A big part of being a responsible gun owner is keeping your guns in a safe place at all times. For most gun owners, that means that if a gun is not on your person it’s in a gun safe stored in their home. There are a wide variety of gun safes available in different sizes, from different manufacturers for different purposes. Some gun owners can get away with just having one safe in their home, and taking their guns in and out only as they need them to carry or head to the range. Some gun owners need a variety of safes to keep guns in quick-access locations throughout their home.
Understanding the different safes and their different locking mechanisms can be a huge asset to gun owners who are looking for a responsible way to both store their guns, and keep them easy to access in case of an emergency for the convenience of daily use.
GunVault MiniVaultThe MiniVault allows you to keep important items, such as your firearm, accessible when necessary for an affordable price. It’s available in standard, deluxe and biometric models and comes standard with a high-strength security cable to secure the safe in a home, car, RV, office or hotel.
Car Safes
Some gun safes are specifically designed for use in vehicle. Frequently, these safes are equipped with a mechanism that attaches to the vehicle temporarily. Most of these safes are specifically designed for pistols, although some trunk safes provide for long guns as well.
There are some inherent risks in using car safes, since there is always a chance that the car will be vandalized or stolen. This is one of the primary reasons it’s important that the safe attaches to the car. If the car is vandalized, a safe that is not secured may be taken and tampered with later, where as a safe secured to the vehicle will be less likely to be removed.
Car safes are also convenient for the transportability. For long road trips, especially through states where your firearm needs to be secured, it is possible to legally transport the gun and easily remove it from your car for storage in a hotel room at night.
Pickup trucks and trunk safes provide for a wider variety of options when storing firearms in the car, but don’t have the same convenience of being able to access your gun from the front or passengers seat.
Bulldog Car VaultThe Bulldog Car Vault is a very affordable option that, while not boasting the same quality as many of its competitors, is an easily concealable safe at a low price. The Bulldog Car Vault includes a mounting bracket that can be mounted anywhere, and a 3’ security cable that can be used in lieu of the bracket.
Bedside Safes
Generally designed to sit on a nightstand, bed side safes are great for people who want to keep a pistol easy to access and close by for home defense purposes, but still have it secured. This is especially useful for families with children, who want to keep their firearms accessible without putting them in a position to be tampered with.
One of the things to look for in a bedside safe is something that secures beyond just being a small, accessible safe. It’s much easier for an entire safe to be taken when it only stores one or two handguns as many bedside safes do.
While many of these safes are designed for ease of accessibility, there are other options for storing home defense guns that are more accommodating of long guns and larger firearms collections. Some people opt to build safes into their beds, or to keep large quick-access safes in their rooms for easy access.
Bedside safes are a lifestyle choice and must be tailored to fit the lifestyle of the owners. While most people choose to keep a pistol in a safe on their bedside table or in the drawer next to their bed, there are a wide variety of options out there depending on what gun owners are looking for.
GunVault XL Biometric MVB 1000The GunVault XL Biometric uses a biometric scanner to provide quick access even in the dark using fingerprint recognition. The safe uses a high-performance algorithm to achieve speedy identification of enrolled fingers with a very low false reject rate.
Desk Safes
Most gun owners carry at the office, but many work from home or prefer to have protection on hand while working at their desk in their home office or elsewhere. For this reason many companies have developed quick access safes similar to bedside safes.
GunVault SV500The SV 500 provides multiple mounting options and a digital keypad for quick access. The digital keypad can be overridden with a back-up key that is included with the safe, and there is an audio and LED low battery warning that notifies the owner.
The primary difference between bedside safes and desk safes is the need for discretion with a desk safe that may not exist in a bedside safe. Most gun owners don’t want a box sitting on their desk that advertises “I have a gun in here,” but would prefer to have a firearm at their side and ready for action when necessary.
Most of the safes bolt under the desk for quick access to the gun while other bolt into the drawer or under the desk for slower access but a more secured firearm. Like any of the other safes, selection of a safe should be dependent on the gun owner’s lifestyle and needs, there is no one size fits all.
Standing Safes
Standing safes are the most popular form of firearm storage, since they provide room for a wide variety of firearms and accessories and also have many different storage and organization options.
Browning SporterThe Browning Sporter is rated for 45 minutes at 1,200 degrees with a 12-Gauge steel body and 1” thick formed door that is reinforced on four sides. The safe utilizes a Force Deflector Locking System that prevents bolt or handle forces from reaching the lock by using a rotating cam device.
While standing safes are a far cry from “fast deploy” they are typically extremely secure, bolting to the ground or simply being too heavy to move without a significant amount of effort. Different sizes can be purchased depending on the size of the gun owner’s collection and varying degrees of security can be found.
Accessories inside the same vary from handgun hangers that provide more storage room to humidifiers that keep your guns rust free and lights that allow you to easily see your collection. The safes themselves vary widely in lock type and material. Some are fireproof and opened with old-style spinning locks while others require fingerprint identification.
Many gun owners have one or more the smaller vaults listed above for quick-access handgun storage and a large standing safe to store the rest of their collection.
Originally published in the April 2013 issue of GunUp the Magazine.
