f13.net

Does anyone have any experience in safes/gun safes - particularly with biometric locks? 

Also, I know that it'd be best to talk to a contractor, but what about making 'fake' walls or hidden aclove to put the safe(s) in?  I can't seem to wrap my head around the proper wording to google search with...

Floor safe would probably be a good thing to google.

how about this (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=concealed+gun+safe)

edit: I would imagine any DIY solution for concealment wold work fine for a biometric lock safe as well.

Can't do a floor safe; house is built on slab.  Suppose I could, but wowzers...The cost would be astronomical.  I'm using the full size, stand up gun safes.

Can you put a bookshelf in front of the door?  I suppose if the stash is hidden well enough then I won't need a safe, but YMMV.

I am thinking you must be reading the same publications as my wife.  She just bought a book on ebay about how to set up a "retreat" for survival.

Haha, no....Not building a stronghold for the impending zombie invasion.

I've got about 45 guns and about 6,000 rounds of ammo that I've inherited or collected that I need to secure.  Since we're (likely) in the last house we'll buy for a good 30 years, I want to make something more permanent.  I've outgrown my current safe and really don't like looking at it -or- it being so visible in my home office.  I'm not wild about losing so much square footage in my office, but a 'faux' wall book case is what I'm seriously looking at doing with the safes behind it.  Just have no idea about how to go about doing it.

wat

I would think building a "fake" wall would be much like building a real wall; the only difference is that you'd build it inside a room to divide it in two. 

Being in the midst of building a real wall in my basement, I can assure you it's a pain in the ass.  Although you probably won't be doing it in a cramped space on a sloping concrete floor.

Obama ain't gunna take MY guns.  :why_so_serious:

Dude, He and I live in SW 'Bama. I'm the freak for not owning one  here.

Good point.

'Sides, if the zombie apocalypse ever comes, that's where it'll start.

I'd recommend a SPAS 12 or a Benelli.

Can you put a fake wall in a walk in closet instead so you dont loose so much office space? Cut a closet in half with a fake swing out panel wall.

Samwise has it right on how to build a 'concealed space' wall.  It's no different than a normal wall, you're just hiding the door.

http://www.hidden-spaces.com/

I searched for "hidden spaces" and got that.

The easiest way of doing this is just build an object larger than the door on the room side and affix it to your door panel.  I'd do it this way because a whole moving wall panel will be hard to conceal. The opening and panel will have a gap between them that will wear and stain over time. Just watch about scraping things across your carpet/ flooring as that will give-away the safe's location.

Buy enough guns to make thousands of decoy caches. Then the chances are that the good guns won't get stolen.

The old WMD trick.

Works every time.

What ya need is one of them there boxspring safes, that way they need to push aside your cold dead body to get to your guns!

Right, you'll probably want to do the "bookshelf" thing, but what I would suggest is to build out a small doorframe rather than a full-size one.  Much easier to hide.  Also maybe you can have it raised above the floor so you don't have to worry about scraping the floor.  Sounds like you don't need quick access if you're just using it as storage.

By the way, the two things I advise investing in today are gold and guns.

Gold prices swing like a pendulum do this year.  Can your blood pressure handle it?  And guns?  How do you make money investing in guns?  Sell them to people who shouldn't have them?

Naturally.  I expect that gold and guns will retain value even if the country goes all Mad Max.  You'll wish you hadn't put all your wealth into fiat when that guy with the hockey mask rides his dune buggy up to your house.

If Mad Max has taught me anything, is that the guy with the hockey mask just wants my oil, and is willing to let me just walk away.  My gold and guns are safe.   :awesome_for_real:

Just make sure the door to your secret chamber swings open when you pull one of the candle sconces on the wall.

(http://bestuff.com/images/images_of_stuff/210x600/put-the-candle-back-103013.jpg)

The only thing I worry about using a swing out book case, which is something I thought about and like, is sag.  I suppose the solution would be to build the actual framing out steel, which is no problem since I can weld and have a buddy that has the tools to cut the steel to measure.  However, the steel framing would add weight, but it would be structurally solid.  And it's not like I'd be accessing it every day.  Also, the bookcase has enough 'busy' stuff to draw the eye away from any seams or gaps.  It would be best to have a the entire thing raised about 2.5 inches so not to potentially scrape the hardwood flooring.

The main problem I have is the layout of the room itself...The house is essentially |__| shaped.  The office is in the middle facing the backyard, with the den to the left, and master bedroom to the right.  The window in the room is essentially one big window that takes up nearly the entire wall.  It has one small 'half closet' that basically juts into the walk in closet for the master br.  I might be able to convince the wife to lose some of the closet space, but doubtful.  

 

Edit:  It's not that you 'make money', per se, it's that you don't lose money. 

Guns generally don't depreciate.  They hold their value, and generally appreciate.  Cheapo guns, sure, they will lose their value.  No doubt.  But since Obama became president, every gun shop, manufacturer, and collector has been under the impression he's going to take all our guns away (I disagree with this) or at the very least, make it nearly impossible to obtain one (this would be a good thing).  Plus people have been on a buying spree, driving up the mark up from dealers.

Also, ammo cost have been on the rise - partly due to Obama, but mostly because of the Chinese buying up raw materials like you wouldn't believe.

I kinda think the attached bookshelf is overengineering if you aren't going in there all the time.  You are framing the problem as "how can I build at secret door" when you actually have the problem of hiding firearms.  I say the door can be pretty shitty if you have a large-ish but movable piece of furniture.  Now, if you're going to be accessing the space on even a semi-regular basis then this is inadequate and likely to produce marks on the floor, at least.  I might have a space with a smallish raised door which could be hidden by a painting.  No one would ever think to look behind a painting unless they were Simon & Simon.

I have also thought of something: can you store these in the attic?  If you are interested in putting the safe itself into whatever place, then nevermind.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_O9bDmM37BcA/SXYokU7ZfNI/AAAAAAAAJjU/2LjC8UzHwGs/s400/ChrisRock_promostill.jpg)

@ Samwise: I don't get it...  :headscratch:

@ Yegolev: Can't store in the attic (assuming you mean the safes).  They weigh in somewhere between 500-600 lbs empty.  The primary motivation behind the safes are, obviously, safety for my son and his friends.  Right now, they're stacked in gun cases in a closet and under the bed in a spare bedroom with a key'd lock on the door.  Secondary motivation is security (if the house is ever broken into, however doubtful that is) because they won't be holding just guns.  The idea behind hiding them is one part aesthetics and one part 'wouldn't it be cool if...'.

Do you really trust your children so little that you need something more than a basic padlock? Also, there's no safe that's going to hold 45 guns... Hell, what you should really do is rent a u-store-it, or put it all in one of those big chests with a lock.

Ah, if you are hiding the safe then we can concentrate on that.  I still say raise it up, but now you will have to build the opening to the size of the safe door.  Assuming you get one of the full-size gun safes, you're looking at a big bookshelf to cover that.  Maybe a wheeled shelf... you know what, I'll ask my wife for ideas.  She's got an interior design degree and she also probably recently bought a book on how to hide guns. :awesome_for_real:

@ bhodi:  Using multiple safes (three).  And no, call it paranoia, but little kids have zero business having any sort of access to guns until they're old enough to understand what they are what they're capable of.  

Even if they're unloaded.

@ Yegolev:  Cool.  I have an idea, but I'm not so sure how feasible it is.  The best thing to would be to build the 'bookcase' a bit raised, say about 2 inches, with a trim piece across the bottom.  Would have to find out if the concrete slab is poured deep enough to sustain that sort of weight of about 3000 lbs over a relatively small footprint.   I'm not worried so much about the frame of the bookcases that would open outwards, but the weight issue has got me a bit worried. 

Friends dad had a concealled safe (not sure what was in it) in the base of their pool table.  Was damn cool, but not sure how that would fit in your gig!

Click, motherfucker. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJGcrUk2eE)

And it gives him an excuse to buy a pool table, if he doesn't have one already!   :yahoo:

http://hiddendoors.com/home.asp might be somewhat useful.

I'm calling the police.

Eh, my parents have about 25 guns and tons of ammo in their own safe back home (which they also acquired through inheritance and cheep purchase).  Welcome to America  :why_so_serious:

Whats the point of hiding the safe again?  Just to keep it out of view (which is fine/cool)?  Because if its for security, no bugler is ever going to be able to get into a gun safe unless he drags a fucking welding torch into your house and has a ton of time to go at it.  Which isn't very likely.  So no reason to really hide it...

Nutjobs.

Mostly for aesthetics, is the reason for hiding them.  Don't really want to be looking at a wall of safes when in my home office/man cave.

We have around 20 guns that haven't seen the light of day in a long ass time, they are all inherited.

Funny story about a gun safe... My step-grandfather lives in a semi-remote location and used to go on multiple vacations a year, so his house would get broken into quite often (4 times or so in about 10 years). He decided to buy a gun safe. Some stupid fucking moron broke in a few months later and decided to bust the lock off with a sledgehammer thinking it would magically pop open. Oh, and did I mention every time he called the police they just showed up, looked around for about 10 minutes and said there was nothing they could do? AWESOME.

Just paint it pink and put a Somebody Else's Problem field around it.

Apparently I have to revise my thinking from "those crazy Americans all have a gun" to "those crazy Americans have at least 20 guns each".

Some of us crazy Americans get by with no guns at all.  I guess the people who own 20+ make up for it.

No, crazy americans have one gun.

People who should be in jail have 20. Even if they're hunting rifles.

See you all in politics.

You're being a retard, but whatever dude

I'd understand that amount of guns if they were all antiques or had some sort of historical value, like an old mauser or some such. But 40 guns of of the garden variety sort? Guns are tools, like hammers. There are good hammers, bad hammers, and super deluxe special hammers that cost more than the regular hammers, but they all are meant to do just that one thing.

Sure, because a pistol is the same a shotgun is the same as a rifle. In high school, I owned 3 shotguns and 4 rifles for various hunting activities. And a pistol because I could.

But people looked at my 'collecting' of different types/sizes of hammers when I was a carpenter as being a lot more crazy than the guy who wants to hide an arsenal fit for a platoon.

On the using a bookshelf attached to a door thing, if you have wood floors, or a berber type carpet in the main room that will not show an obvious trail, you can (and probably should) have some casters under it to support the weight. The tricky part is keeping axle of each caster along a radius with the pivot. Making something that is both hidden from all but the most keen eye and also truly functional requires quite a bit of planning and carpentry skill though.

Guns survive multiple generations if maintained. If your family collects guns eventually you will end up with fucktons of them. If i had 40 i would just disable the ones i was unlikely to use, wrap them up and stick them in an attic space with the ammo. And then deal with the remainder. Why the fuck is this in politics?

Yes machine gunes are really needed to hunt deer. Well thei are a quick way to make soup, I supppose...  :why_so_serious:

There are all sorts of reasons to have multiple guns for different types of animals. You shoot a rabbit with a moose gun there'll be nothing left but the ears. You shoot a bull moose with a rabbit gun, he won't even turn around.

Most Americans don't own any guns at all, and the majority of gun owners have one. A tiny minority "collects" because their families have a military or sport hunting tradition.

This thread does not belong in politics. We already have a gun control thread. This is a "how do I hide large, dangerous valuables" thread.

I don't understand.

Boys like to play with guns.

You forgot the crazies, how could you forget the crazies!

I did not!

I missed the quotation marks... doh.

I think the point is, if that's a priority why the fuck have all those guns.

Such a specious implication can hardly be called a "point". I mean if you valued the safety of your children surely you would not own a home with stairs,a swimming pool or a vehicle. All which pose an exponentially greater risk to your child's safety.

Absolutly. But I think the real question is why doesn't SnakeCharmer have 40 cars, 40 swimming pools, and 40 sets of stairs?

I love how everyone has given up on green text now. I can pretend people who are normally just stupid are actually making cutting critical comments at every point!

Of course that's an argument so stupid it doesn't even really need to be in politics. And what I mean by that is that particular argument is just going to involve people calling other people idiots/insane for liking/not liking the same things, though I guess that's the reason the politics forum exists. That and give Ironwood some other dose of disappointing news about the world :why_so_serious:

Good point the number of firearms and swimming pools is completely relevant.

Did I mention that my father's family has a military and sport-hunting tradition? My father is using his mother's gun case as a bookshelf because he'd always considered it too obvious. When I was a kid he had rifles stowed in various obscure locations all over the house. I don't believe there were any in the bathrooms (moisture is bad for them y'know), but every other room was probably hiding two or three... folded into furniture or in secret compartments he constructed. Relatively recently he gave most of them away to his brother, my brother, and assorted cousins. I think.

Good times.

My Grandfather was a top ball turret gunner on a B-17, flew 24 missions in Europe, he managed to sneak his service 45 home along with a couple of captured German 9mm.  People keep giving my dad guns since we live out in the country, guess they think we need tons of guns to fight off the corn and soybeans.  Funny thing is my son, my Dad, & I usually just shoot the BB-guns, paint guns, or air soft guns now.  Heck you should see what my son and I have done to our nerf guns, we had a blast at the church youth night nerf wars since our nerf guns could shoot farther and more accurate.

My neighbours keep shouting at each other in Korean, slamming doors and throwing furniture. My boss appears to keep repressed rage under his family man image. Swine flu is approaching from the ports. Two pigeons keep trying to land on my balcony.

Should I buy 40 guns?

Top? That's not the ball. The ball is the ball. Top round glass turret is a flight engineer.

24 missions is early, scary death sentence shit. Cheers to hiim.

Indeed.  If you're building super sekrit cupboards in your house to hide 60 guns from your own son, well, I actually don't know what to say to that.

I was going to ignore gryeyes for, well, being a cunt, but :  If you want to equate 60 lethal firearms and assorted ammunition with falling down the stairs, crashing a car, or falling into a swimming pool, I also don't know what to say.  I put up Babygates, have my water cover for the pond and keep my car in the garage.  Prior to Elena being born, I sold an awful lot of dangerous shit and put a lot more in storage.  The most dangerous implement in the house is my Elvish Knife, which I love.  If I start to worry about her playing with it, it's GONE.  I don't like it that much.

One thing I will agree with - This thread has a LOT of posts that ought to be lit up green so I actually know who's joking.

Here's my suggestion :  Hire a storage area offsite and transport the firearms the fucking helll out of your house.  Keep 1 or possibly 2 in a small gun locker, combination known only to yourself.  Teach your son not ever, ever, ever to touch your stuff, especially guns, by beating the absolute fuck out of him at regular intervals.  It worked on me.  I don't dare touch my fathers strawberry plants even now and I'm 34.


And Schild was right.  This thread found the right home.

You are correct they are not equatable. The cars and swimming pools pose a far greater risk. Yet i doubt you would be a piece of shit and question anyone who owned a swimming pool motivation for keeping their children safe. 60 loaded guns poses no greater risk than a single loaded unlocked firearm. And 60 firearms pose no risk at all unloaded and properly stored. So you can stick your sanctimonious ignorance up your ass.

(http://www.overlordtour.com/image/tour10/Photo3_St-Aubin-street-facing-the-Pak-39.jpg)

My grandfather figured he's the one looking slightly back, it's a bad picture, but enlarged version's I've seen are certainly suggestive.  This would make the guy in front of him a dead man, because he caught a bullet from a sniper after the camera flash went off.

I say this because this thread is going places.

Hey, we actually had about half of those for a charitable reason!  One of my stepdads friends, who was a hunter, had a very nasty divorce with his wife (she was cheating on him).  He became very depressed and very very angry afterwards.  My stepdad decided it would be a good idea if he bought all his friends guns off him cheep so he wouldn't have access to them, heh.

Anyways, as people have mentioned, guns are something that last many generations, so they will accumulate (and the vast majority of ours are rifles and shotguns.  Only a few pistols).  Most of the guns my family has span the course of the last 60 years (and we even have a really cool old derringer from before the turn of the century).  If you have a big family (such as my stepdads) they grow faster as every boy will want his own gun to go shoot with growing up.

You're not correct.  Or right.

I should say that what we do with the guns people give us, is wrap them in gun type socks (oiled cloths), put them out in the barn or attic, along with the ammo (we put them in a different box), and secure the barn.  Of course even if they broke into the barn, they would have to sort threw tons of boxes of stuff in the attic to find them.  The only guns I've kept in my house is a nerf gun, the rest went to my parents house, even the bows are kept over there.

Forgot to mention, great gradfather was in WWI as an artillery crewman in France with the US Army, we have some of his gear (or kit) and a few of his old guns he used growing up on the farm our land used to be.  They were a 20 gauge double barrel shot gun and a single shot 22, both served 4 generations of small game hunting, until one of the barrels on the shot gun broke it's firing pin, it was then retired.

Where was that photo taken at Sheepherder?  Yeah, I had my gun spots mixed up, it was just a "top gun spot" on the B-17.  He was just a gunner, as he told me about Sheppard AFB (which is where I went from some training too), and how they took them on the back of a flat bed truck driving down the road and a guy would pitch a clay up in the air, and grand dad would have to shoot it with a shot gun while the truck was moving.  My other grand parents were in the Navy on the pacific side, one was a cook and one a clerk, they met in San Fran, and got married after the war ended.  My great uncle was a medic with the 101st in WWII, another great uncle served in the Navy in the Pacific on a destroyer, another great uncle got killed during the Battle of the Bulge.  My family has been lucky, we have had a lot of us serve (from the Civil War til 1999) and not many deaths in combat, which is good as we had smaller families than most did.

Reading this thread, I'm not so sure the gun collector is the nutjob.

It's the Korean Neighbours, right ?

What the fuck is the difference between a safe containing 20 guns and a locker containing 2 when it comes to safety? What, is the kid going to shoot himself 20 times?

It's pretty hard to get a high score (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/School_shooting#High_scores.21) with only 1 gun.

The size of the locker you have to buy, you enormous tit.

St. Aubin, off of Juno beach.  It's supposed to be in the North Shore Regiment's operational area, where my grandfather was with the Queen's Own Rifles in the adjacent sector, though the only information I've ever seen in regards to this picture are captions amounting to "We don't know who the fuck these people are."

Back to the topic of guns, and ignoring Sir T's :uhrr: attempt at derailing into machine guns and assault weapons, keep a single shotgun and some ammunition on hand for home security (not that I believe it's an effective method), or go with a pistol.


Buy a locker and a storage unit of some sort, problem solved.

Did you read what he said? Why would you doubt a shotgun for home security. Its pretty much the ultimate in home defense, barring a trained polar bear.

It's been said in the gun thread, but you're new and probably won't bother reading it, so it bears repeating again.

Shotguns are /not/ the ultimate in home defense for several reasons, if anything they will serve you less than a pistol or rifle in the same situation due to misconception of its abilities.

1) You DO have to aim a shotgun, it is not a hip fired weapon and "the general vicinity" is not good enough, it takes a COM shot just like any other weapon to down a bad guy.
2) Penetration.  I often hear the whole "a shotgun is the best H/D weapon because the rounds won't penetrate walls!" - This is utter bullshit, even birdshot will go through drywall, though it won't do much more than piss off an intruder.  Ask the fellow Cheney shot in the face with birdshot about how effective it is.  A proper shotgun load is 00 buck or slugs, which will penetrate walls just as well as a rifle or pistol.
3) "Just rack the slide, it'll scare em off!" - It will also alert an intruder to your position before you are ready to fire.

Pistols and rifles (or more importantly, semi-automatic carbines) will do the same thing better.  They are generally smaller, enter battery quieter, and can put more lead on target faster than a shotgun.

Check out "The Box o' Truth" if you actually want to learn something, or just keep spouting off nonsense, I don't really care.

Wait, isn't that what I said ?

Look, I think part of the problem here is that people are treating this as a gun thread.  I'm not.  I don't care.  He can have as many guns as he likes because he's got the right.  It's that simple.

However, where my brain went yoink was where he said it was to protect them from his son.  And then I chipped in with good advice about what I did when Elena came along.  I used to have around 6 swords in the house.  No joke.   They're not there anymore.  They're in storage.

Guns ENTIRELY ASIDE, I just find the idea of building secret cubbyholes in your own house and comments like "The Loft Can't Take The Weight" to be a little strange and kinda working AROUND the problem.

Get the guns/ITEMS OF NO POLITICAL VALUE WHATSOEVER out of the house until you're own your own.  Then convert the little shits room to your Gun Sanctuary.

For me, when I kick Elena out, I'm making a D&D Dungeon.  And then, according to the wife, inviting Samwise round.

Im sorry but you are fucking wrong.

1. You buy frangible rounds for the shotgun if you are concerned about over penetration (other members in the same home,apartment). Thats what they are designed for. And yes while even birdshot and 00 buck will go through drywall its very unlikely (not going to fucking happen)  its going to go through  2-3 interior walls,furniture,exterior walls then penetrate your neighbors exterior/interior and kill them?  Will any moderate caliber handgun and just about every fucking caliber rifle (especially those you would be using in home defense)? Ya they probably will.

Strike one

2. The amount of training required to become proficient with a rifle or handgun (especially in CQC) far exceeds that required to become proficient with a shotgun. And of course you are required to "aim" While highly variable to barrel,choke,load and gauge you can reasonably expect a spread of 8-10 inches at 10 yards with 00 buck. At 10 feet your spread will still probably be 2-4 inches, so to say the same amount of tolerances for accuracy exist between the differing firearms is likewise fucking moronic.

Strike two

3. Ummm i will ignore this point because its pretty fucking stupid.


And while your previous points are kind of ignorant and strawmanish this is just blatantly stupid/wrong. First of all comparing the ballistics of a handgun at close range to a shotgun is so fucking stupid i wont even address it. Likewise comparing a semi-automatic carbines (ignoring the issue of legality and restrictions) effectiveness at close range to a 00 buck is just woefully ignorant. And if we are using the cock yard stick of "putting lead down range" (which is probably criminally negligent not to mention ineffective SUPPRESING FIREZ IN MAI LIVINGZ ROOM!  :uhrr:)

I think it would only be fair to compare it to a semi-automatic combat shotgun of some type. But that is irrelevant because that's not really ideal for home defense either. In a real life situation the chances of you combating a squad of armed and trained assailants is absolutely nill. Its not going to become a firefight in which the "amount of lead you throw down range" is even a fucking factor. More so anyone with any amount of skill and a shotgun is not going to have to fire more than a couple times (Be willing to bet national statistics for home defense attest). At that point someone is fucking dead or running the fuck away.


Id say a short barreled Remington 870 is pretty ideal for home defense. I will go to your website and if it contradicts anything I know through a lifetime of hunting,CMP involvement,CQC classes (thought it would be nice to do before i got my CWP) and 4+ trips to the range a month I will respond to them.

Sorry for the huge double wall of text.   :grin:



Regretfully for you, i actually took the time to look at your site just in case by some strange miracle i was wrong.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3_2.htm (http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3_2.htm)



Why the fuck would you talk shit and then provide a source that directly contradicts your assertions?

Consider that 6 boards of drywall is 3 walls.   That means it passes through two rooms and into a third.  It was also 5/8" sheetrock, and unless you have a home you redrywalled yourself that's 1/8" thicker on each lamination than you're going to get in your average home.  5/8" is only used in fire-rating situations when in a home, standard is 1/2".

This all discounts hitting studs, though.

You mean well built and handsome men ?

 :ye_gods:

For certain that's why i kind of made a distinction between living alone in your own home and apartments/family. A medium  power handgun and for certain a rifle is still going to have the potential to go through your house, hit a house down the block and still kill someone. Even if the buck penetrated a couple walls went into neighbors home its pretty unlikely its going to kill someone even if it hit them. Also figure in most of your possessions tend to be at human height. Im sure we can find some ballistics info on penetration into gel setup behind some sheet rock. If i had to be concerned with children I believe i would be using some slightly less effective ammunition. And making damn sure if i had to fire it was not going to miss.

Giant walls of text about owning guns are a major sign of fruitcakery.

The Gub'mint took mah guns away. (yes, really) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#The_Port_Arthur_massacre_and_its_consequences)

Sung to the rune of Calafornai girls by the Bee Gees...

Via Zucker Abrams and Zucker

    Skeet Surfin'...
    Skeet Surfin'...
    If everybody had a 12 gauge
    With a sufboard too.
    You see em shootin and surfin'
    From here to Malibu.

    Because he's totally bitchin'
    Ridin waves and blastin' pigeons.
    And its a' neat shootin' skeet when youre ridin' on the heavies all day.


    First Wave (shoot shoot) Don't get tired. Second Wave (shoot shoot) Aim higher. Third Wave (shoot shoot) Pull it and fire.

    Skeet Surfin' (it's all right)

    Waxin' down our surfboards
    And loadin' up our traps.
    Tell the teacher we're shootin'
    And never comin' back.

    I've got a gun rack in my Chevy
    For when the surf and the flak get heavy.
    And we'll have fun with our guns until the lifeguard takes our ammo away.

    First wave (shoot shoot)
    Don't get tired.
    Second Wave (shoot shoot)
    Aim higher.
    Third Wave (shoot shoot)
    Pull it and fire.

    Skeet Surfin' (it's all right)

    First Wave (shoot shoot)
    Man what a 'natch.
    Second Wave (shoot shoot)
    Pullin' that trap.
    Third Wave (shoot shoot)
    How was that?

    Sharing sunsets with my favorite girl,
    When we shoot the curl we really shoot the curl.

    First wave (shoot shoot)
    Don't get tired.
    Second Wave (shoot shoot)
    Aim higher.
    Third Wave (shoot shoot)
    Pull it and fire.

    Skeet Surfin'

    First Wave (shoot shoot)
    Man what a 'natch.
    Second Wave (shoot shoot)
    Pullin' that trap.
    Third Wave Wave (shoot shoot)
    How was that?

    I wish they all could be double-barrel,
    Wish they all could be double barrel guns.

    Skeet surfin' can't you see?
    Do you wanna come along with me?

    (fade out)

(from the Movie "Top Secret")

I'm confused - is the trained polar bear more or less dangerous than 60 guns or a swimming pool?

And trained in what, exactly? If you trained the polar bear to use the guns (possibly while sliding down the stairs and into the swimming pool) wouldn't THAT be the ultimate in home defence?

No.

You need to buy a gun each for your Korean neighbours and have one delivered anonymously to your boss together with ammo and the message "IT IS TIME". Skip work and go for a long walk that day. Avoid cruise ship passengers, just in case.

The pigeons are just pigeons.

Since this thread is speeding toward the bottom already, I'll toss in here that a knife is far quieter than a gun.  Nevermind that I expect my home will be broken into while I am at work rather than while I'm actually there.  My wife wants to rig up traps and I keep telling her these are illegal, so the best I hope for is that they steal the 360 and it redrings on them.

If they steal the 60GB PS3, though, it's time for facepaint.

This is WHY I kept the Elvish Knife....

Everybody knows the perfect home defense weapon is a claymore.  Just remember, "This side towards enemy".

--Dave

 :drill: :drill: :drill:

The mine or the sword?  I'd think the sword would be too unwieldy in the confines of a home.

DO NOT put guns in an off site storage facility unless it is a specialty, high security one.  They are what I now call 'property theft aggregators' more than storage facilities.  That is where all of my guns were stolen from when I temporarily parked them there at the insistence of my overly paranoid wife.  The cop gave me a real hard time about it and basically told me I was a dumb fuck for puttng them there.

I would think the mis-quoted labeling would clear up both the ambiguity and the question of "sarcasm?", but apparently not.  Or I'm falling into my own sarchasm.  Anyway, an M18A1 would certainly take care of an intruder without requiring careful aim, nor would you have to concern yourself with whether your walls were 1/2" or 5/8" sheetrock.

--Dave

I would also mention that if I stab/slice someone with a ten-inch knife, I'm not likely to continue cutting through walls or furniture or hung photos/art or ... et cetera.  I could live in a japanese paper hut and use a knife on an intruder, then immediately return to not being rained on.

I'm not a military person, so it wasn't really a giveaway to me.  Hitting them with the hilt would be less effective, too, so it still fits.

Not quoting that huge wall of greyeyes text, but:

8 boards of drywall and being stopped by the ninth is enough penetration that you sure as hell better know whats behind your target if you miss.
Studs will stop most pistol rounds and slow down rifle rounds considerably if they do happen to penetrate.

Pistols rounds going through your interior walls, exterior walls, traveling down the block, penetrating another exterior wall and then killing someone? Jesus christ where do you get this shit, or do you live in a shantytown where it might actually be applicable?

Edit: I say *if* you miss, I should probably say when, as your advocating that you really don't need any training or practice to be proficient with a shotgun.  a 2-4" spread at 10 feet is better than alot of people can do with a fucking handgun or rifle, especially in a high stress scenario.  Any weapon that people are told "You don't really have to aim, its impossible to miss!" is a BAD FUCKING CHOICE FOR HOME DEFENSE.

Do yourself a favor and just stop.

What's more, the CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WING Gub'mint took the guns away!

This is true.

No, I was implying that all guns fail at some fundamental aspect of home defense, not shotguns specifically.  Simply yelling "I called the cops", or triggering an alarm, will have every burglar booking it as fast as their legs will carry them, provided they figure you're not going to shoot them in the back.  In the latter case having a gun is a motivator for the criminal to stay so long as he hasn't managed to kill or injure you to secure his escape.  All of these grisly predicaments are solved by having an alarm go off when a sensor or button is triggered, especially if the proximity of the criminal to the victim is great enough that the criminal need not fear for his life.

Really, "self-defense" has always seemed to me to be a pretty flimsy justification for "I like guns and shooting things."  Which is fine, because I like guns and shooting things, I just need a justification to get my dad to let me use that Luger P08 we have lying around somewhere.

The prevalence of firearms in homes is one of the biggest factors in the US having only 15% burglaries occur while a home is occupied. The UK for example has twice the per capita burglaries of the US with over 50% of those occurring while the resident is home. Various surveys done have criminals stating "fear of being shot" as the main motivator for going out of their way to avoid robbing an occupied home. In situations where a confrontation occurs having a firearm significantly lowers the risk of harm to your person (statistics concerning self-defense vary widely).

But i do agree if my home was invaded and my only responsibility was my personal safety i would in all likelihood yell a warning that im armed while sitting in a dark corner in my bedroom firearm trained on the door waiting for the police arrive. That situation changes completely with the addition of children/loved ones. The circumstances in which you are going to NEED a weapon to protect your life from a home invader is rather small. But its not a contingency you should not be prepared for.

Yelling "I've called the police!" or counting on alarm works great if you have a quick police response time.  The last time I had to call the police to deal with some drunken idiots trespassing on a dock and trying to start a fight, it took 40 minutes for them to show up.  In my city, if they show up inside of 10-15 minutes for *anything* you're lucky.  A first-time criminal might not know this, but you can bet your ass any criminal who's done it before is well aware of response times and what they can get away with in that window.

Solution: Yell out "I've called the police!" while holding a gun.

Greyeyes: Why would I stop, are you trying to say that advocating aimed fire is a bad idea?  Go shoot a few rounds of trap and tell me how well that not aiming thing works out for you.  Now remember that you're using no choke and birdshot and any HD load is going to have a spread 1/4 to 1/10th of that.

It really depends on the home more than anything. I had no trouble in Sir Ian Campbell's wee house (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Inveraray_Castle_from_above.jpg).

Because creating a red herring is just going to shit up the thread more. I semi-regularly hunt duck and have competed in a few marksmanship competitions, I have not even vaguely hinted that aiming is not important. But i agree i would avoid a confrontation if possible while waiting for the burglar flee (assuming only my personal safety was a factor). Relying on a police response to save you is not very practical. More so any burglar who is willing to break into someones house that is occupied shows he is physically dangerous (on drugs,complete fucking idiot,does not give a shit about a confrontation).

Also depends on the sword. A good shoto is good for medium sized spaces if you know how to use it.

On the off-chance that SC is still reading this, the reply was to just hang a mirror over the opening.  Even if there are seams at the lower end, chances are very good that no one will notice because of the mirror drawing the eyes.

As for the rest of the thread, are two pro-gun people arguing or am I on the drugs again?

Pro-gun people always end up arguing about penetration.

It's awesome.


Not for real.

Can you keep us out of it?  Unless you want to link some statistics such as the number of people killed in the UK in their own home during a burglary compared to the US.  I'd be interested in that.

Because it's a different statistic?

The rate I found is 3.8% (link to FBI) (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_07.html).  Where are you getting your statistics?

Regardless, "fear of being shot" applies equally to all persons unless you think the criminals are going door-to-door asking people how many firearms they have in the house and taking notes.  Much like vaccines, any single "unprotected" case's odds are bettered by an increase per capita regardless of whether or not they are protected.  This is also completely ignoring that statistics could be manipulated, that definitions of burglary may be different, and that the root cause may be something else (such as self-defense being a viable legal argument in U.S. courts).

Yes, obviously, though he didn't actually link a statistic.  If he's going to use UK burglaries as justification for keeping a gun, then the fact that the UK has very different gun control laws is relevant.  If the law required everyone in the UK to keep a gun at home for protection, then I'm sure that would affect the pattern of burglaries, but it won't naturally lead to making us safer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/4631857/Scotlands-murder-rate-is-fastest-rising-in-Western-Europe-UN-finds.html


What's the US murder rate, three times that?  Apples to Oranges was exactly my point.

Why O Why when discussing 'Booze and Blades' does Scotland always come up ?

 :heartbreak:

Why wouldn't it. Cragganmore and Claymores.

Perhaps if you shot each other more it would divert attention from that?  :grin:

If I had that place I would only have a rapier and dagger for personal protection.  My knights would be the ones walking around with claymores.

Now why on earth would you give your knights landmines?

I want them to be using top-of-the-line stuff.

Yes because that is EXACTLY what i was doing. :uhrr:

I played this "guess what I really meant" dance with you before.  It's your keyboard, you want to keep a gun, go for it, I'd probably have one if I lived in the USA too.  It doesn't change the fact that quoting statistics about occupied burglaries in the UK (with no link) while talking about the possibilities of your "home" being "invaded" is a standard talking point of the pro gun crowd (http://futurewire.blogspot.com/2004/12/home-invasions-us-vs-uk.html).

Oh but wait, you totally didn't mean that  :why_so_serious:  Is it cheap flights to the USA and a concern over cockney villains that has you watching the UK burglary figures so closely?

No guessing is required just the ability to fucking read. But here is some statistics if you wanted them.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita)

Wow seems like the UK has higher crime in every category barring homicides and rapes. By a significant margin.  :heartbreak:

Don't worry so much, just practice your rhyming slang, I'm sure you will be fine.

Yes. Because crime is largely driven by social factors such as low economic mobility and unemployment - which the UK absolutely sucks for at the moment. If you are a victim of crime in the UK however you are significantly less likely to end up dead as a result and that is heavily influenced by the fact that British criminals aren't routinely armed with guns.

I wish the abhorrent levels of violence in the US could be attributed to access to firearms. Sadly our homicides not involving firearms are also proportionally inflated.

Oh there are plenty of other factors, such as how recently you were running round with slaves, and how little social welfare exists to elevate people out of the mire of poverty caused by generations of inequity. But easy access to firearms certainly makes life easier for those desperate enough to commit violent crime.

Which is most certainly true. A vast majority of our homicides are condensed to relatively few urban centers. Im curious why the UK has such inflated crime rates? I honestly always assumed the US was leader of all things criminal (at least in developed nations).

Your figures.

UK
Gun violence > Homicides > % homicides with firearms - UK not on the list.
Murders   1,201       [7th of 49]
Murders with firearms   14       [29th of 36]

USA
Gun violence > Homicides > % homicides with firearms    39.5604       [7th of 32]
Murders   16,204       [2nd of 49]
Murders with firearms   9,369       [1st of 36]

Can you Adam and Eve it?

I cant find any relevance of it. But feel free to spew inanity if it makes you happy.

Adam + Eve= see? What are the rules for UK hipness?

Actually the US has higher per-capita rates of Rapes, Assaults, Embezzlements and Murders. The UK has higher rates of Burglaries, Car Thefts, Frauds and Robberies. Neither country is listed on the manslaughter and the UK doesn't appear on any of the murders with firearms lists. The margins of difference for the violent crimes the US leads the US in are not so different from the margins by which the UK is leading in non-violent crime. The overall crime rate in the UK is slightly higher though.

Also apparently the UK is the #1 country in the world for kidnappings, which I find somewhat surprising.

I suspect it all depends on how you define "kidnapping".

http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/statistics/statistics074.htm

If you narrow the definition you get things like this.

http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/resourcesforprofessionals/Statistics/KeyCPStats/15_wda48733.html


http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/01/raw-data-kidnapping-statistics.html


I'm not saying kidnapping is worse in the USA, I just suspect that if we complied the figures in the same way, I won't be surprised if it was.  Which goes back to the whole point about comparing apples to oranges.


http://tinyurl.com/oew7xv

Ya ive noticed a bunch of strange anomalous crime rates. Canada has a retarded amount of rapes for some reason. Is it just how they report them?

As we drifted onto the subject anyway, I think a small part of the reason there's more non-violent crime is that UK jails are massively overcrowded (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1541530/Labour-had-chance-to-build-enough-jail-places.html).  Leading to government instructions for sending fewer to jail (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/22/prisonsandprobation.justice).


As that directly impacts more "minor" offences such as burglary, you get a lot of repeat offenders (drug users) who aren't locked up.  As it's the UK, they also aren't very likely to get their criminal career cut short by an armed homeowner either (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/martin-to-fight-shot-burglar-lawsuit-tooth-and-nail-540761.html).

It was my suspicion, it's also why I wouldn't look into drug-related offenses as these vary hugely between countries.

Gun argument entirely aside, it seems entirely insane to me that not only was the man who defended himself and his property punished for doing so, but he received a longer sentence than the criminal and now stands to get sued for it.

In fairness he set his home up full of booby traps clearly intending to cause bodily harm to any home invaders and shot one in the back as he tried to flee, killing him. It pretty much went beyond home defence into revenge for all the other times he'd been broken into (whether that was anything to do with these two or not). The fact that the one who survived can sue him seems fucked up, simply because it's a bit too close to profiting from crime, but his sentence didn't seem unreasonable to me.

1: He wasn't punished for defending himself, the law allows you to do so using reasonable force. He was punished for manslaughter, the mitigating factors were taken into account but, ultimately it was found that he had unlawfully killed someone.
2: That's because manslaughter is a more serious crime than burglary.

It was an extreme example on several points, I should have made clear it happened years ago.

Brendon Fearon who attempted to sue Tony Martin has his own wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendon_Fearon).


So he was released from prison before Martin, got arrested for drug dealing, got sent to prison again and was released before Martin had finished serving his first sentence.

Martin should have just moved to Texas.

Likely, also, it's old and has a disclaimer at the bottom.  Also, the definition of burglary and robbery may intersect and cause bad statistics.


Ideally you stop people before they set foot on your property, guns don't even really enter the equation of deterrence except when you get into the hypothetical game theory land of large quantities of people owning guns dictating the behavior of criminals when selecting targets and timing  - which doesn't in fact require that you personally own a gun.  The physical presence of a gun in a specific house only gives the option to realistically threaten grave violence, which will provoke a flight or fight response in the criminal which may end exceedingly badly.

Back to Snakecharmer: are you on a suburban or rural property?  Rural property would make an outbuilding easy, else you should be looking for secure storage of some sort IMO.

Which is why, once you make the decision to use a gun as a compliance device, you shoot at the first sign of active defiance.  If you're not prepared to kill somebody because they act threateningly with a weapon aimed at them, then you shouldn't introduce the gun into the equation to begin with.

Having a gun for "home defense" gives you options you would not have without the gun.  Actually using the gun for the purpose can escalate the situation, and having it may tempt you to go all macho and stupid, especially if you think it is a magic wand you wave at people to make them do what you want.  Getting them to piss their pants and run out of the house is a "good outcome", shooting them is much less desirable.  It helps if you live in a jurisdiction where the assumptions work in your favor (for example, states that adhere to the "Castle Doctrine" will start from the position that an intruder in your home "needed killing").  But no matter how strong your legal position, you've still got to get the stains out of the rug.

--Dave

I prefer the shorter version:

"Don't point a gun at anyone you don't intend to shoot."

Fixed it for all situations.  It's pretty much rule #1 through #5.  It's popularity only being matched by "always treat a gun as loaded".

I always heard that one as "There's no such thing as an unloaded gun", but yeah :)

Edit: Oh, and personal rule #3:  "When the guns come out at the party, it's time to go home"

Which is why it's a "do something else, srsly" answer because there's no accounting for a persons ability or lack thereof to shoot someone at an appropriate time.  I think we might have scared Snakecharmer away though.

Oh, and the best "home defense" weapon is a snub-nose double-action revolver in .38 or .44 loaded with (non-magnum) frangible rounds.  This is because if you need to leave a weapon in the safe/under the mattress/taped to the desk for 5 years, then pull it out and use it to fire more than one round, anything that will jam if it's not recently maintained (any semi-automatic pistol, carbine, or rifle) or the shell casings have gotten brittle with age (any shotgun) is a bad plan.  Not having to worry about the bullet going through the kids in the next room or the neighbors in the next house is also a plus, and the bigger the weapon, the more trouble you're going to have with it as you stumble around your house in the dark.

Of course, if you need to defend your home against the forces of government oppression, there's always these (http://www.tromix.com/Welcome.htm).


--Dave

DUDE!  That shot gun kicks ass!  They aren't taking orders till 2011!  Shit I'm in the wrong line of work.

I am buying one of those.


Edit:
Except looking at the barrel length and knowing how shotguns kick I would go with the 10 or 12inch barrel version, with the tritium night sites.

Real men chamber their automatics for 10 gauge.

To quote myself for followup, these days I would add something like this (http://www.mdstactical.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=85312&language=en&cPath=8140), mounted under the barrel (LED's have made mounting a light under a snub barrel a practical option).  Brightest spot is where the bullet will go in, close enough to a laser sight for across the room without making it obvious you're aiming a gun at their sternum.  If it's aimed in their direction at night they won't even be able to see the gun from the intensity of the LED (if it's aimed at their head, they won't even see you), they'll think it's just a flashlight.  I have something similar on my keychain, it's brighter than an old-style 2-D-cell flashlight and it's smaller than my pinkie (this one is a little shorter but wider).

(http://www.mdstactical.com/images/isimages/GS27862.jpg)

Wife won't let me keep a gun without a safe to put it in, and I have very particular standards about what that safe would need to do: Open silently, biometric lock with combination backup (no fucking keys, put the battery backup on the outside or why bother?), and heavy enough steel to stand up to a sledgehammer (10 gauge steel minimum).  I've yet to find anything that gets more than 2 out of 3 (most of the safes with biometric locks sound like a car door slamming when the bolts disengage, the silent safes have cheesy 14-16 gauge steel I could punch through with a chisel), when I do it will probably cost more than the guns inside.

--Dave

Move somewhere that's not fucked.

No such place exists on Earth.

Tristan da Cunha (http://www.tristandc.com/)