Should Your Home Defense Weapon Be Loaded?

[bradleystuart]

Should you keep fuel in your vehicle, air in the tires?

 

[Cummins Diesel]

An empty Glock 17 makes a fine club!!! Bit on the 'spensive side tho.

I disagree. Not enough mass when empty. Now an empty full size 1911 could do some damage but I prefer to use a tool as intended.

 

[Kruel J]

I've heard all the arguments about giving away your position etc. This isn't a Battlefield scenario slipping around like a Navy seal quietly to infiltrate a compound. It is My choice to keep my shotgun without a round in the chamber as a safety precaution in my home, but racking it to ready to fire is a necessary evil if my security is breached. My safeties make a click sound too albeit not as loud.
Most criminals are Dumb , but if they start shooting when I rack the slide , I will return fire faster than you can say Oh hell.
Unless they have been in my home they have no clue as to layout and I have the advantage.
As a side note , we group Hunted big Game in Alaska the same way...NO round in the chamber. safety off. If you couldn't work the Bolt fast and aim and fire you didn't hunt with us. Period. An accidental discharge from a Remington 700 that had the original trigger pack that went off when the safety was clicked off to unload the rifle got all of our attention, and the rule was made at that point.
Guns are mechanical and parts can fail. I will always err on the side of Safety first....

Relying on "scary" sounds to deter a bad guy is about as effective as cleaning a rifle after every shot.

 

[EPS]

Lol this is a feel good thread.
Lol always loaded.
My go to go gun for a wake up call .is loaded.
And all other guns are loaded with empty chamber.just have to grab it rack it AND DO WORK.
BUT MY GLOCK 22 40 CAL IS LOADED WITH A FLASHLIGHT ON IT READY TO SHOOT.
ALL I HAVE TO DO IS HIT THE SWITCH FOR THE LIGHT. and with a happy stick

 

[P7M13]

Unless I'm handing it to someone, my EDC, which is also my HD, is *always* loaded.
My wife's HD is also *always* loaded, condition 1.
On occasion, I'm loaded too.

 

[American123]

The 10 commandments of firearm safety are guidelines anyway. Not rules to adhere to 100% of the time under all circumstances, but they do help most people stay safe most of the time.

Even biblically, the 10 commandments are what could be considered "best practices to generally adhere to." Consider, 'thou shall not kill.' Generally a great rule to live by, however, someone attempting to violently hurt your wife, your kids or you, that rule goes out the window.

Rules are great as general practice guidelines, but common sense must supersede them when necessary.

Even in my classroom, the rule of not throwing things in class receives the caveat, "without permission from Mr. American123"

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Twice now in my civilian life I have had to present a firearm to a fella who was up to no good.
Both times , I have had to work the action to put a round in the chamber...
( Magazine was loaded , chamber empty )...in both cases the guy in question complied with my "request" to do as I told him...so in those cases it worked.

For the record I was not relying on the sound of my working the action to scare the other guy , nor did I work the action in front of him "Hollywood Badazz" style ...
I simply had my wife call 911 , while I secured my gun , worked the action , then stopped the threat.

With that said , I was however relying on his sense of self preservation to :
See that I was not Pucking around....
And to either comply or leave....

Would that have worked with:
A different guy...?
More than one bad guy...?
A different "me" with how I presented myself or my demands...?
If we live in a different neighborhood...?
Who knows for sure...

All I can say with how I store our house gun...it has worked in the past.
How you store your house gun , is up to you...what works for one person , may not for someone else.
It is not my place to tell anyone just what or how , to do things in their house.
Andy

 

[Hawaiian]

My home defense and carry guns are loaded with one in the chamber. I have no kids in my house.
Years ago before I got into guns and shooting, I only had a S&W 38 revolver for home defense. After my son was born, I placed it in a locked case and put it away in the closet. He never knew it even existed.
Reason? My brothers and I knew where my dads handgun was when we were young. It was loaded. We would get it out and play with it when he wasn't home. Thank God, we never shot ourselves.

 

[EPS]

This might not be the right place but it is kinda the same thing .
I never posted it before.
But on NEW YEAR'S.NIGHT
I was on my way home from work.
I stopped at gas station .
Lol my fault. I should have had gas to get home.
But anyway I had to get gas it was .03:00 am
I am getting gas nobody at the gas station the store is not even open.all you can do is buy gas with a card at the pump.
Anyway a car pulls in and parks one guy gets out walks to the store.
Door is locked.he walks back to the car gets in.
Then a few seconds later .three guys get out of the car .look my way .
I am behind my car .
I stopped the gas put the pump back on the rack .
The whole time I have a eye on them.
Then two start walking towards me.
I stay behind my car and step next to the fuel pump.and say what's up.
They just keep walking.
So I say or I kinda yell STOP.
WHAT DO YOU WANT.
AND I LIFT MY SWEAT SHIRT AND GRAB MY GLOCK.
But I don't take it out .
There is still 15 yards and a car and a fuel pump between us.
Then I say stop again .and I stepped back then they can see I have a hand on my gun.
They stop and say we wanted to buy beer.
And turn around and go back to there car .
I get in my car and leave.
Who knows what they wanted.
Lol they spoke English
That was the closest I ever came to drawing my gun on someone.
And I will say this my brain was racing along with my Hart .
Lucky I didn't have a stroke.
It was scary really scary.

 

[solv3nt]

It all depends on your household situation.
For me and where and how we live...I keep our house gun loaded.
What works in one household may not work in another...It is not my place to tell someone else what they need to do in their home...
Andy

How does that work with black powder?

 

[EPS]

How does that work with black powder?

Lol funny
I know he doesn't just have muzzleloader gun's .
Go ahead test it LOL

 

[EPS]

I dare you .lol
I triple dog dare you

 

[EPS]

Sorry @AndyinEverson
I could not resist that one lol

 

[solv3nt]

I dare you .lol
I triple dog dare you

Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat!

 

[EPS]

Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat!

Lol yes he did

 

[Mooseman]

I Bet Andy can load and be ready to fire about the same amount of time it takes to rack a shotgun... it may be the ramrod going into the intruder but oh well.... lol

 

[EPS]

I Bet Andy can load and be ready to fire about the same amount of time it takes to rack a shotgun... it may be the ramrod going into the intruder but oh well.... lol

Get the arrow and lead at the same time.
Either way there dead right

 

[Andy54Hawken]

How does that work with black powder?

Well.....
I have been known to , during hunting season to keep a loaded muzzleloader ...so if I really needed to , I could just re-cap or re-prime the pan and then Boom!

If I were to have to load quickly...I do know "about" what 80 grains of 2F looks like when spilled in my hand..I'd toss that down the bore , drop a roundball down the bore , then cap the Hawken...
I have loaded and shot like this in "speed" rounds , you do lose accuracy , but at close ranges , its close enough...

But generally speaking for a house gun in my house its one of these three :
1911 in .45acp...
870 Wingmaster in 12 gauge
AR15 Carbine in .556
'Cause choices are good...
Andy

 

[Caveman Jim]

I disagree and I disagree with suggesting to people that the sound of a shotgun being pumped is a good deterrent.

Exactly, WHY give away your location...
A big part of SD is NEVER give away your location.

 

[OldBroad44]

Many on this forum are older and seem to assume everyone is affluent enough to own their own homes, buy and own multiple guns, install multiple levels of security, etc. In the eras in which I experienced my two home invasions, I rented crappy rooms or a crappy apartment near a campus. Any locks were easy to pick. I had no financial or legal ability to modify the place, which was temporary anyway. I could afford just one gun. And if I had a shotgun in a corner that anyone knew about, the landlord would have evicted me, or someone would have broken in while I was gone to steal the gun. Other than keeping the doors locked, developing situational awareness, and not doing anything stupid, the single gun I owned was my first and pretty much last line of self defense. Fortunately it was sufficient.

I'm an oldster now myself, and have the luxury of living in a home I own in a considerably safer neighborhood than those I lived in while working my way through school. But I know from the forum introductions that some here are younger and some are college students. And probably some are as poor as I was once.