FiveStrings
Member
Duster, that fugly Enfield rocks.
Thanks FiveStings. Bought the old No4 Mk1back in about 1980 for $75 only to find the last 5-6" of barrel was toast (key holed at 25 yrd!). Buried it in a closet and forgot about it until a few years ago. Dug it out to see if I could make a shooter out of it. Cut the barrel back to a hair over 16.5", re-crowned the muzzle and trimmed/shaped the stock to retain a somewhat original look. Turned out the be a handy little rifle. Ironically in addition to being my "trunk gun", it's now also my go-to deer gun that is darn near perfect in the dense cedar wetlands on the property.Duster, that fugly Enfield rocks.
My guns are insured, in or out of the house, so if it is stolen I'll just replace it. Where I live your car is considered an extension of your house...
I find it hard to believe a gun stolen out of a locked vehicle could get you in such trouble. Is the same true when a gun is stolen from a residence, which happens all the time?
Which generation of Taco? My 16 has what is essentially a small shelf behind the back seat which begs for a rifle to be stored there.I used to carry an Enfield Jungle carbine and an extra bandoleer of ammo all the time under the back seat of my F150 Supercab. Haven't found a good way to secure/hide a rifle in my Tacoma, but the carbine rides along when we take road trips away from civilization.
I find that thinking grossly irresponsible. Why don't we all take a beater gun and toss it in an alley.
BTW, if Joey at the South end of your street gets mad, smashes your car window, takes your gun and shoots Timmy at the North end, who precisely do you think is getting sued? Criminal liability and civil liability are very different. You may not got to jail, but forfeiting every asset you own is no picnic, either.
I avoid having any of my firearms unsecured outside my immediate span of control. I'm not a leftist... Not a commie. I carry everywhere, bless H.R. 218.
I just have to live in contemporary reality.
I "truck gun" is an obsolete notion for most folk. IMO, call it a"trip gun" or "adventure gun" and don't leave it rolling around in the trunk for a year's worth of trips to Walmart... Sitting in the parking lot.
Tell the guy whose daughter gets raped & murdered at the end of your stolen truck gun that it was only a beater, and insured.... It'll be very comforting to him.
My opinion is that in an urban or suburban (not rural) setting, leaving a firearm in a vehicle indefinitely is irresponsible. People can & do have different opinions from me.
#1- Cheap? There really aren't any guns that are cheap. I mean really, anything functional is a couple hundred dollars minimum.
#2- Damage. Even my cheapest guns don't deserve to be beat up or neglected. My cheapest firearms are some of my most cherished. I'd rather throw a soulless $600 AR15 on the ground, versus grandpa's $200 30-30.
#3- Theft. It used to be you could leave a 30-30 unattended, visible in your gun rack, outside the local Lubys. Used to be you knew all your neighbors. Used to be... ain't no more.
#4- Liability. Used to be if someone stole your truck gun and did something stupid with it, the blame was cast on them. Not no more. Nowadays it'll be you who are negligent for leaving the firearm unattended. Tweaker Timmy is incompetent and insolvent, and your pockets are deeper. That used-to-be cheap beater rifle could cost you your estate... and you never even touched the trigger.
#5- Need. Really? Read The Giift of Fear. If you are driving into a situation where you honestly think you NEED a trunk gun, please re-evaluate the whole situation and avoid it. The Rambo riot scenario is sophomoric at best, moronic at worst.
Here's mine. Fugly....
Wouldn't it be a simple matter to bring your weapon inside at night? That's what I used to do.
I find that thinking grossly irresponsible. Why don't we all take a beater gun and toss it in an alley.
BTW, if Joey at the South end of your street gets mad, smashes your car window, takes your gun and shoots Timmy at the North end, who precisely do you think is getting sued? Criminal liability and civil liability are very different. You may not got to jail, but forfeiting every asset you own is no picnic, either.
I avoid having any of my firearms unsecured outside my immediate span of control. I'm not a leftist... Not a commie. I carry everywhere, bless H.R. 218.
I just have to live in contemporary reality.
I "truck gun" is an obsolete notion for most folk. IMO, call it a"trip gun" or "adventure gun" and don't leave it rolling around in the trunk for a year's worth of trips to Walmart... Sitting in the parking lot.
Tell the guy whose daughter gets raped & murdered at the end of your stolen truck gun that it was only a beater, and insured.... It'll be very comforting to him.
My opinion is that in an urban or suburban (not rural) setting, leaving a firearm in a vehicle indefinitely is irresponsible. People can & do have different opinions from me.
Anything can be taken to an extreme to try to make the concept look foolish or incorrect.My name is Selena and I am a ranter.
I've lived and worked in very urban areas, suburban sprawl, and rural farmlands. One thing I've come to see is that a vehicle is a very convenient place to store things where other people will know to look for them. In other words, a theft box.
I've seen small things grabbed. Big expensive things grabbed. Stuff bolted to the car taken. And -- of course -- had a whole vehicle swiped, contents and all. No one would consider that unexpected. Hell one of the most popular video game series out right now is friggin' Grand Theft Auto! We don't need a better clue that cars are not "safe storage" and are not "just like your house."
That's not fair, that's not right, that's not how it should be. But it is how it is.
Now, if your stereo, cash, gun, phone, etc, were all scattered around your yard, a thief would have to go looking here and there for them, but since we have these easily entered storage boxes on four wheels, they know right where to look. Oh, I keep my gun in the trunk, safely hidden! Because no one rifling through a car EVER would think to look there. Ever. Or under the back seat. Out of sight means someone who makes part of their living ripping off cars, or the contents of them, would never think to look for valuables and weapons anywhere other than on the seat in plain sight.
Simple question: Would anyone intentionally leave $1,000 cash in their car parked in their suburban driveway or town/city street, just as a matter of course? Big roll of $10 and $20 bills? Glove box? Trunk? No. Nobody would do that and if you did you wouldn't sleep well. (Six-figure income or no.) But a gun? Sure. Why not?
Why is a bunch of money -- that it would be fairly challenging to kill someone with, but is more universally useful in solving problems than a gun is -- too big a theft risk, but a firearm is not?
A wad of cash gets stolen and maybe it gets used to buy drugs. Or food, or new sneakers, or whatever the thief might want.
A gun gets stolen and as complete contraband, immediately enters the black market where it can only have one purpose -- as a tool for future violence.
Not your responsibility? Not your problem? Hmmm. Maybe you can't see anything in shades other than utter black and stark white, but I can. No, we don't blame a victim. But we surely do talk all the time about how to avoid becoming one. How to minimize risks -- and in this case, how to minimize the risk of moving another deadly weapon into the criminal pool of society.
I keep this in my truck mainly in case there is a deer or moose or other animal that needs to be put down humanely.
Is it reasonable to not leave a deadly weapon in your vehicle all the time if your vehicle is averagely vulnerable to burglary or theft? I think so. That's a reasonable precaution to protect yourself from loss and trouble, and to not allow your own choices and habits to be contributing factors in "gun violence" as some folks like to phrase it.
Simple question: Would anyone intentionally leave $1,000 cash in their car parked in their suburban driveway or town/city street, just as a matter of course? Big roll of $10 and $20 bills? Glove box? Trunk? No. Nobody would do that and if you did you wouldn't sleep well. (Six-figure income or no.)
Anything can be taken to an extreme to try to make the concept look foolish or incorrect.
If someone siphons gas out of your car and burns down a building are you guilty of arson? Of course not.
If someone steals a gun from your gun safe and sells it to someone who ends up murdering someone else with it, are you guilty of murder, or an accessory to it? Of course not.
If you leave a gun out on a table on the sidewalk in front of your apartment and a kid picks it up and shoots another kid with it, would you be considered to have played a responsible part in that? Yes, you would. "Good little boys don't shoot people" will sound pretty hollow and won't persuade anyone that you have no share in this tragedy.
See how that works both ways?
And since it does work both ways that means that there are grey areas of shared responsibility. Perhaps not always legal liability and perhaps you cannot be held accountable in a punitive sense. But if you know that something happens commonly, and you know that your habits of operation are exactly those which make that common event possible, then you are not doing a very simple thing you could do to prevent that event.
We all have to make choices, and, for example, it isn't reasonable to take all your tools out of the truck every night so an escaped criminal couldn't steal them and cut off their cuffs. The social damage at risk there is slight, the personal effort involved would be monumental and detrimental. That wouldn't be reasonable.
(Ahem... unless, of course, you live in a high-crime neighborhood and you have to take special precautions to use high-security truck box locks and/or park the vehicle in a secured building or high fenced yard just to protect your own investments and inconvenience ... which many do.)
Is it reasonable to not leave a deadly weapon in your vehicle all the time if your vehicle is averagely vulnerable to burglary or theft? I think so. That's a reasonable precaution to protect yourself from loss and trouble, and to not allow your own choices and habits to be contributing factors in "gun violence" as some folks like to phrase it.