Gun Security for the Home: Keep Your Children Safe

The local and national news programs seem to feature stories about shooting accidents on a weekly basis.  So often the lack of gun security is the reason these tragedies occur.  Gun security is not rocket science, it is common sense, yet many homes that have firearms do not follow basic steps to insure for safety.  This lack of responsibility leads many people to call for national firearm controls.  We have firearm control policies; we just need people to practice gun security.

Gun security can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make it.  The gun security system that works best for you will depend on what type of firearms you own and the purpose of owning it. 

For people that own firearms for hunting, gun security usually involves a gun safe.  This is often due to the high cost of these firearms.  The gun safes protect the firearms from moisture and theft as well as keeping them out of the reach of curious children.  A safe adds greatly to gun security because they are extremely heavy so they are difficult to walk off with, and the locking system prevents casual theft.  Most gun safes have a separate area to lock and store ammunition, separate from the firearms.  This is one of the key elements in gun security, having ammunition and firearms located in different areas.

Many gun collectors like to display their collections in glass cases.  These cases often come with locks; however they are not the best method when it comes to gun security because the cases can be easily broken into.  Also these cases are usually light weight enough that thieves could carry them away.

Our local township sponsors a gun safety program that offers free gun locks to local homeowners. These are steel cable-type locks, and once in place, no one can fire the gun. This is probably the safest thing you can do for gun safety in the home. Even if a child found the gun, the lock would render the weapon useless.

When considering gun security for your home there are a number of factors to consider.  You want to make sure that your firearm is not used against you in the case of a robbery.  The easiest way to avoid this is to make sure that none of your firearms are left loaded, and that both the firearm and ammunition are locked in separate areas of your home.  You also want to make sure that children that are living in your home or visiting your home do not have access to firearms.  Children are naturally curious, especially about weapons.  Often times the shooting accidents involve children that are playing with a loaded firearm.  Children are going to push and pull and press on all areas of a gun, so they can easily take it off safety, without knowing what they are doing.  Also when playing with a gun children naturally point and pull a trigger, which leads to disaster if the firearm is loaded.  It is important to talk to your children about gun security and to also have them attend gun safety educational courses.

The right to bear arms is one of the basic rights of Americans.  As with all of our rights this comes with the need for responsibility.  Gun security is using common sense to insure the safety of everyone living in and visiting the home that has firearms. Very simple steps can insure gun safety in your home.