GUN SAFETY DURING THE HOLIDAYS

The holidays are a time to be thankful, a time to rest, and a time to celebrate friends and family. Whether you are traveling across the country to visit friends or family, or if you are hosting a get-together yourself, this is the time of the year where we all get together and celebrate the bonds and relationships that we hold dear in our lives.

As a gun owner, if you have children in your home you’ve likely taught them the importance of firearm safety. You may have even taken your safety one step further by having a locking device for your firearms in your home so that your children, or perhaps more importantly their friends who may come over, don’t have any way to access your firearms. Just because you have taught your children the proper way to handle and approach firearms certainly does not mean that others have done the same with their children. Children or guests who may visit your home may not come from gun owning households, and a young child’s curiosity is a powerful thing.

With this in mind it is especially crucial this time of the year if you are hosting a gathering for the holidays to keep gun safety at the front of your mind. There may be people in your home: family, friends, nephews, nieces, cousins; that do not know how to handle a firearm, have never handled a firearm, have never been taught anything about firearms or may have never even seen a firearm. It is your responsibility as a gun owner to ensure the safety of all guests in your home in this regard.

There are multiple ways you can ensure the safety of all your holiday guests. One method would be to make sure all of your firearms are not loaded and stored in a remote, secure location. However this method prevents quick access. Gun trigger safety locks are also available, and although they may keep a guest from accidentally discharging your firearm, it alone does not prevent access to that firearm – you may also want to consider storing the firearm in a location it is unlikely to be discovered for this method. The most secure option is to have your firearms locked into a gun safe, whether that be a full-sized gun safe, a wall cabinet, or a smaller vault such as a ShotLock Solo-Vault.

A ShotLock can be a complimentary product to a full-fledged gun safe. If you have multiple guns, a single home defense weapon of choice could be left installed in a ShotLock in a convenient, easy to access location while the rest of your arsenal resides in a full-sized gun safe somewhere else in your home. This would create a quick access solution for when seconds count, while still having a secure way to store your other firearms whose purpose may not be home defense.

The holidays are a wonderful time, but please exercise caution this holiday season.