A couple of potential solutions:
1. There are several good and reliable desktop pistol safes available which use cypher locks to keep your weapon secured. These small safes can be securely bolted to table tops and make pistols instantly available while protecting accidental handling by children.
2. Some pistols lend themselves to safe handling even when kept available. I used to use a Browning 9mm Hi-Power for home protection - it has a good magazine safety which allowed the weapon kept nearby but it cannot be operated without a magazine. I would keep the Browning on top of the fridge and a loaded magazine in my pocket.
Excellent. The use of a magazine for feeding ammo lends itself to home management in just that way. I developed my system for someone who had a double barrel twenty gauge they want to use for home defense but had a small boy in the house at the time. I even bought a couple of those rubber stripper ammo holders and cut them into two round sections, so two rounds at a time could be shuffled from the ammo holder at each end of the velcroed strip.