Biometric safe. It reads your finger prints
Posted on 12/29/2007 8:28:14 AM PST by marktwain
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office recommends that anyone who owns a firearm use a child safety lock if there’s any chance of children being in a home where guns are kept.
The issue of children and gun safety was highlighted this week after a Washington County sheriff’s deputy and his wife were charged with child endangerment after leaving their 8-year-old child home alone with several guns laying about. At least a few of the guns were loaded and although the safeties were on, none were equipped with gun locks.
Most weapons have safety locks, but Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks said that it would not be difficult for a child to deactivate the safety mechanism on most hand guns.
“Some service revolvers do not have safeties,” he said. “All you have to do is pull the trigger. Most shotguns and rifles have safeties, but they can be deactivated by someone who is not familiar with the weapon.”
Mincks said there were two incidents of a handgun accidentally discharging and injuring someone in the last year. Both involved juveniles.
“We only do an investigation if there is a discharge and the projectile hits someone,” Mincks said. “We do not have any way of determining how many accidental discharges there were when the projectile does not strike anyone.”
An internal affairs investigation into the case of Deputy Jeffrey R. Morris began today. He has been placed on paid administrative leave. An internal affairs officer independent of the local sheriff’s office will interview several members of the department, as well as Morris himself. Once the investigation is over, the department will decide if Morris violated any department rules and, if so, what disciplinary actions are necessary. Mincks said he expects the situation to be resolved in less than a week.
Gun safety locks are available at the sheriff’s office, and the department hands them out at several different events throughout the year, including the Washington County Fair.
The lock works by placing a cable behind the trigger so that the weapon cannot be discharged. The number of gun owners in Washington County wasn’t immediately available, but the sheriff’s office has issued concealed carry permits to 650 individuals in the county.
Among the weapons found in the home with the boy was a semiautomatic AR-15 high capacity rifle all sheriff’s deputies are authorized to carry, as well as a rifle and a shotgun. Morris’ service revolver and another gun were out but were not loaded.
Many children, some as young as five years old, have used guns to defend themselves and their family from homicide and rape in the home.
I had no trouble leaving my guns available to my children once they were six years old, but each child must be considered individualy.
Some six year olds are responsible enough, some 15 year olds may not be. It is insane for the state to lay down a blanket prohibition here.
Why did they not refer to the AR-15 as an “Assault Weapon”? Aren’t they made to kill as many people as fast as possible?
A weapon is simply another tool to aid in making life a bit easier. In the case of the gun ... to make life more certain.
Teach your children well.
Because it was owned by a police officer. This magically transforms it into a “patrol carbine”.
Safest place to store a handgun is in a retention holster on your hip.
Firearms do not “accidentally” discharge. Someone pulls the trigger.
If there are small children in the home, firearms belong in two places. Loaded and holstered on your person, or secured and unloaded.
There is still no substitute for firearms training for children — starting with “don’t touch” and working up to safe and ethical use of firearms as they grow older.
“Pardon me, Mr. Home Invader. Would you please cease and desist for a minute or two while I remove the lock from my weapon?”
Who was in the deputy’s’ home while they were out and why were they there and how did they get in?
The best safety feature is proper instruction, not government intrusion in private matters.
Gun locks and unloaded firearms are like bringing a rock to a gun fight.
Well, obviously a sheriff’s deputy owns a semi-auto rifle that can accurately “secure” a bad guy at moderate range because the sheriff’s deputy is an “Authorized Person.” Conversely a mere American Citizen can only own an “automatic Assault Weapon” that “sprays bullets” at helpless innocents and can only result in “needless child deaths.”
An unloaded or locked gun is nothing but a finely machined, well oiled club.
Improved safety for criminals.
Biometric safe. It reads your finger prints
That's really not a bad suggestion. When my kids were old enough to properly respect my firearms, I didn't have any qualms about leaving them unlocked and accessible.
My grandchildren are not yet at that level and my guns are always secured whenever they are coming over or if the house will be unattended.
And what were the "gun safety" issues?
Did the kid shoot someone? I was just a year older than Deputy Morris's child when I got my own firearm, which I often left "laying about" in the same room as the ammunition for it.
Just think, some 9 year-old could have gone into my bedroom, loaded the rifle, and shot someone. I'm lucky I wasn't charged with child endangerment.
As long as the Department is only making a “suggestion”, we are alright. When they start to charge people with “child endangerment” based on that opinion, then we are well down the slippery slope of nanny statisim, if not a police state.
I remember now, When I got my Marlin Guide Gun, I replaced the cable Lock with a 45-70 round. Works much better now.
barbra ann
That is quite interesting, isn't it? The article seems to just glide right over that issue of who got in the house with an eight year old? And just what is "laying about?" Makes it sound like there were guns scattered around on the floor like spilled popcorn and beer cans...
The issue of children and gun safety was highlighted this week after a Washington County sheriff’s deputy and his wife were charged with child endangerment after leaving their 8-year-old child home alone with several guns laying about.
Not enough facts here and obvious gaps.
“That’s really not a bad suggestion. When my kids were old enough to properly respect my firearms, I didn’t have any qualms about leaving them unlocked and accessible.”
Notice that the “suggestion” includes all children of all ages at any time under any circumstances. It indiscriminately lumps a visiting 17 year old well trained and disciplined marksman with a 3 year old toddler. I do not think that this lack of discrimination is random. A prime goal of the anti-freedom types is to make the training of children with firearms socially unacceptable.
My question would be: Why does the department administration have a grudge against this guy? This isn’t your everyday charge. Is this fellow a whisleblower? Some weird interdepartmental politics is going on here.
Why would anyone use a “safety lock”? Putting guns in a locked cabinet or safe is sensible, and will offer some protection against thieves as well as children. What advantage is there to using a “safety lock” instead?
An ordinary padlock or cable lock can render a gun unusable with minimum effort. I could see that if you didn’t have an easy way to lock up a gun, and you had people in your home that you didn’t trust with guns, such as an untrained, undisciplined 7 year old who was visiting, you might use such a method for guns not under your immediate control.
All that I can say is that people who place trigger locks on their guns will reap what they so stupidly deserve. I was in a situation where, in the dark of night in my bedroom, I needed my gun (loaded and ready to fire) instantly in order to protect myself and family. Although I did not have to shoot the invader, without a loaded and ready pistol, I would have been helpless.
Until a person finds themselves in the same situation, they will not realize just how important it is to have a gun READY TO FIRE to protect yourself. If you have to open a gun cabinet or unlock the trigger safety lock before protecting yourself in an ongoing crisis, you will not fully realize just how worthless your gun is to protect yourself. You might as well use it as a bat (or a club) because you sure as hell won’t be able to fire it!
Gun trigger locks aren’t the answer, training your children in gun safety is. I simply don’t see how I survived through the 50’s and 60’s without gun safety guards. ;-)
We don’t have kids...that said, we practice weapon safety!
All our guns are loaded all of the time.
Gun locks give criminals a running start.
The second issue which may be driving the internal affairs investigation is what policy his department has regarding weapons storage. He might be required by the department to some required condition of storage. I start work as a federal LEO in a couple weeks and they are the epitome of 'nanny' when it comes to storage. You aren't allowed to alter your weapon in any way other than sights and an interchangeable backstrap. When not carrying, the weapon must be stored with a cable lock through the chamber/magazine well. Policies are written to the lowest common denominator.
The age of glass front gun cabinets is gone, the age of safes is here. If you install some shelves and lighting those glass front cabinets make really good china cabinets. Get a big safe for your collection and if you are a self defense nut, like me, a quick access safe for your home defense weapons.
I agree. But... there are situations in which you do not want untrained and irresponsible people from having access to guns not under your immediate control.
I suppose that it couldn't hurt to have one in sock to blackjack an intruder with for when you can't get to your primary or your backup.
Well, no kidding. Home invaders and burglars, etc., no doubt feel MUCH safer.
I have kids and I keep several loaded guns hidden (high up but within my reach) around the house. Early on, I showed the kids where the guns were so they wouldn’t accidentally stumble across them. Then I took them out back and made them shoot until they complained that their ears hurt (which didn’t take very long at all).
They now have no unusual curiousity about guns. The guns are just there, and the kids know why they are there. They also know that they are to basically forget about them (I’m sure they already did long ago) and never show them to anybody.
I don’t use gun locks. I thought we all gave up using clubs during the caveman days.....
So true and with a gun lock it becomes a club.
You are my kind of neighbor!!!
I agree with several posters that there’s something fishy going on here.
Who found the guns “laying about”? And what does that mean? On the floor? In the drawer of the bedside table?
Did the person who discovered this have a search warrent? Did they misrepresent their purpose when they came to the door?
Also, as noted, it’s one thing to suggest safety measures, which is perfectly legitimate, and it’s something else to bring someone up on charges and presumably threaten to deprive him of his job and maybe his children. That crosses a line. I think I see a personal grudge here, or some LEOs out of control.
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Where did you think the term Lock, stock and barrel came from?I’m glad to hear gun locks help. I have a whole drawer full of them somewhere.
Unless, of course you need it to protect yourself and family.
Wait that is why I bought it in the first place.
For better gun control use two hands.
Whatta picture! It shows a safe costing MUCh more than the camera being placed into/taken out of it.
PS Isn’t that camera rather old. Hmmmn - the reader seems to be very well covered with brown paint ? ? ? ? ?
“I’m glad to hear gun locks help. I have a whole drawer full of them somewhere.”
Sometimes it helps to read the article.
Link below to the most brutal video you will likely see in some time and it consists entirely of a woman standing at a podium talking.
Best regards,
*****************************************************
May you stand before God and man as my two precious grandchildren's killer if you pass any more gun legislation that will make me a felon should I own a handgun or any other gun for that matter.
Sincerely,
Mary Carpenter
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7CCB40F421ED4819
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/2nd_Amend/deaths_in_merced.htm
Because it was a police officer that had it not a commoner.
There fixed the title.
My view: thats a bigger risk than not being instantly armed at home invasion. But then in my town its happened to me twice and both times the cops were there in under a minute and got the guys.
But maybe the cops in our town are just better. If i was in a remote rural area i might feel different. but i still don't think i would leave loaded guns around. That is just too risky IMHO.
“My view: thats a bigger risk than not being instantly armed at home invasion. But then in my town its happened to me twice and both times the cops were there in under a minute and got the guys.”
You have the right idea. Each situation is different and unique.
It is a cost to benefit ratio that each individual must judge for themselves. To attempt to force everyone into a “one size fits all” policy, is crazy to me.
True, but there aren't any circumstances where I can see trust ing someone with completely unsupervised access to a gun that was disabled, but not trust them with access to a gun that wasn't. I can certainly see the usefulness of a cable lock that fastens a gun to something immobile and also disables it; that could be cheaper and easier than getting a rifle-sized safe. A pistol-sized lock box, however, isn't very expensive and would provide far better security than a padlock through the action.
Incidentally, on something like a New England Firearms shotgun, a proper-sized padlock behind the trigger is far better than a typical trigger lock. The former will prevent the gun from being cocked. The latter will not prevent it from being cocked, but if it is cocked it will prevent it from being safely cleared. Further, if the gun happens to be loaded, having the hammer cocked would expose the firing pin so that someone with a screwdriver or other such device could hit it.
“True, but there aren’t any circumstances where I can see , but not
I don’t think that you and I disagree about much. I suspect that you could exercise your imagination a little bit more than you have. There are many shades of gray between “trusting someone with completely unsupervised access to a gun that was disabled” and “trust them with access to a gun that wasn’t.”
Consider having a 10 year old son of friends visiting who has no training with firearms, and who is invited to play with your “hypothetical” son. Your son momentarily leaves to go to the bathroom, and the momentarily “unsupervised son” has access to the master bedroom and closet that a single shot shotgun and shells in it.
There are many ways to effectively prevent problems that could occur in such a situation, which only extremely rarely has bad consequences. But, using a padlock to render the shotgun temporarily unusable doesn’t seem like such an unlikely or unreasonable approach.
I would not advise storing condition-zero firearms in an empty house, period. A firearm with a round chambered will discharge that round with full velocity if there's a fire. It probably won't cycle (since any unchambered rounds will have likely cooked off first) but could still pose a danger to innocent people.
Otherwise, unattended firearms in an area accessible to untrusted persons should be secured so they cannot be taken. A cable lock is not a horrible method of securing a shotgun, though a storage cabinet is much better; I think I've seen them for under $50. Still, I can see a cable lock as a low-cost alternative for something bulky like a shotgun. I don't think cable locks make any sense for something like a pistol, when a lockbox could be had for under $20.
As for self-defense firearms, my personal thought is that in a home invasion scenario, if one has time to get to one's self-defense firearm, one will likely have time to pop open a quick-release lockbox (such as a GunVault). A revolver stored cylinder-open may be quickly closed, or a pistol stored in condition three may be quickly brought to condition zero. If one has reason to expect an invasion, of course, one may keep a condition-zero firearm on one's person.
Sometimes it’s a waste of time, bud.
He’s a LEO. In the hands of a LEO, the gun is suddenly incapable of penetrating body armor, will fire only at criminals, and doesn’t go on unprovoked homicidal binges like privately owned guns and SUV’s will do.
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