Should Your Home Defense Weapon Be Loaded?

[Andy54Hawken]

What and how you do things in your house should be left to you...as you know your house and household.
What really irks me is when a new law is passed that states how I need to keep and store my firearms in my home.
Just who are these folks and law makers that think , they know better than me , in regards to what goes on in my house...?

In my experience , when you actually need a gun , you need it now , not in a minute or two , but in your hand and ready to go now , in the least amount of time.

As always there are pros and cons to each storing method...and each of those same pros and cons , can be different for each household....Plus lifestyles change...what works for you now , may not in 20-40 years from now.
Andy

 

[po18guy]

I saw an advertisement by Ford saying to remove all fuel from the tank when not actually driving.

You be da judge

You mean those easily accessible Fords that contribute to the 37,000 US deaths annually? But, they already have training, licensing and registration! How can this be?

 

[BrandonQuixote]

My situation dictates; All guns always loaded; barring transportation. Your mileage may vary.

 

[The Heretic]

It depends on the circumstances.

There are people and circumstances where it is ok to have a loaded home defense gun, and those where it is not.

E.G., people who have RBD (REM Sleep Behavior Disorder) or take certain meds, might want to not have a loaded gun within reach while they are sleeping. It depends on the nature of their RBD - do they sleep walk? Can they get out of bed while still asleep?

I have RBD, but I cannot get out of bed while sleeping. I have a loaded shotgun near the bed - but no round chambered.

Another circumstance would be where children are present in the house.

 

[revjen45]

1) "There is nothing that will get the attention of an Intruder faster than the Click Click of a 12 ga. pump shotgun being racked into Condition 1 !"
BOOM!!! Works too. Rinse, repeat.
2) I tend to lean towards the school of thought that says the fewer steps you need to take to be able to fire in a high stress situation the better.
Yup. The less there is to go wrong the better. Racking a round takes 2 hands, introduces the possibility of malfunction, and adds time when that's of the essence. Starting out with a round up the spout means the 1st one is ready to go with minimal manipulation.
3) 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.
The 6th Commandment is accurately rendered as "Thou shall not murder." Thus it would not apply to SD.
4) "How does that work with black powder?"
When we were poor the SD/HD piece was a BP brass-framed Navy. My wife's wedding gift to me.
5) "So My question to you is , How are you going to confront an Intruder and verify its not a "Friendly" without giving away your location at some point ?"
Easy! When you turn the body over!
6) "Boy I hope you keep matches and lighters away from the thunder zone!... Thanks for the good chuckle!"
My BIL burned his grommet demonstrating the lighting of a flatulent blast. It was spectacular!! Hilarious too!! Lighting a phart is guaranteed to get a laugh at any party. (True at biker parties anyway. YMMV.)

 

[BrandonQuixote]

"Racking for effect" always seems like theatrical posturing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just keep one in the chamber and dont give them a reason to think you're armed.

 

[pdxparabellum]

Without question, any unloaded gun in my home is a paperweight. I always carry hot unless on the bike.

 

[leadcounsel]

I believe in taking reasonable steps to ensure 1) prompt response to imminent threat, and 2) personal safety and safety of others as an equal consideration.

With that in mind, the handgun on my person is loaded and chambered. Any gun intended for defense that is off-body or stored, is loaded but unchambered. This makes it 100% impossible to fire accidentally if dropped, tipped over, trigger snagged on something while grabbing it, etc. I figure in the same motion and time that it takes to retrieve the gun, it can be racked. And nobody is going to be in my house and upon me so fast that I can't take .1 seconds to rack the slide on a gun.

In this or another thread, there were MANY examples of the mere posturing or presence of a gun deterred an attack/intruder. If I don't have to kill someone, I'd prefer not to. And, it literally takes a fraction of a second to rack an AK or shotgun, etc.

If your home is an open corridor for people to wander into without you knowing, that seems to be a problem you need to address. For me, someone would need to disable many layers of security before reaching me.

As to the "noise of giving away my position." Nonsense. I'm not a ninja and if I stumbled out of bed at 2am having been alerted to an intruder, there's going to be all sorts of noises from barking dogs, to my heavy footsteps and calling 911 and talking on the phone, so retrieving and racking a shotgun or my AK or AR isn't going to be much more.

 

[leadcounsel]

Without question, any unloaded gun is a paperweight. I always carry hot unless on the bike.

False and stupid mantra. Loaded guns can, and do frequently, cause injury or death when mishandled negligently or even sometimes accidentally.

An unloaded gun, as it turns out, is 100% safe for everyone but can be made loaded in .1 - 1 second, and then becomes an extremely useful lethal tool.

I carry a loaded but unchambered pistol in my gym bag. It remains that way for 100% impossibility that it might fire by accident or negligence. If it were stored in my bag loaded, it would be extremely UNSAFE. The chamber is therefore unloaded. However if danger arose that provided sufficient time/opportunity to retrieve it, I guarantee that in the same motion of withdrawing the gun from its nest, I could also chamber and fire in the same amount of time. One could not do that with a paperweight, thereby debunking your God-forsaken too-oft repeated dumb mantra.

 

[BrandonQuixote]

I feel like less steps in a stressful situation is better, and makes it less likely I'll be inducing a malfunction when I dont really have much time to fix it. Flicking a safety and/or keeping your finger off the trigger should be instinctual and would prevent most accidents.

 

[leadcounsel]

I feel like less steps in a stressful situation is better, and makes it less likely I'll be inducing a malfunction when I dont really have much time to fix it. Flicking a safety and/or keeping your finger off the trigger should be instinctual and would prevent most accidents.

So I'm curious. After the first shot or in a malfunction what will you do? If you don't feel capable of chambering a gun under stress, you probably need more training.

 

[Camelfilter]

So I'm curious. After the first shot or in a malfunction what will you do? If you don't feel capable of chambering a gun under stress, you probably need more training.

So I'm curious. What if you don't have the ability to use both hands on your firearm in a particular circumstance?

Perhaps you need to do more thought training.

 

[Knebel]

I have a loaded 38 snub that pretty muh comes out of the safe at night and goes in my nightstand. In the morning it gets locked up again. I dont leave loaded anything laying around accessible when im not home. I got kids and while i think they know better...you never know.

 

[papersoldier]

So I'm curious. After the first shot or in a malfunction what will you do? If you don't feel capable of chambering a gun under stress, you probably need more training.

Everyone needs more training, but believing yourself to be adequately trained should not mean that you forgo any preparations that could give you a (perhaps needed) advantage when it counts.

 

[leadcounsel]

So I'm curious. What if you don't have the ability to use both hands on your firearm in a particular circumstance?

Perhaps you need to do more thought training.

If you can't put two hands on your shotgun or rifle to rack it, how are you expecting to fire it accurately or at all? I assume the intruder/attacker is actually inside the barrel of the long gun...

I guess I'll just wet myself and in my last few moments ponder why I had such poor perimeter security that someone would 1) break thru multiple layers of defenses, 2) disable all my security measures, 3) locate me, 4) sneak up on me while I'm totally unaware, and 5) attack me and pin me down to the extent that I can get the gun, but cannot rack the action.

Or is this a fantasy that ninjas are waiting in the bushes and I stroll along totally oblivious to my surroundings, and ninjas know I have a gun in the gym bag, and tackle me and prevent me from racking the slide... Whereas in reality, if I can reach into the bag to withdraw the gun, racking it is, at worse, accomplished on the heel of my shoe or anything that will catch the back site. But probably shoving an unloaded (they don't know that) gun in a grapplers face will entice them to stop fighting.

Any more fantasies and "what ifs" to play??????

Otherwise, I'm quite confident that if I'm alert to an intruder and able to lay hands on a shotgun, I'm able to rack it and fire it.

 

[leadcounsel]

Everyone needs more training, but believing yourself to be adequately trained should not mean that you forgo any preparations that could give you a (perhaps needed) advantage when it counts.

I guess let's just contrast that with the other long-running thread about kids finding loaded guns and someone being hurt or killed. Or the loaded shotgun that tips over and fires and hurts/kills someone.

You be you, and I'll be me. My guns are loaded exactly and only when I want them to be, for specific purposes. Some are unloaded entirely. Some are mag loaded, chamber empty for 100% safety. Others in my immediately control are loaded with chamber loaded, for instant use. These are generally on body or in immediately control (for instance in the Army when we left the perimeter for missions, we loaded and racked our weapons).

 

[Camelfilter]

There are any number of perfectly reasonable reasons to only have one hand available.

Injury.

Shielding a loved one.

Doors.

Calling police.

Without even getting into farther less likely scenarios of close proximity to an assailent & creating distance with an off hand.

 

[papersoldier]

I guess let's just contrast that with the other long-running thread about kids finding loaded guns and someone being hurt or killed. Or the loaded shotgun that tips over and fires and hurts/kills someone.

You be you, and I'll be me. My guns are loaded exactly and only when I want them to be, for specific purposes. Some are unloaded entirely. Some are mag loaded, chamber empty for 100% safety. Others in my immediately control are loaded with chamber loaded, for instant use. These are generally on body or in immediately control (for instance in the Army when we left the perimeter for missions, we loaded and racked our weapons).

I have no problem with you keeping your weapons in whatever condition you prefer to keep them in. The message I was trying to impart in my reply was simple: Overconfidence in one's abilities is a bad thing, always, and making preparations for a situation when seconds may count is prudent to prolonging life. Sorry if it sounded like I was trying to tell you what to do.

 

[leadcounsel]

There are any number of perfectly reasonable reasons to only have one hand available.

Injury.

Shielding a loved one.

Doors.

Calling police.

Without even getting into farther less likely scenarios of close proximity to an assailent & creating distance with an off hand.

Taken one at a time.
* Injury. This or other infirmary are unique situations. Hardly the basis for this dialogue. Obviously with a broken arm in a sling, you'll have different considerations. However, there are 1 arm techniques for racking a semi-auto pistol or pump shotgun or rifle. Odds are that if you have a disability, you'll have taken that into consideration. If you develop a disability or injury during a fight, refer to the training. Famously, in the 1986 Miami FBI shootout, Agent Mireles was seriously wounded but used a 1-arm technique to rack the shotgun, and continue fighting.

If you're ultra worried about injuries and weapon rehabilitation/loading/etc. then you should use all manner of weapons that don't require any form of weapon manipulation, reloads, racking, or cocking. I don't know what that might be, but you should look into it.

* Shielding a loved one? Again, very unique and odd circumstance. Hard to realistically come up with a scenario of this. But it seems that enabling a gun to defeat the treat, would trump using my arm to "shield them" from whatever the treat was. Dunno, but we're into fantasy land. Racking a slide literally takes the blink of an eye.

* Doors? Look I'm not being critical but now you're just being argumentative. How is a door preventing me from racking a slide or pumping a shotgun???

* Calling the police? How long do you think racking a slide or pumping a shotgun takes? It's a .1 second endeavor. At most, maybe a full second. I just tried with an empty shotgun, and my phone. I can pick up phone, hit emergency call and speaker and rack my shotgun in under 5 seconds. The phone call took 4 seconds of that....

 

[Camelfilter]

You seem pretty arguementative yourself.

Personally, I just don't see the point in adding an unnecessary extra step.

You do. On that note, you do you. I'll do what I do.