A Personal Experience in Offsite Gun Storage

Like most gun owners, I like having a handgun and a rifle stored in my home where I can access them quickly to protect my family.  Saying it mildly, I’m big on 2nd amendment rights! Keep them close, and keep them ready, right? 

Don’t worry this isn’t a story about giving up my guns, but a little over a year ago a story popped up on my phone where a 7-year old girl and her 11-year old brother found the hidden key to a locked door where their parents had a handgun locked up.  The 7-year old accidentally shot and killed her brother.  On the same weekend, another young boy accessed a gun inside of a “locked gun box” and took it on a playdate to his cousin’s house where he accidentally shot an 8-year-old boy and a 12 year-old girl. 

Both guns were locked up, and the sneaky kids figured out how to access them anyway.

It didn’t really change anything about having guns in my house. But I did do 2 things.

First, I sat down with my kids and went over, yet again, gun safety.  I’m big on that, even with my little ones.  No curiosity, no temptation. 

But the second thing I did surprised me. 

As I looked at my collection, and I’m proud as hell of my collection, I realized just how many people know about my collection.  And as much as I think it would never happen, statistically, families who are known to have several firearms at home are more likely to become victims of firearm theft, even when those firearms are locked up.

Facts are Facts and if someone held a gun to my wife’s head, and I had no other option but saving my wife and kids or saving my guns,  100% I would be opening my gun safe to them.

Now, I don’t think that would ever happen.  I mean, I certainly hope not.  But, what is even more possible is extremist government legislation that could impact my right to own firearms.

In either scenario, I realized the hard truth that having everything in one place was actually a liability to my family and potentially my future freedoms.

Do I still have guns in my home to protect my home and family? YES absolutely I do!  And what I realized was that most of my firearms were for hunting, collecting, and show-guns; none of those needed to be “ready access.” I mean, if I’m going target shooting I have time to plan and when I go hunting I have plenty of time to plan. So there was a small chance I would be willing to store those guns somewhere more safe. 

But I had a new problem:

1. I still wanted fast 24/7-365 access to my firearms.

2. I wanted the “what and where” to be anonymous.

3. Security, and I’m talking about better than the bank type of security.

Most obvious was to store my second level firearms at a family or friend’s house.  Logical and cheap, well until I started thinking about it.  Really, a family member or a friend is no more secure than my own house, I can only gain access when they are home, and after searching the web I found that most kid and teen accidents happen with firearms at friends or relatives homes.  So this one was out.

I know you can store firearms with a local police department. I have nothing bad to say about our local PD, they are actually really great.  But no.  Usually if you think someone might gain access to your firearm with the intent to hurt themselves or others, a police department will let you store them for a short time there.  However, I wanted something more long term and I wanted to maintain control.  However, it’s probably the quickest and most secure place to get guns into if a family situation suddenly arises. 

My local shooting range also lets patrons store firearms there. It’s mostly to get them out of the house if there is a threat of personal harm.  The great thing about the range is that they are also a firearms store so they have an FFL and I can ship firearms to and from there if I am selling or going on a long trip.  The problem is that access is not very convenient and all the paperwork means there are no anonymous solutions there.

Bank Safe Deposit box… Well obviously firearms=NO… However in my google searching, I found a local private vault called Safe Haven Vaults that acts similar to a bank box but with far more security and autonomy.  Their facility has many vault sizes including full sized rifle specific vaults.  The cutting edge security makes it feel like walking onto a real world movie set and I can access the vault anytime on any day.  Like my shooting range, Safe Haven Vaults is an FFL so I can ship and receive firearms legally with them.

I obviously kept the best for last, and it wouldn’t surprise you to know that while I still keep some of my firearms in my home, others are inside of my private anonymous vault waiting for my next adventure.