A SERIOUS GUN STORAGE WARNING

My dads side of the family weren't big hunters. My grandfather, and great grandfather farmed 80 acres in the SW corner of Kentucky. They each had a single 20 ga shotgun that they kept behind the kitchen door for shooting foxes trying to get in the hen house. I have both of those guns.

The only firearm my dad ever owned was a pre WW-2 Belgian made SXS that he picked up in Germany at the end of WW-2 as a war trophy. Dad mailed it home and it was waiting for him when he got back a few months later. I have it as well.

My grandfather on my mothers side was a big hunter. He was a WW-1 vet who suffered lung damage from being gassed. He died quite young, when I was only 6 so I don't have any real memories of him. My mother grew up in the NE corner of TN just a few miles from both VA and NC. Mom and dad moved to N GA where I was born and lived all of my life.

As a result I never had much connection with any cousins on either side. My maternal grandfather only had one son who got all of his guns. When I was in HS (1970's) my uncle took me into a room in his home that was a sort of walk in safe to show me my grandfathers guns. Between him and my grandfather there was quite the collection of old Winchesters hanging from pegs on the wall. I was too young to fully comprehend exactly what I was seeing.

My mom was the youngest of her siblings and most all of my cousins on that side are older than me. Most a LOT older and many of my cousins are deceased now. I have no idea what became of all of those guns, but would have loved to have had just one.

For me, I have 2 steel safes. Now that my kids are grown I keep a couple of handguns in my bedroom when not carrying them, but all of the others stay in the safe.

I would never even think of storing my firearms as such, unless it were in a 'vault room.' I'd like to keep my hard-earned firearms.

JTHunter said:

With the exception of my AK and a SxS 12 gauge, the rest of my rifles and a couple of handguns are stored in just such a cabinet. Three handguns are in hidden location around the house with one hanging in its holster from the gun rack on the wall that holds the aforementioned AK and SxS.

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Where they are all easy pickings for any uninvited guests who might stop by when you're away.

Have never displayed my guns. When the kids were young there was the safety issue, but I also stressed to them that what I had was not the business of their friends and so I sure did not display guns. Now there are grandchildren so everything is secured (but accessible quickly if needed) and the same rule applies as to what is not the business of others..

The OP asked how others store their firearms. Since other posters, without even answering, will turn it into attacks on each other, I'll abstain.

To those posters, only one answer is acceptable, and that is that all guns not on one's person are stored secured in a vault-quality safe.

As a kid, there was a built in cabinet surrounding the fridge. The coat closet on the side of the fridge had a false back that opened to a space behind the fridge. Pop stored his meager collection there, couple rifles and a shotgun. That hidey hole got me interested in the idea of “hide in plain sight”. While the steel safe holds most of my guns, there are several hidey holes accessible around the house for handguns meant for perimeter defense.

None of them resemble those magnet shelf things that are presently the rage.

jjadurbin said:

For years as the seasons changed, at the first spike of frost, grandfather's Chesapeake Bay Retriever would stare into that case and just howl ...raising a fit until both Springer Spaniels joined in.

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Not long after my wife (who had never been around guns or hunting dogs) and I got married, I brought her home to meet my family. Dad had a wooden gun cabinet like you described, and one day while we were sitting at the table talking, I told my wife, "Watch this!" as I took an 870 out of the cabinet and worked the action. Mom and Dad's two Brittany Spaniels went nuts - barking, howling and turning in circles. Mom made me take them out and let them "hunt" in the pasture for a while I pretended to be pheasant hunting.
Of course that was 49 years ago come June. Nowadays my wife and I keep most of our guns in gun safes, and our dog, "Ruger" (a Cocker/Springer cross) runs and hides (in the bathtub of all places) from thunder, and I only fired a little .22 around him once - he dropped the bird dummy he was retrieving and came back to sit down between my feet, shivering.

An actual gun safe with heavy locking lugs anchored to the concrete floor and a GSA approved weapons locker that I further up armored and anchored to the floor.

I have 2 of these in my basement and they contain everything you see in the pic plus about 3-4 more long guns. 2x2x4 feet. Loaded up they are hundreds of pounds so I'm not worried about anybody getting them up the stairs. The most commonly used guns are in a regular safe in the office but the rarely used ones are in the tool boxes.

When I lived on the ranch 30 miles from no where, I had a nice gun case that held a dozen rifles with pistols down below. Never even locked the house when I left. When I moved to town I converted it into a book case and bought a gun safe and got a security system.

I don't currently have what I'd call a "collection", especially in comparison to what I'd accumulated about 15 years ago. I have 5 guns in my house and 10 or 11 in a safe at my parents house a few miles away. I don't have a safe at my house. I keep one handgun on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom, one on top of the cabinet in the laundry room, and one never more than arms reach from me at all times. I have an old 20ga sxs with a handful of #4 shot shells within arms reach in the false bottom of the dresser beside the bed, and a .22 rifle in the laundry room cabinet for when crows or possums try to get in the pool.

While there is something to be said for displaying some blued steel and wood firearms in a glass frame or cabinet, I would never do so. Thick amounts of steel. Plenty of locked doors and windows leading to a heavy safe.

All my long guns and all but 3 of my handguns are stored in a heavy gun safe that's bolted to a concrete floor. The three handguns that are not in the safe are the two EDC's that I alternate and one that is kept accessible to the wife.

I would prefer to keep them in a glass enclosed case of old so I could admire them when seated in my easy chair...but alas that era has passed us by. Today's reality causes me to keep them locked up and safe.

Everything I own is locked in a safe or lock box...except for the shotgun in my closet. If someone breaks in, they will have to carry out a 300+ lb safe or figure out how to get the lock box off the floor. Nothing will stop a determined professional, but it’s enough to stop/deter the random criminal of opportunity.

Mine are stored as follows:

I lock mine in a safe that's essentially gym locker material with weight at the bottom. I have no kids and it's all I can afford right now. They're insured and I figure some kind of metal safe is better than nothing.

daniel craig said:

I lock mine in a safe that's essentially gym locker material with weight at the bottom. I have no kids and it all I can afford right now. They're insured and I figure some kind of metal safe is better than nothing.

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Pretty much what a Stack-On cabinet is!

I use to have a gun cabinet with a glass front door. Kept it in the basement and was located on the laundry room side. Used it as my "decoy gun cabinet" as I had a black powder rifle, a few BB guns, and an old single shot .22 in there. It was my fervent hope that anyone who broke into my house and dared to venture down into the basement would see these "treasures" and quickly take them, instead of searching around for more guns. Everything else was either locked up in a couple of hidden gun safes or else was in a custom built horizontal storage locker which would have taken some serious time and effort to try and break into.

bdickens said:

Where they are all easy pickings for any uninvited guests who might stop by when you're away.

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Being retired, I'm not "away" very much. Many of the neighbors are also retirees, we live on a dead-end street, and we watch out for "abnormalities" in the neighborhood. These include unsolicited salespeople, pollsters, even delivery drivers (UPS, FedEx, etc.), religious zealots (Jehovah Witnesses, etc.), etc. We have a neighborhood phone list and, if one neighbor is approached by a stranger, they will call several others to alert them.
I won't say it is impossible (nothing is) but in 16 years, there has only been one home burglary that was done by a stranger. There was one done by a "friend" of the victim's children (upper teens) but there have not been any car break-ins or other home burglaries.
We watch out for our neighbors.

I have a gun safe for my guns.


I appreciate the warning about covid 19 and pets. I have a cat which is indoor so I think it will be OK as long as I play safe myself.

It makes sense that animals might get it; it purportedly got started in those Chinese "wet markets" where live animals are kept and sold for food.

Cage for guns, inside a (mostly) concrete sided room (okay, it's closet sized) full of ammo, parts, accessories, with another cage door to get into there. And video inside the room to alert for movement, record. And I live in a neighborhood where everyone keeps an eye out, would notice random criminals breaking in and stealing stuff. And... so on. Layers. Discussed in several other threads here, so I'd search for gun room, gun safe, and gun security setups.

jjadurbin said:

...There was no need to be concerned with potential theft ...the marvelous new age had yet to arrive...

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Crime is at near all time lows. Leave it to Beaver era low rate. Not sure your age but it likely was higher during the heyday you are recalling here.

Protect your stuff, absolutely. I think not letting anyone accidentally or on purpose get into trouble with them is a key part of ownership. But plan properly.

I have one of those old fashioned cabinets as well, glass window with a drawing of a deer on it. Been in the family since my parents early marriage days,
its in my office now but I've taped a fabric screen behind the window, so you cannot see inside the case. Still obvious it's a gun cabinet; but it was mainly to make any quests in my room feel 'safe'.
Definitely not the safest method for storing guns, but its nice to re use family furnature. But now I'm thinking of a way to reinforce, or redesign this cabinet to be more theft proof.
Or I could be wrong, if such cabinets were really such a 'old days' thing, maybe any thief won't realize he could just break the glass and have access to nice firearms?