The clock is running and this is Friday 15. My name is Paul Carlson and I am as always glad to have you here with me today in this Friday 15 episode of the Safety Solutions Academy podcast. We’re going to take a fast-paced and direct look at why it’s important for you to know and understand the differences between storage and staging of your firearms and how it is that you can do each properly.
You know the simple fact is that gun safety is one of the most important topics of firearms in general. Safe gun handling in my mind is made up of three aspects, knowing the rules of safe gun handling, using those rules each and every time you interact with firearms and making sure that your firearms are stored and staged properly so they’re inaccessible to unauthorized users.
And that’s exactly what were going to talk about today is the storage in the staging of your firearms. Again thank you so much for joining me in the safety Solutions Academy podcast for another Friday 15 and let’s get right into it.
Let’s start out with storage. Storage of guns is a pretty straightforward and simple task. It’s been taught in the same way for many many many years and the only time that it gets confusing is when we start to take a look at how it is that we deal with defensive firearms. So we’re going to make a demarcation right here and right now. Defensive firearms are guns that are in use, we don’t store guns that we’re using we store guns that we’re not using.
So right now in my house I have defensive firearms those are stored those are staged it’s a different thing see because I’m using them. I don’t have them in my hand right now but I do have them ready for use at a moment’s notice and that’s what staging is about. Storage is about guns that I’m not using. So my Citori shotgun my Browning double barrel shotgun 20 gauge very pretty wood nice bluing, I’m not depending on that gun for defense of myself, my home, my family I can just store it.
My hunting rifle got a 300 Weatherby Magnum, yeah it might be a little bit overkill for the woods of Ohio but it’s one of the hunting rifles I have. It’s stored, it’s put away, I’m not using it. I have some handguns that some people might consider defensive handguns but I’m not using them right now, they’re stored there put away those guns are all stored because they’re not in use.
So what does a gun that’s properly stored look like? First of all those guns are unloaded those guns are unloaded in chamber, there’s no round in the chamber of any of those guns and those guns are unloaded in the magazine. So whether those are tubular fed magazines like an 870 shotgun that I’ve got that’s put away. Whether it is a box magazine on a hunting rifle, whether it is a removable magazine for a handgun or for some other kind of a rifle those are all empty, the guns are unloaded.
Ammunition is stored separately so I have a place where my guns go and a place where the ammunition goes and although they’re relatively close in proximity they are separate. Those guns are also all locked up. They’re in some kind of a locked container so they’re inaccessible to unauthorized users and I’m not going to go in great detail about what it is that my container looks like; pretty awesome but there’s no need to really describe it.
You can have things like a gun safe. A big steel gun safe that’s affixed to the floor and/or the wall that has some kind of a locking mechanism, that if you know the combination, you know the way to gain access. You can gain access relatively easily by turning some knobs or inserting some keys or entering in some codes but it would be reasonably difficult for someone to gain access.
None of these things are impervious; none of these things are going to keep every attempt to gain access to your firearms out. But we need to keep the general unauthorized user, the common criminal, the curious, the ignorant keep them away from those firearms. So the key aspects of your firearms being stored, number one they’re not in use, number two they are unloaded in chamber and in magazine, number three they are locked up secured in some kind of a container or in some manner that they’re inaccessible to unauthorized users.
That’s responsible gun storage and that’s one of the aspects of safe gun handling. The next is staging. I’ve kind of already alluded to staging because I had a talk about storage and the difference. Defensive firearms aren’t necessarily stored if they are in use and in use does not necessarily mean in your hand or in your physical possession. A defensive firearm that is in use may be in some location ready for me to access it should I need to and these guns are staged.
Defensive firearms that are staged meet a couple of criteria number one they are relatively ready for use. This means that I don’t have the gun dismantled with the frame of the gun in one location, the slide of the gun in another location, a magazine stored in a third location with ammunition in a fourth waiting to be loaded into the magazine. That gun is not reasonably accessible for me to use to defend myself, my loved ones, and my home. So we need to have these guns reasonably ready for use.
We also need to have them reasonably accessible to us when we need them and this means that we need to think about how these firearms are going to be secured. What I mean by that is the container that they’re kept in needs to be reasonably able to be accessed. I’m not going to choose some kind of a storage container that requires the use of keys or the turning of knobs or the entering of long codes. I want something that I’m going to be able to open up quickly without a lot of thinking, without a lot of dexterity.
I don’t want to depend on some that’s going to require faculties that may not be present in me when I’m facing a potential lethal threat. I want to be able to gain quick access to my firearms. And this typically requires what I would call a quick access safe. What I use for a quick access safe is my favorite for handguns is the Hornady Rapid Safe.
The Hornady Rapid Safe is very easy to gain access to if you know how to gain access to it and relatively secure if you don’t. It uses several different methods of access. Radio frequency identification; RFID tag you can wear on your wrist, keep in your wallet, have a fob on your keys and you simply hold that directly over the safe and what do you know it opens and gives you access to your firearm. Very quick, very convenient, very easy to gain access to even in the most stressful of circumstances yet it’s relatively secured from unauthorized users and that’s a third aspect of what it is we need to look at for guns that are properly staged.
Again we need them to be relatively accessible to us in location. The container needs to be relatively easy to access but it also needs to be secure from unauthorized users. I don’t want the curious or the casual thief to be able to gain access to these firearms where they could injure us, those we love or even themselves in the case of a curious or ignorant family member.
We want to protect those that we love from those firearms as well as keep them from those that might wish to do us harm. Now again we can’t ever think that we’re going to completely and totally protect ourselves from all potential threats that are out there when it comes to stealing our things let’s be serious. You know even the most secure places if someone wants to gain access eventually they could figure out a way to do so.
That’s not what we’re after, what I’m most concerned about is that person that is a criminal of opportunity; smash and grab situation they break into the house head straight to the master bedroom to access cash, jewelry, drugs and guns why because they know all of those things are often located in the master suite. I don’t want them in under five minutes to be able to get all of those things and access the inside of the safe and take the firearm. Properly staging a gun means making sure that it’s relatively accessible to us both in its location in its container and also inaccessible unauthorized users.
The fourth aspect we need to talk about and understand is about the condition of those firearms that are being staged. We talked about the condition of guns that are stored unloaded in chamber and magazine; there’s no reason to have ammunition in or even around those guns because they’re not being used.
But a gun that we have staged for self-defense, a gun that we’re depending on for our own personal security, for the security of our family, for the security of our home it would make sense to have ammunition accessible because a gun without ammunition is really just a poor striking tool right. So we need to think about how it is that we’re going to stage that gun and its condition and there are really three different conditions that might work for you.
I’ll give them to you first of all with my least favorite condition which is completely unloaded what do I mean by that? Let’s take out that word completely let me say that differently, the gun is unloaded. What I would see here is a gun that is unloaded in chamber and the magazine is removed from the gun.
So the magazine is loaded but is not inserted in the gun and this works for folks if you’re using a simple storage tool like a box where the trigger guard is not covered on the gun this may work for you. If you want to have an extra step in between a person that is maybe not quite as responsible as you’d like them to be that could over time gain access to that safe maybe this is a choice for you but maybe you also have bigger problems than you know thinking about how you’re going to stage your defensive gun if you can’t trust the people in your home. If they’re going to breach security devices that’s an issue.
My biggest worry with a gun that is unloaded is if you retrieve the gun but don’t retrieve the magazine well again you have a pistol that is not going to function the way you would like it to function. Not my favorite way to staging a handgun.
The most commonly recommended method that I give my students is loaded but not chambered. Magazine fully loaded, magazine inserted in the gun but the gun is closed on an empty chamber. And there’s an important reason why I recommend this for many students.
Again if we’re using a simple storage box where the trigger guard is not covered on the pistol in that moment of hectic fear, that moment of reasonable fear where you’re concerned that someone is breaking into your home and has the potential to do serious bodily harm or kill yourself or your family members as you access that gun and you grasp inside the safe imagine if your finger entered the trigger guard of a fully loaded gun.
If that trigger were to press to the rear you would fire a shot inside your gun safe. Here’s some potential problems. Number one the report of the gun would be loud potentially deafening it would certainly alert your attacker to your location which you may not want them to have. You can cause injury to your hearing that’s problematic. Also that projectile inside a steel box depending on the stoutness of the box that projectile may stay right inside shattering into many pieces with your hand in very close proximity causing injury to your hand.
It’s very likely that you would malfunction the gun meaning that the gun wouldn’t have the space that it needs wants to operate properly and so it may not eject the casing, it may not chamber the next round, the gun may be physically damaged, none of these things are situations we want to start a violent encounter with.
As a result if the trigger guard of my gun is not covered when it’s inside the quick access safe I would like to have that gun loaded but not chambered. Again slide closed on a handgun no round in the chamber magazine loaded and inserted. If I activate the trigger because the gun is unloaded there is no way that that gun could fire an added layer of protection for home defense.
Now the way that I have guns staged in my Hornady Rapid Safe is different, it’s fully loaded slide closed on a loaded chamber, loaded magazine inserted. Why? Because that rapid safe covers the trigger guard therefore I reduce the likelihood, in fact virtually eliminate the likelihood that I’m going to have any kind of a negligent discharge in the safe.
So if you have the trigger guard covered inside the safe that’s great fully loaded is an option. In a holster probably is not the best method of operation. Imagine drawing that gun from your quick access safe holster intact, scooping up the kids running self-defense finally finding yourself in a situation where you need to use that gun sticking out to full extension and realising the holster’s still in place. You need to have that holster or that trigger guard cover somehow attached to the safe so that it departs from the gun when the gun is drawn from the safe something to consider.
Storage/staging two different things both important parts of responsible gun ownership if you are going to be responsibly handling guns you need to understand the difference between storage and staging and you need to make sure that your guns are stored and staged properly so that you can access them should you need to yet keep them inaccessible to unauthorized users. Think about how it is that you are storing and staging your firearms, make sure that it’s done properly.
I hope that you enjoyed and appreciated this Friday 15 is much as I enjoyed creating it for you. If you gained some insight about storage and staging of firearms I would like you to make sure that you connect with Safety Solutions Academy and with myself so that you can learn more about today’s topic. When you do connect with SSA I’m going to go ahead and send you a link to a bunch of resources that I talked about today in this episode, episodes from the past and future episodes so that you can make real improvements in your personal safety.
All you need to do is send me a text message and we can make that happen. You’re going to go ahead and send a text message to the number 33444 and you’re going to to text me the simple word Friday 15 all lowercase F R I DA Y 15 no spaces all lowercase. So you’re going to text Friday 15 to 33444 and I’m going to go ahead and send you a link where you can access all of those free resources from today shows the shows in the past and in the future.
Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I do make sure you get on out there get yourself some training. Make sure you keep it simple, please stay safe and as always have a great day.
