Safe gun storage is a vital component of firearm ownership and the responsibility required in the modern world. Most questions related to how to properly secure firearms are dictated by the space in which you either live or travel. With that in mind, here are some guidelines based on specific living conditions to help your decision-making.
Starting with the most challenging space to store firearms, when you are a renter, whether that be in an apartment or home, you are more limited in your options, specifically due to the inability to make permanent modifications to your living space. This means avenues such as in-wall (including vault doors) or in-floor safes are not feasible. What you can do, however, is utilize a traditional standup safe or something newer to the market, such as a modular safe.
Traditional safes for firearms have been a viable option for decades. Many come with a fire rating. To be clear, though, that rating is for fire directly penetrating the safe itself to burn contents. It does not relate to heat transfer into the safe, so it’s possible to have a multi-hour fire rating at a given temperature and still damage the contents due to thermal transmittance. Whereas traditional safes provide an added level of security against theft due to the weight of the safe itself. Thanks largely to Hollywood, most view safe-cracking as a delicate art that takes decades to master. In reality, safes are typically broken into one of two ways. Either they’re brute forced onsite utilizing power tools and brute strength, or they’re simply carted away to be cracked offsite. While it’s difficult to counter the onsite brute force approach outside of the general security of your domicile, having a heavy safe mitigates the option of tossing it on a dolly and rolling it out of the front door. If weight is a problem, such as if you’re living in an apartment or the safe needs to be on a second story, and in either case, you’re unsure of the security of the flooring, modular cabinets are a great option. These are relatively lightweight locking metal cabinets specifically designed to hold firearms. One of the additional benefits provided by modular cabinets is their affordability. Generally speaking, a modular cabinet is half the cost of a traditional safe. Remember, these metal cabinets have zero fire rating and are simpler to crack or wheel away on a dolly. For those renting, modular cabinets are often the best option.
For homeowners, vault doors are a unique solution that has existed for over a century. You have a few more options because you can modify your home to accommodate firearm storage, but there are some additional considerations if you’re going in the direction of a vault. First, the door itself does not guarantee security. Creating a vault means needing to secure an entire room. The best way to do so with most homes is to strip down to the studs and have rebar laced through the walls and ceiling. Think of it like a bank vault. If all you had was a sturdy door but drywall walls that could easily be broken through, how secure would your vault be? Next, you will need the structural stability to hang a vault door. Ideally, 8” block walls would be available to work with for the door. After all that, what you are left with is the most secure option for a homeowner to store firearms or valuables. Vaults are the best option, bar none, and will give a level of security unmatched by any safe on its own. Unlike most companies that sell safes alone, companies Steelhead Outdoors (another MN company) offers quality vault doors.
If building out a vault room in your home is too much to handle, homeowners also have the option to bolt a safe into the floor. This is ideally done on the ground floor and deep into the concrete foundation with lag bolts, which means you no longer have the security risk of having a safe rolled out of the home. If you’re going this route, you’ll want to invest in a safe that’s fairly large based on the space to avoid the issue of needing more space in the future. Due to working on the foundation, you’ll want to work with a reputable general contractor to do it right the first time. If you ever decide to sell the home, consider that the safe will stay right where it is once it’s bolted down. The process of removing those bolts once properly installed and filling the holes is difficult, to say the least.
Lastly, if you don’t need to store multiple firearms, including rifles or shotguns, a pistol lockbox for one or two pistols is a great option. The key to properly utilizing a lockbox is installing the included cable tie appropriately. The same concern of offsite cracking comes with a lockbox, and the way to mitigate that risk is by securing the cable tie to a solid surface that either isn’t easily moved or is permanent. A solid metal bedframe is a good option for the anchor, as an example. Your best option, though, with lockboxes is to have them hidden but within relatively easy reach. One option is having it mounted to the back of a nightstand with enough clearance to access it under duress. Lockboxes are available with key access and/or a five-button combination. The five-button combination is your best bet if you need access to your firearm in a stressful situation.
All of these options can be the right solution for you and your home. Some forethought and talking to the good folks at Stock & Barrel will help guide you through that process and smooth it out significantly. Safe gun storage isn’t just a consideration; it is part of responsible firearms ownership.
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