A home storage plan that keeps kids out and keeps you ready

Every gun owner is secretly running a very small, very serious experiment in trade-offs. A gun locked in a steel box at the bottom of the closet is very hard for a curious six-year-old to find and very hard for you to reach at three in the morning. A gun on the nightstand is the reverse. Neither answer is the right one for every house, and anyone who tells you there is a single answer has never met your family.

Here is the good news. You do not need a politician, a permit or a pamphlet from Washington to solve this. You need about an hour, a few dollars to a few hundred, and an honest look at who lives in your house and who visits it. That is what this playbook is for: a plan you can follow step by step, built on the idea that the people who live in the house are the best judges of how to secure it.

I will also tell you where the law stands, what the Supreme Court said about forced storage rules in District of Columbia v. Heller, and why the best answer for most families is a decision made at the kitchen table, not at the statehouse.

The trade-off you are actually making

Storage is a choice between two goods: access and security.

• Access means you can get to a firearm quickly if you need it for defense.
• Security means nobody else can get to it, whether that is a child, a teenager with a bad idea, a houseguest, or a burglar who just broke in and is looking for exactly what you own.

You cannot maximize both. A gun in your hand has maximum access and, at the moment, maximum security. A gun in a safe in the garage has the best security and the worst access. Everything in between is a point on that line, and your job is to choose where your household belongs.

Three questions place you on the line:

1. Who lives here or comes here? Toddlers, teenagers, grandchildren who visit on weekends, a roommate, a house cleaner, a contractor.
2. What is the gun for? A gun kept for home defense needs faster access than a hunting rifle or a collection piece.
3. Who needs to reach it? If one adult is the only person trained to use it, the access question is simple. If two adults share a house, both need to be able to open the box.

Write the answers down. Seriously. It takes two minutes and it makes the rest of this plan concrete.

Step 1: Know the options

Here are the common storage tools, from the simplest to the most capable, with the trade-offs for each.

• Cable lock or trigger lock. A cable lock runs through the open action so the gun cannot be loaded or fired. It is cheap, light and easy to fit. It is a good tool to prevent a casual accident, and a good way to secure a gun you are moving or leaving with a guest. It is not a substitute for a safe against a determined thief, and it is slower to remove than a quick-access safe.
• Lockbox. A small steel or heavy-gauge box with a lock, kept in a closet or under a bed. Cheaper than a large safe and easier to hide, but small boxes can be carried away, and cheap locks can be defeated. Look for a solid build and, if you can, bolt it to something.
• Quick-access bedside safe. A small safe with a fast opening method, kept within reach of the bed. The common types open with a mechanical push-button combination, a keypad, a fingerprint reader or a radio tag. This is the tool built for the trade-off between access and security.
• Full gun safe. A large, heavy cabinet, ideally bolted to the floor or wall. This is the right answer for a collection, for long guns, and for ammunition. It is slow to open on purpose.

Whichever you choose, buy for the job. A product that is not designed to hold a firearm is not a gun safe. Read what the maker actually says it protects against, and remember that no lock is unbreakable. The goal is to be a very much harder target than the alternative.

Step 2: Match the tool to the household

Now take your answers from the questions above and match them to a setup. These are three hypothetical homes, each labeled as an example and not a real family.

A house with small children. Picture a couple in Ohio with a toddler and a newborn. Small children are curious, fast and good at finding things. The priority here is security. Keep the home-defense handgun in a quick-access safe the toddler cannot open, mounted or hidden above where a child can reach, with the code known only to the two adults. Store any other firearms in a full safe, and store ammunition separately and locked. Keep the keys or the combination on your person or somewhere a child cannot reach.

A house with teenagers. Teens are a different problem. They are physically able to find, open and handle a firearm, and they are curious, and many are learning to shoot. The best approach is to train them and treat them as responsible people. A teenager who has taken a hunter education or safety course and knows the four rules (see the four rules of gun safety and the reason behind each one) is a safer teenager. But a teenager's hard day can be dangerous, so keep a lock on every gun that is not in use, and decide as a family who has the combination and who does not. This is a parenting judgment, not a legislative one.

A house of two adults, no children. Here access can carry more weight. A quick-access safe at the bedside, plus a full safe for everything else, is a common setup. Visitors still come, and so do burglars, so lock what you are not using.

Step 3: Install it and test it

A storage plan on paper is not a storage plan.

1. Put the safe where you will use it. If it takes ninety seconds to reach, you will leave it open. Place it where you can reach it in the dark, with your eyes shut.
2. Bolt it down. Many small safes are built to be anchored. A safe that a thief can pick up and carry out to the truck protects only the gun's location.
3. Set the code and learn it. Choose a code that is not a birthday, an address or an obvious number. Everyone who needs access should know it, and no one else should.
4. Practice the opening. Time yourself. Do it in the dark. Do it with a mild case of nerves, if you can. If you cannot open it quickly, you do not have a defense plan, you have a decoration.
5. Check the power. Electronic locks run on batteries. Replace them on a schedule, and keep a backup method of opening, such as the key supplied by the maker, kept in a separate place.
6. Check the gun. Storing a firearm for years in a damp place is not good for it. Put a moisture-absorbing packet in the safe and look at the firearm regularly.

Step 4: Handle guests, kids' friends and the hard days

The weak point in most storage plans is the day the pattern changes.

• Guests. When visitors with children come to stay, lock up everything that you normally leave accessible. It takes a minute and removes a risk you cannot supervise every second.
• Other people's houses. When your child visits a friend, it is reasonable to ask the parents whether guns in the home are locked up, the same way you would ask about a swimming pool. A good parent asks and a good host does not take offense.
• Vehicles. A gun left in a parked car can be stolen, and it can also be found. Take it with you or lock it in the vehicle where the law allows. Check your state's rules before you carry it anywhere (see before you drive across state lines with a gun, run this checklist).
• The hard day. If someone in the household is going through a rough stretch, such as a bad breakup, a job loss or a crisis, the right response is to add distance between that person and the guns. A friend or relative can hold them for a while. Nobody has to explain why. Many gun-store owners and ranges understand and will help.

Step 5: Teach, don't hide

Locks are one layer. Education is another, and it is the one that works when the lock does not.

• Talk to your kids. Children know about guns from movies, games and the playground. They are better off hearing from you what to do if they find one: do not touch it, leave the area, and tell a grown-up right away.
• Use the programs that exist. The National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle GunSafe program teaches young children a simple message: if you see a gun, stop, don't touch, run away, and tell a grown-up. And Project ChildSafe, a program of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association, has distributed safety kits that include cable-style gun locks, often through local law enforcement. Availability varies, so ask your local police or sheriff's office whether they still hand them out.
• Train the adults. Everybody who may need to use the firearm should know how, including how to open the safe. Take a class together.

What the law says, and what it does not

Several things are true at once, and they are worth keeping straight.

Federal law. In 2005, Congress passed a law that requires a licensed dealer to provide a secure gun storage or safety device when transferring a handgun. That is why a new pistol often comes with a lock. There is no general federal rule telling you how to store a gun in your own home.

State law. Some states have child access prevention (CAP) laws. Though the details differ, they typically make an owner responsible when a child gains access to a loaded or unsecured firearm, particularly if harm results. Some states go further and require locking devices or safe storage in specific circumstances. The details change from state to state and from year to year, so read your own state's statute on the legislature's website, and consider asking a local attorney or a certified instructor.

The Constitution. In District of Columbia v. Heller, decided June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court struck down two rules in the District's gun law. One was a ban on handguns in the home. The other was a requirement that any lawfully owned firearm in the home be kept unloaded and either disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Justice Scalia's opinion for the five-justice majority said that this second rule made it impossible for citizens to use their firearms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense in the home. Notice what that holding does not say. It does not say that every storage rule is unconstitutional. It says that a rule that makes a gun useless at the moment of need goes too far. That distinction is the whole debate, and Why Heller got it right and the 'militia only' reading falls apart explains the reasoning in more detail.

The case for a government storage mandate, and the answer

The strongest argument for a mandate is simple and humane: a child who finds an unsecured gun cannot give consent to the risk, and a parent's mistake can last forever. A law, the argument goes, nudges the careless owner into doing what the careful owner already does. That is a serious argument, made by serious people, and nobody should wave it away.

Here is the answer, in three points.

1. The careless owner is the least likely to follow the law. A statute does not walk into the house and turn the key. The people most likely to comply are the people already locking their guns.
2. One rule cannot fit every home. A rule written for a family with toddlers makes a single woman living alone with a stalker choose between security and speed. The family is better placed than a legislature to decide, and Heller says the government cannot choose the wrong answer for it.
3. Responsibility works better when it is owned. The programs that have worked are the ones that persuade, such as safety classes, free locks, and a culture in which the neighbors ask. A gun owner who is trusted to decide tends to take the decision seriously.

None of this means CAP laws are illegitimate. Holding a negligent adult responsible after a child is harmed is an old principle of the law, and many conservatives support it. The disagreement is over mandates that tell every household how to arrange its closet. Read the proposals, check whether they leave room for a gun that is within reach or "readily accessible" for self-defense, and judge them on that.

Your plan on one page

1. Answer the three questions: who lives or visits, what is the gun for, who needs to open it.
2. Choose the tool: cable lock, lockbox, quick-access safe, or full safe.
3. Keep ammunition separate and locked wherever children may be present.
4. Install, bolt down, set the code, and practice opening it in the dark.
5. Change the plan when guests come, when kids grow up, or when a household member is struggling.
6. Teach every child in the house, and every adult who may use the firearm.
7. Read your state's statute once a year. Laws change.

For more on getting a first firearm into your home properly, see how to buy your first firearm lawfully from the counter to the car and the new gun owner's questions answered, from training to travel to wills. If your reason for owning is defense, four self-defense scenarios and where the law draws the line on each covers the legal side. And for the larger idea behind all of it, that a household is the first and best institution of self-government, read The Family Is the Original Welfare State and the Cheapest One.

The bottom line

• Storage is a choice between access and security. Make it deliberately, for your own household, and write the reasons down.
• Use real tools: a quick-access safe for the defense gun, a full safe for the rest, and locked ammunition wherever children can reach.
• Test the plan in the dark. If you cannot open it in seconds, fix it today.
• Teach your children, check on the houses they visit, and lock everything up when guests arrive or when someone in the family is having a rough time.
• Support what works: classes, free locks and neighbors who ask. Be wary of mandates that tell your family where to put its own gun, because Heller says a gun you cannot use is not much of a right.