I’m fairly certain of the answers to a few of the questions, but just don’t want to assume anything wrongly. Thanks.
Do you have children in the house?
No really, consider this, loaded, no round chambered, in your nightstand drawer.
If I were an intruder and I heard a gun being cocked...I might change my choice of victims.
But if you have to point it at someone...pull the trigger.
No really, consider this, loaded, no round chambered, in your nightstand drawer.
If I were an intruder and I heard a gun being cocked...I might change my choice of victims.
But if you have to point it at someone...squeeze the trigger.
It depends on your situation and how comfortable you are. Do not put it under your pillow! I would keep it in a safe but easily reachable place. Like the drawer of a night stand.
THE FOLLOWING IS PERSONAL PREFERENCE AND NOT SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE:
My theory is that anyone who comes into your house in the dead of night means to do you bodily harm. Burglars will likely hit your house in the daytime when they assume no one will be home. Accordingly, I keep three things on my nightstand:
My cellphone.
A Surefire flashlight.
And my Sig 9mm with 13 rounds of +P.
I personally do not ever keep a round chambered.
In the daytime when I'm out, my guns are locked in a safe and I have the only key.
(Except for the pistol I may or may not be carrying).
First do you have an alarm system, or a dog?
If yes, you have enough warning to pull gun out of drawer and rack a round into chamber. This is safer storage option. Keep a flashlight with it too.
If no, you want to have the gun loaded, round in chamber and ready to hand; (safety on),you might not have much time.
In daytime, while gone; lock it.
Be sure to follow laws of your State on Locking, Storage, etc. And if you have kids be sure and lock it even if at home, until going to bed. Show your kids the gun and tell them to NEVER touch it until you train them (when they’r old enough) to shoot it!
Also be sure you practice shooting and operating the safety till you can handle it safely in the dark.
What I use. It's called a Gun-Vault. Keep your piece loaded, cocked and locked inside it. The grooves are so your fingers can find the buttons in the dark and you set the combo. It takes me about two seconds to go from unarmed to ready to rock. And you're the only one who can get to it.
I have one of those quick access gun safes, bolted to the night stand right next to my side of the bed. It has the little push button lock and takes about 10 seconds to access the weapon. That way, I could keep it loaded and ready for use without any worry of my kids or someone else getting a hold of it.
Digital electroic pin-code safe that only you know the code. Keep the gun loaded and in the safe with the safe locked. Make sure the safe has illuminated keypad so you can access the safe in the dark and silent keys, not ones that beep. This will provide quick access while still securing your weapon. Some on here may disagree about leaving a loaded gun inthe house. You must take care to keep the weapon secure.
I keep my carry weapon on my nightstand when I go to bed. Full magazine (plus two more in the nightstand), round in the chamber. This gun doesn’t have an external hammer or manual safety so I don’t have those considerations, but I’d keep it “cocked and locked” if it did. If it were only a home defense weapon I might keep it cocked with the safety off, but if I were carrying it (go get your permit!) I’d probably leave the safety on to prevent the chance of forgetting to put the safety on when I holstered it.
I live alone and never have children here, and I stay aware of my weapons and my guests when I have them. If your situation is different, you should probably consider other options like the safes others have posted.
You said no kids but here is my belief. In todays society the idea is if kids are around and you want to keep it loaded then in the day time lock it up but keep the key on your person or remember the combo. Very young kids I can see doing such.
I was raised around guns. As a young teen maybe even as early as 11 I had a 20 gauge and several rifles in my bedroom and ammo close by nothing was locked up. Trigger locks were unheard of and gun safes were for collectors with very expensive weapons. Most of my friends and other family members {cousins} were raised the same way.
It's better to teach kids gun safety early on than to try and keep the guns away. That goes against the thinking of many people these days though. Start with a BB gun {not an air rifle} and make them treat it as a weapon. The kids too may be in a situation of life and death and you may be the perps first victim. Teach them right and a gun in the home will be second nature to them. I always treated every weapon as always being loaded PERIOD.
Keep your weapon loaded, with a round chambered, and keep it where you can grab it and aim it within five seconds. Try some kind of a setup where you can have it holstered to the back of a nearby nightstand or bureau, or behind the bed’s headboard. Maybe velcro would work. Practice grabbing the weapon in the dark a few times (practice with the weapon unloaded and clear) just to familiarize yourself with the distances and motions used.
personally i think you are nuts if you keep a loaded gun out. mine are all in the gun safe.
been broken into twice, both times the cops were there in under a minute and arrested the guys.
the risk to accidentally shooting someone, or the gun being stolen is too high to keep it out and loaded, in my opinion.
also, depending on where you live, just cause a guy breaks into the house doesn't mean you can shoot him. if you do, your problems just begin. might not be right but thats the way it is.
my vote: keep it locked up, or at the very least unloaded.
Some of the advice given here depends on whether your pistol is double-action or not, and whether or not it has an external hammer. Don’t know the characteristics of your P6, but do use the 9mm for emergencies. More stopping power, etc.
For immediate action, your pistol should have a round in the chamber, and the external hammer down. Not a safety problem, because modern pistols have a hammer block that stays in place until you pull the trigger. Dropping it should not be a problem.
For a double action pistol without an external hammer, leaving it cocked with a chambered round is dangerous, sort of like having a set mousetrap in your drawer. Doesn’t take much. If you leave it uncocked, you will have to rack the action to shoot, which takes just a second.
Plus, leaving a pistol cocked for extended periods, like all the time, can fatigue the mainspring and that could eventually make the pistol unreliable.
If you’re concerned that an intruder could make it into your bedroom before you became aware of him, you might not have time to grab, cock, and shoot. A large knife, secreted within instant reach, will be faster to deploy than a pistol.
I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t have the pistol, I’m just mentioning the knife in case it fits your situation.
Lastly, as others have said, be sure you follow your local gun regulations, and know the consequences if you do actually shoot an intruder. Set yourself up so that you won’t have to rely on your brother’s help, since that could compromise his position.
But don’t let the BS mess up your judgement when the s**t comes down.
Helmet, charcoal impregnated mask, vest, and a clicker in my hand for the perimeter of claymores surrounding my bed. This way, when my political enemies (and they are legion) attack me when I am in an occasional state of inebriation, I just have to hard squeeze the hand clicker and I can get all of them from any directions.
In a drawer is better than in the case.
Under the pillow is right out! Too easy to slip off the bed or some place it should not be. That garbage is for cheezy movies.
Locked&cocked depends on the gun and on your own comfort zone.
If you are really good at handling a gun with your finger safely away from the trigger at all times until you are ready to shoot, and if you know the trigger pull of that gun really really well then I would say you are ok putting one in the chamber. If those two things are not the case then I would say don’t do it.
Personally we keep our ‘ready’ guns loaded but without one chambered. This is for a couple reasons. One, so that we can have them all in a consistant condition. Some have manual safeties and some have trigger safeties. Some are rifles that have safeties in funny places. It is much easier for my wife and I to know that any gun we pick up and where in the house (if it was a ‘ready gun’) is just one slide pull, level movement, or charging handle pull away from being ready to rock.