How do you store your guns? Stuffed in a closet? On a shelf somewhere? A safe? Under the bed? In a mini-safe?
Some people are so blessed that a mere gun safe is not enough to contain their extensive gun collection. They need a larger area! Beyond that, are there any advantages to converting a portion of your house into a gun storage area over using a gun safe? We’ll give you some food for thought in this article.
Gun Safes
Gun safes offer lots of advantages, including being fire-resistant and very secure.
Despite that, they also have some disadvantages.
- Limited space; even the larger safes only have so much room.
- They’re heavy! It often takes several people to lug them around since they can weigh hundreds of pounds. And once in place, they’re not easy to relocate.
- Price. A good safe can be costly.
- Determined crooks can steal your entire safe if you don’t have it bolted to the structure. It’s not very likely to happen, but it’s a possibility.
- A safe is a target. It’s one of the first places a thief will be attracted to. Everything in there is valuable, otherwise, we wouldn’t have it in the safe.
- Skilled criminals can open safes too.
Break-Ins
65% of all break-ins occur between 10 AM and 3 PM – when the majority of people are at work. Most criminals spend no more than ten minutes in the home. 30% of burglaries occur when someone is at home. Not surprisingly, 38% of assaults and 60% of rapes occur during home invasions.
These statistics point out that having firearms secured away in safes or other locked areas might not give us enough time to access defensive weapons during emergencies. Because of that, I always have a few weapons readily accessible, just in case.
Safety
One nice aspect of having a room or area dedicated to the storage of firearms is that should we desire, we can lock them all up in the same place. Why might we want to do that? Well, one of the biggest reasons is if there are children around or we’re having company with small children. Personally, I don’t have small kids living in my home anymore, so it’s an anything-goes type of environment at this stage of my life. I can keep a loaded weapon out without any worries of little hands finding the weapon.
But many of us do have small children and as such, it’s imperative that we always have a safe and secure location to keep our firearms stored and out of reach.
Alternatives
In lieu of a gun safe, some folks set a space aside in their home to store their firearms and ammunition. Now this isn’t to say that you need to turn the entire upstairs into a gun emporium/armory (unless you want to and you’re incredibly financially endowed).
Most people pick out a convenient, realistic area. For some, it might be a spare bedroom or other small room that’s not being used for anything else. Even so, an entire room being devoted to firearms would be extravagant, at least for me. I simply don’t have that many firearms (or spare rooms)!
A gun room could be likened to a bank vault or safe room.
Perhaps you don’t want to devote an entire room to your collection. Some houses are equipped with walk-in closets, which are often very spacious. A friend of mine turned his walk-in closet into his gun and ammo storage area. He has all of his weaponry, including knives and other edged instruments, in this closet. He has kids in the house, and likes the aspect that it can be locked, keeping the kids safe from any dangerous weapons in the house.
My house is not equipped with a walk-in closet. However, there is a closet in a spare room here that I’ve turned into my gun storage area. Originally, the doors to the closet did not lock, but I installed a device that now allows me to lock them, making it a secured area.
Gun Room/Closet Negatives
Unfortunately, most gun rooms are not going to be fireproof, considering that they’re contained within the parameters of your home. Likewise, they could be susceptible to flooding or other natural disaster (unless located on the second floor or higher).
As mentioned before, it’s not likely that we will have quick access to such areas, so it might be inconvenient to access firearms in a hurry.
Extra Security Measures
Aside from various locks at our disposal (including key locks, electronic locks, biometrics, etc.), what other security measures might we take to safeguard our gun room?
We might choose to keep a gun safe within the gun room itself as an extra security measure for firearms that are extra-valuable.
Alarms and cameras can also provide an extra measure of security. If there happen to be outside windows or doors that can access the room, it’s a good idea to cover them with security measures such as bars or alarms. Some folks promote reinforcing the walls to the gun room, but I have not gone that far, wishing to keep expenses to a minimum and not being that handy myself.
Some of the rooms I’ve seen have been incredibly elaborate and admittedly, of gorgeous decor. That’s not my gun closet. Mine is very barebones; I haven’t even installed hangers to keep my firearms mounted on the walls yet. I do plan to, however, procrastination is the thief of time. Currently, I just lean my guns against the wall in the closet. The nice part is that we can do a little at a time, gradually making things the way we want them in our little corner of the world.
In Plain Sight
Consider placing the storage area behind a hidden door. Thieves won’t be looking for something that they don’t know is there. Perhaps hiding the door behind a bookshelf or other piece of furniture would completely conceal the fact that there’s even a room or closet there.
There are some tricks to hiding small guns such as handguns that are simple, cheap, and very easy to implement. One is carving out a spot in a book that matches the dimensions of the handgun that you want to hide and then simply secreting it inside the book. It can be left laying around anywhere or placed on a bookshelf with dozens of other books.
It’s also possible to install a false vent in the wall and then use the space behind it to store a handgun or two. Of course, these are not secure measures, so if you have children or similar safety concerns, these are not recommended.
In Conclusion
As you can see, there are a plethora of options available for storing firearms based on the size of your collection and your security needs and wants. You can go plain Jane or incredibly elaborate.
The nice thing is that many of our houses already have a built-in option via a room or closet that is just waiting to be utilized for our firearms.
It can be a fun and rewarding project to set things up exactly how you want them. Depending upon your skills with simple tools, the project can take some surprising and interesting turns. How about it – are you up to the task?
