A reader mentioned to me how he’s having his first child soon (congrats) and wants to not only keep his guns away from his child, but also have a safe that protects other documents.
First, it should hopefully go without saying that if there are children in the house all of the guns should be locked up. Even the “heirlooms” that you never shoot should at the very least have a trigger lock on them to make them inoperable.
As far as the home defense guns they need to be in a rapid-access safe. Lots of companies make these types of safes and every one of my home defense handguns is locked up in one. Check out the Gunvault company and Stack-On company for some of the better rapid-access safes. Also, Hornady recently released a quick-open safe. (I would stay away from the biometric versions of these safes as I am still hearing horror stories about people having to swipe their finger numerous times before the safes open.)
The thing is, in addition to having a handgun safe, I also believe you need a safe to store money and other valuables and I don’t think you should mix them. The fact is, my rapid-access safes are small and can fit only one or two full size handguns.
I don’t want to also store money in them because when I reach in the safe for my gun in a life or death situation, I only want to grab my gun and not something else. This is the same reason you never carry anything in your pants pocket when you are carrying a gun in your pocket. The hand only goes in the pocket (or your safe) when your life depends on it or when you’re actively training for that situation.
The safe that can be used to store money and important documents needs to be fireproof and can be one of the inexpensive Sentry brand of safes. I would have a least $1,000 cash stored in this safe and I would add more if you have the means.
Several years back a family member of mine was arrested in Washington, DC. Apparently, he and his business partner were in DC for a meeting and when they came back to his business partner’s car there was a boot on the car from unpaid parking tickets.
The only way this relative could get out of jail that Friday night (and not have to wait until Monday) was if someone showed up with $1,400 cash. Thankfully, we had some rich Italian friends who kept money in their home and they loaned us the $1,400 and the relative was able to get out of jail that night.
This story shows that life is unpredictable, which is why you need to always be prepared to protect yourself, and also have some extra cash on hand.
