Author Glenn McDermott is the owner of the Firearms Education Center, and runs First Level Training, where he focuses on providing new shooters with the skills they need to confidently take their first shots on the live-fire range. He is an NRA Certified Pistol and rifle Instructor, and Chief Range Safety Officer. Glenn is also certified in defensive firearm instruction by the USCCA. This is the first of a series of two blog posts.

If you decide to protect yourself with a firearm in your home as I do, here are a few things to consider to keep you and others safe, while storing defensive firearms in your home. Remember, it is your responsibility as the responsible gun owner to make sure your guns are stored safely, but still accessible in an emergency. It’s worth spending a few moments thinking about this.

Being just north of sixty, I no longer have the physical ability to overcome an attacker by brute force. So, I choose to keep a firearm in the house to protect myself and my family. There are some safety strategies that I put into place when doing so. When you’ve read this post, you should decide on strategies that fit your personal and family circumstances.

First, I keep my firearm locked in a pistol vault, but where should it be? The placement of this is important. You want to keep your vault in an area where it is accessible in case of a break-in or a life-threatening situation. If you are an empty-nester, the thought of having your gun in the nightstand next to your bed, or top drawer of your dresser, may seem appealing. However, take a moment and put yourself in the mind of a burglar and try to think how a burglar thinks. Where is the first place he is going to look for a firearm? You guessed it, the same places you thought of! So, pick a spot where a burglar wouldn’t look.

Second, being able to access your firearm quickly is essential. Keep accessibility and logistics in mind when deciding the location of your pistol vault in your home. Try to get a vault that has a door that flips down rather than from the side, this will give you access to your gun regardless of its orientation.

Use a combination that is easy to execute in the dark. For instance, don’t use a code like your birthday or a commonly-used password or series of numbers. Instead use a pattern, like an X pattern, or each corner of the key pad so your muscle memory will automatically do the pattern. You don’t want to have to rely on remembering a number code. In a high stress situation, this will be crucial. Consider building that muscle memory by putting something in the vault you use every day, such as your car keys.

Third, how are you going to store your firearm? Will it be fully-loaded with a round in the chamber or not? Previously, I used to keep a fully-loaded magazine in the gun but no round in the chamber. ‘Why?’ you may ask. Well again, this is me, and I know how I operate under high-stress situations. When I am in a deep sleep, dreaming a dream, and I’m awakened by the sound of someone breaking into my home, my adrenalin is going to skyrocket. When going for my gun I DO NOT want to inadvertently pull the trigger while accessing my pistol. So, try to have a set of mental safeties in place to avoid an unintentional discharge.

Now however, I do keep a round in the chamber and to prevent accidentally firing because of stress, I now have the gun in a holster to cover the trigger. I believe this gives me the safety I want, and quick access I need. So when I get woken up in the middle of the night, I must do a series of things before I am mentally ready to fire:

• First, confirm that there is a threat.

• Second, get up and use the access code to open the vault.

• Third, retrieve the firearm from the vault and remove the gun from the holster.

By this point, I should be mentally ready to cognitively assess the situation and make the decision to defend myself and my loved ones, if absolutely necessary. Some of this will be different if you use a revolver but much will be similar. Remember that the trigger on a revolver requires a much stronger trigger-pull than that on a semi-auto pistol.

Company, visitors, and guests staying over. It’s great to have family and friends stay for a day or two, but this presents an important set of considerations when you have a home defense firearm. So, how do you keep your firearm stored safely when you have family, company or visitors staying in your home for short or extended periods of time?

Stealth is always a good idea when storing a firearm in the home. However, what if your visitors (or their children) already know you own a firearm? Regardless of how securely you may think you have stored your gun, people (particularly children) have a way of getting into places you don’t want them to be. This is especially true if there is some cognitive or behavioral issue that your guest brings.

So, be proactive. If you know your Uncle Joe is coming to stay for a while, and you know he has issues such as a drinking problem, or mental dysfunction, now might be a good time to consider whether to disable your firearm. Yes, that’s right, take it apart, make it nonfunctional, keep the slide in one place and the frame locked in your vault, so if someone does breach your pistol vault, they only have a piece of a gun and not the whole thing. Also, lock up your ammo so it is not accessible at all. These steps will keep everyone in your household safe.

Remember the three NRA rules for safe gun handling:

• ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction;

• ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot;

• ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

“The Firearms Education Center” – Be Safe, Be Smart, Be Educated.