KMango

Cheap padlocked case is all you need. Also, I need to make the bed before I take pictures next time.

I have a padlock and cable lock. But the shells are in the case and ready to go. Also, that is a damn nice bedspread!

 
I started thinking about guns when I started thinking about having kids. I hadn’t thought much about protecting my family before then, but I soon realized that keeping a Maglight with dead batteries next to my bed wasn’t going to cut it. I never was much of a proponent for keeping a gun under your pillow, so you can wake up paranoid and start blasting up your house. Mostly I wanted it for WROL situations (like Katrina), but it does provide some confidence knowing that if I need it for other emergencies it is there.

I knew I wanted a long gun early in my search. It just seemed like common sense that they were safer. You can’t put it in your pocket, hide it in your backpack and take it to school, forget where you set it down. It is harder to shoot yourself with it, point it at someone accidentally, or mistake it for a toy. It is visible to an opponent, if it runs out of ammo or has a mechanical failure, at least you still have a large piece of metal to use as a melee weapon. I wouldn’t presume to say long guns can’t be dangerous, they just seem less dangerous than handguns to me.

So I looked at rifles and shotguns and quickly realized that the shotgun was best for defending my home. They are cheap, simple, and effective. You still have to aim them, but they do buy you a small margin of error. Buckshot is less likely to over-penetrate, especially walls because velocity is so much lower than rifle rounds. I’m not a fan of the retards that think racking the slide will scare the bad guys away, but I must admit, it does buy some cool factor. A pump shotgun is relatively inexpensive too, mine cost $280 on sale at Big 5.

I did some web research and decide to buy a Mossberg 500. I like the ambidextrous safety (I shoot left handed and my wife shoots right handed). It is easy to load rounds into the magazine tube as there is no plate guarding it and possibly pinching your finders. Mine came with an 18 inch smooth bore for home defense and a 28 inch vent rib for shooting clays. I suppose if Armageddon comes the long barrel could be handy for hunting birds too.

Since this all started with having kids and protecting my family I did think a lot about safety and storage. Everyone seemed glued to opposite sides the spectrum. Either they kept a loaded gun strapped to the side of their bed and “I don’t have kids so I don’t have to worry”, or they keep the gun in a safe in their garage with a trigger lock, cable lock, and the ammo is in the attic (in a lock box). I knew I had to keep the gun from become a risk to family and visitors, but I wasn’t ready to make it a 20 minute ordeal to get it out and ready to shoot.

Here is my current setup. I have a padlocked plastic case I got on the web for $22. The gun has a cable lock which keeps the action open and the gun unloadable while it is locked. I don’t have shells in the magazine tube. I didn’t want the spring just sitting with all that tension. Also I figure if a kid finds the keys and unlocks the gun, the first thing they will do is rack the slide for that cool sound, not realizing they just put a round in the chamber. The shells are right there in the box (Remington 00 buckshot, best pattern and price I could find). Picking a balance between safety and utility was important to me and I think my current setup works well for this.