up with the intention of including The Gun Room. If you're going that route, you may as well include panic room features as well. But, you're the rich guy, it's your decision.
Miscellaneous
There's a variety of measures to take that further increase the security of your firearms. One of which being making use of the design of the firearm itself. Bolts can be removed and stored separately, the AR15 platform separates into two pieces that can both be secured with a trigger or cable lock and stored separately, even cable locking two or more firearms together and securing them is an option.
It's difficult to steal something if you don't know it exists, so unless you have a display piece I would suggest discrete locations for whereever you decide to store your firearms. A closet, the basement, a basement closet, something of that nature. You've probably seen or heard of the fake book with a storage compartment, there are also a variety of products that replicate that function but change the form to a coffee table, a head board, or even a couch.
If you keep your firearms in a specific room, put a lock on that door and beef up the frame and latch with some longer screws. Depending on your location and the specific room, this may be against fire code as, for the most part, occupied rooms like bed rooms should not have a keyed lock. But, there's nothing stopping you from beefing up your exterior doors and keeping them locked. The same goes for windows. I'm not saying replace them all with security glass and install bars, but that is an option to look at for ground floor windows, or even just any window in your dedicated gun storage room.
Home security is a pretty vast topic with a suitably huge array of products and solutions. Motion lights, timed lights, cameras, alarms, hardwired police alert systems, even a recording of a dog barking on a motion sensor are all options and there's dozens if not hundreds more that I'm not going to cover. But the basic ones like locking your doors and keeping your valuables out of sight are cheap or free and can be applied to everything, not just firearms.
Finally, if all of your efforts prove unsuccessful and your firearms are damaged or stolen, insurance is an option. Despite popular belief, most homeowners insurance companies do not raise your premiums simply for owning firearms. You can usually receive coverage up to around $2500 included in your policy and purchase additional coverage as necessary which will, of course, raise your premiums. The NRA and several other companies also offer insurance specifically for firearms.
My suggestion is to maintain detailed records of your own with make, model, serial number, caliber, approximate value, and pictures to verify and store that information in a secure, offsite, location. Digital or hard copy, preferably both or with backup copies. I suggest doing this even if you don't maintain an insurance policy, not just if you need to file a police report but also just to keep an organized record of your valuable property.
Conclusion
The most important thing I want you to take away from all of this is the weight of your responsibility to prevent children from accessing your firearms. There is no legitimate, valid, or acceptable excuse to not store your firearms safely if you have children in your home.
Firearms and property can be replaced or reimbursed by insurance.
Children can not.
It is only and entirely your fault if a child gains access to your firearms. With the enormous range of products available at so many locations that are priced from "free" to "basically free," there is no excuse. If you can afford the firearm in the first place, you can afford the means to keep it away from children.
Here's the link to Project Childsafe one more time.
I hope you gained something from reading this, and I appreciate you doing so. I also hope you'll read my next post in this Introduction series which will go over the various resources available to you for education and training.
If you're interested in more active discussion, I encourage you to join us on Discord.
I'm also happy to answer questions or take requests in the comments.
Thank you for reading.