If You Own A Gun You Need One Of These

This is just our opinion: if you own a gun, whether or not you live by yourself or you have children in your house, you need a gun safe or at least a gun lock. Here we will outline the reasons why.

According to Gun Policy.org the number of privately owned firearms in the United States, both legal and illegal, held by civilians is somewhere between 270 million and 310 million with 114 million of them being handguns and 110 million are rifles in their possession.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports that gun related accidents have “declined by 58 percent from 1,441 unintentional fatalities in 1991 to 600 in 2011.” That same organization reports that the number of unintentional firearm related fatalities involving children 14 and under has decreased by 28% in the last decade.

Reasons To Own A Gun Safe

1. With so many guns around, the number one reason to own a gun safe is to secure it from small children who are by nature curious and subject to accidental discharge. You don’t hear about this very often, thank goodness, but it is 100% preventable by using either a gun safe or a gun cable lock that can work on medium and large handguns.

You should also never leave a loaded gun in your house. Take precautions to empty the chamber before storing it.

2. The number two reason for a gun safe is that handguns and rifles are expensive. According to some statistics the average cost of the new handgun when you consider the gun, extra magazine, gun lock, cleaning kit, practice rounds and other associated needs comes to seven hundred and fourteen dollars. Then you need to add in the cost of the license and you begin to see that it is not cheap to own a handgun.

You can get a used rifle for under $200 but many rifles are in the thousand dollar category and higher-much higher.

So the fact that handguns, rifles and shotguns are very valuable makes them excellent targets for burglars. They are one of the top items burglars look for when they break into a house. And guns are easy to carry and easy to pawn for quick cash which is the main reason burglars stay in business-they need the money.

A stolen gun doesn’t require any background checks or licensing, which is another reason why burglars look for guns when they do their dirty work.

What To Look For In A Gun Safe

The office of the Atty. Gen. for the state of California follows Department of Justice regulatory standards for a gun safe.

These standards are high because 20% of all homes are targeted for burglary every year. In those homes, guns make attractive targets.

These standards dictate that gun safes have a “locking mechanism with mechanical or electronic combination lock with at least 10,000 possible combinations with three numbers, letters or symbols. They also require that the lock be protected by drill resistant steel plate.”

They require a “minimum of three steel locking bolts of at least a half inch thickness and intrude from the door of the safe into the body of the safe.” The DOJ also specifies that outside walls be constructed of a minimum of 12gauge thick steel and that the doors be made of a minimum of two layers of 12gauge steel. Door hinges must be protected to prevent the removal of the door. “Hinges should not be exposed to the outside interlocking door designs, dead bars, jewelers slugs, and active or inactive locking bolts.”

Examples Of Gun Safes

Here are just some examples of gun safes that we carry. The first is a handgun biometric safe that uses a fingerprint scanner for quick codeless entry even in total darkness. It can support multiple users with up to 15 different fingerprint templates. It is made with 16 gauge steel and has a tamperproof spring-loaded door. It includes mounting gear which enables you to mount it almost anywhere.

And much less expensive is this working mantel clock diversion safe which can hold 1 handgun. It can hold other valuables as well. This is not a safe in the true meaning of the word, but more of a way to hide a handgun. It is nonetheless an effective way to prevent your handguns from being stolen because burglars spend on average less than 10 minutes looking for valuables. They cannot look everywhere.

Then there is this four rifle safe that has enough space to fit in 4 full-size rifles and a handgun on the top shelf. It uses a biometric system that can store up to 120 different fingerprints. It is one of the smaller rifle safes and as such can be placed in a closet or small area in a room to store your rifles in an upright position. It has a 2 mm thick steel body and three-point locking system to ensure that the safe is secure. It weighs 66 pounds but with mounting hardware it can be secured to a floor or wall for additional security. A bigger version of this safe will hold 45 rifles and weighs just slightly over 1000 pounds. It has predrilled mounting holes and is 6 feet tall and nearly 4 feet wide for the avid rifle collector. It has a door thickness of 5 inches and is armor plated and drill resistant.

Our store carries over 260 models of safes of every size and price range for just about any purpose.

 How do you secure your handguns or rifles? Please share your experience. We want to hear your thoughts.