I have two children that are very curious about everything dad does in the shop. They ask a lot of questions about the guns that come through here. For years I have had a shop safe, but nothing in the house. The kids were too small to climb, so our home defense firearms stayed on top of furniture or on the top shelf in the closet.
Now that they are older, we decided that there needed to be something to protect the kids from themselves. They are good kids, but I don’t trust them not to snoop around since I did that all the time growing up. I knew where my dad kept his guns and looked for times when he wasn’t around so I could admire them. Luckily he never had any ammo for them.
We decided to go with Gun Vault’s Mini Vault. Easily purchased at many sporting good stores, they are simple to set up, operate and store. They don’t require a lot of room in the closet and will store two of my handguns. I don’t have it for security purposes of keeping someone for stealing the firearms. We actually have a lot of measures in place for that already. The main reason is to keep interested kids safe.
The vault operates off of a 4 digit keypad that is simple to use. You can program it for any combination that works for you. When activated, the spring loaded door opens very quickly. In about 1 second, you can have access to your firearms if you need them, but you will need to practice. Make sure you have the combination down solid. You don’t want to trying to remember the combination when the need arises. It uses AA batteries, and has a keyed backup in case of battery failure.
For a reasonable amount of money you can have peace of mind and keep your family safe. To me the gun vault is an easy decision. You can get the Gun Vault Mini for just over $100.