keeping gun loaded?

[Sonnytoo]

I'm glad you educated your wife and

I kept that one with an empty chamber, in cocked/locked condition-two.

Your turn, sir. No flames intended. Don't want to mislead anyone or to change standardized definitions.

Condition Three: Chamber empty, full magazine in place and hammer down.
Condition Two: A round chambered, full magazine in place and hammer down.
Condition One: A round chambered, full magazine in place with hammer cocked, safety on.

Sonnytoo

 

[Sonnytoo]

As for readiness at home, if the gun isn't on you, it should be unloaded. Period. No mag and empty chamber. Not having kids or only adult visitors is no excuse. You can keep the mag near the gun, ready to insert and rack the slide, but the gun should be empty. Bub

Nice thing about opinions; we all have one.
At home, my guns are in drawers that nobody has a reason to open. Why would visitors open drawers in my home?
I usually have two j-frames and one Glock...ready to go. If you have a home invasion, you have zero time to waste.

 

[resident]

I'm glad you educated your wife and

I kept that one with an empty chamber, in cocked/locked condition-two.

Your turn, sir. No flames intended. Don't want to mislead anyone or to change standardized definitions.

Condition Three: Chamber empty, full magazine in place and hammer down.
Condition Two: A round chambered, full magazine in place and hammer down.
Condition One: A round chambered, full magazine in place with hammer cocked, safety on.

Sonnytoo

Quite right. I didn't mean to interject a NEW definition. I only meant that it was in condition two EXCEPT for the round in the chamber.
My logic was that it was more child-proof in that condition, as a child would be unlikely to know to release the safety AND have the strength to cycle the slide...and the slide cannot be cycled without releasing that safey in that condtion.

 

[tkarter]

My logic is don't let kids get their hands on my guns.

tk

 

[NixieTube]

I always, always have my pistols loaded and chambered except when I unload them to clean them, otherwise maintain them, give them to someone else for inspection, lock them up, or run out of ammo. ;) Which means that they are loaded and chambered all the time, unless I *need* to unchamber/unload them, or it couldn't be prevented because I didn't have any bullets left. Never the reverse.

I can't think of many acceptable reasons for not having a round chambered all the time with a modern pistol, except as I say above. With my SR9 I put the manual safety on and don't worry about it. I bought both my pistols because they had manual safeties for exactly that reason, so I could keep them safely in Condition One.

There was a funny line in Lethal Weapon a long time ago: "Do you sleep with that thing?" "I would if I slept."

Well, I'm not Martin Riggs but I have slept with my SR9 loaded and chambered with the safety on under my pillow more than once. It's not really that brave a thing to do: it's got a manual safety, a tongue on the trigger and a striker blocker. Not to mention that you could leave the magazine slightly ajar and have a fourth level of protection, with the gun right under your pillow with a round in the chamber.

You're going to have to be doing something really supernatural in that bed -- while you're sleeping! -- to make the gun fire. I don't advocate it but I've done it a couple of times because I felt I needed to, and I didn't lose any sleep over having the gun there, in that condition.

Obviously if there are children in the household or some other concern not listed here, YMMV and should vary. If you're having friends over, if strangers are coming into the house, by all means, unload the gun. Don't leave one laying around where someone who doesn't/hasn't understood gun safety might pick it up.

But in a carry situation, +1 to everyone else.

Also, let's not forget the first rule of gun safety: You always treat every gun as though it was loaded, and I'll amend that to include: "Loaded and chambered." If you train yourself to consider all your "pick-up-able" firearms loaded and chambered all the time, you internalize the safe handling automatically, even if they're not. It's good practice to think that way, because it forces you to think of safety every time you pick one up or have one on your person or your vicinity/control. Is the gun there? Consider it loaded and chambered.

 

[resident]

My logic is don't let kids get their hands on my guns.

tk

Not meant to flame.... but I imagine a great many children who shoot themselves and/or their friends found guns they weren't intended to find. My wife and I have grandkids. Smart, very-young kids who have parents who shoot....and teach their kids to leave guns alone.
When they come over, I place all guns out of their presence, but where my wife and I know. They are in the condition I've already described. (I can't imagine needed a gun in my home and not having the time to chamber a round.) :roll: Further, if I find my gun pointed at me by a threatening person... and they didn't have the forethought to cycle the slide.... then I know I have an opportunity to dis-arm them before being shot.

I do NOT do as the previous poster wrote: "If you're having friends over, if strangers are coming into the house, by all means, unload the gun."
I do not unload them. Why? Because, who says an illegal intruder is going to wait until no visitors are present?

I keep my loaded, ready-for-work guns in a condition to place them readily available, and away from kids. By the time they're old enough to figure out/operate a Colt 1911 like I keep it... they're old enough for me to have already taught them how, when, and whom to shoot....and to handle them safely when the gun is not needed.

 

[pistolpete]

I know some guys who keep several loaded guns in their home that are either hidden in predictable spots (under mattress e.g.) or locked in a glass faced gun cabinet, or drawer. Being as a break-in while one is gone is way more likely than one while you're home, I'm not so sure it's a good Idea to do that. I only keep one gun out and loaded. And I hide it when I leave the house. The rest stay locked in safe. Also I don't leave anything in the safe that would let the burgular know that there is another gun in the house somewhere. So, No 9mm ammo, gun box, clips, etc unless there's a 9mm handgun in safe. Best case scenerio would be to have a loaded gun on my person at all times, but here in WI no conceal carry so gun has to stay home. I use to keep a couple of loaded guns in house, but it was such a pain putting guns in and out of safe everytime I went somewhere.

 

[Sal1950]

An unloaded handgun is just a 6" club. LOL

 

[NixieTube]

I do NOT do as the previous poster wrote: "If you're having friends over, if strangers are coming into the house, by all means, unload the gun."
I do not unload them. Why? Because, who says an illegal intruder is going to wait until no visitors are present?

That's true and I typed that sentence pretty quickly, but you're right about that. Obviously that policy is not really a completely-well-thought-through statement of procedure. I should have said: "unload the gun(s) you think you should, and use your best judgment."

I think we should all refrain from asking Martha Stewart what we should do with our firearms in the home in the event we're entertaining guests. I wonder what her answer would be...

 

[tkarter]

The only loaded guns in my house are being carried. All the others hidden and unloaded with ammo stored elsewhere. I am not gong to be shot when I come home to a break in with my own gun.

My whole family knows not to mess with guns as they are all considered loaded.

I grew up in a house where Dad kept every gun loaded. Knew that from the time I was 3 years old. Dad taught us how to unload them but none of us 4 kids ever thought of messing around with dad's guns.

Kids can be taught easily not to mess with guns but there is always an exception and with some of today's parenting views there should be no loaded guns that aren't in responsible hands. IMHO

tk

 

[resident]

One problem (as I see it) is that our OWN kids can be taught. But we cannot have control over what THEIR friends know/do not know. And the law will hold US, the owner, responsible for any child who gains access to our guns.
I don't disagree with the law. I just want to avoid a tragedy.. (especially one where my kid gets shot by another's kid.)
When my daughter was only 5 years old, a neighbor boy was brought into the house by her to gather up some toys to take back outside. I was sitting in the living room watching TV.
I suddenly realized I was hearing a handgun being dry-fired. I jumped up and ran to the hallway which enters our home, to find the neighbor kid pointing an Allen & Thurber pepperbox pistol at my daughter and repeatedly dry-firing it at her. :shock:
(My home has antique furniture in it, including a hall-tree from an old bank at the entrance to the hallway. On it, for decoration only, was a banker's derby hat, gloves, umbrella-cane, and the unloaded, cap-and-ball, pepperbox pistol. It gave the appearance an 1840's-era banker had come home for the evening and dropped his personal objects at the halltree. My daughter had never paid the least attention to it.)
I was horrified that a kid's first inclination was to pick the gun up and fire it at another kid!
I scolded the child and sent him home to his parents with a note about the matter, hoping it shocked them as well. I never heard from them again, and I used the event as an object lesson to myself.

 

[Sonnytoo]

You must have some more expensive and nice hand guns... for me I carry the best (and most expensive)... then again I wish I could afford a 'BBQ gun.'

BBQ guns are useless to me; they sit in my safe and sleep. Will give them to my kids someday. In the meantime, I carry guns that work...and I don't care if they get a scratch.

 

[raw6464]

...To be honest a loaded unholster glock gives me the creeps, but a p95 loaded either on safe or not with the heavy first DA pull is so much more forgiving under stress.

First I'm a Ruger fan have several of them... but a loaded Glock is as safe as a SA/DA revolver loaded. The firing pin is not in a firing state until you pull the trigger. Also the firing pin is blocked until you pull the trigger and there is a drop block in the frame that prevents the firing pin from moving at all... until you pull the trigger. So the firing pin (or striker) is blocked in several ways to prevent accidental discharge. This is all done with only 33 parts.

The Glock is one of the safest designs in the semi-auto hand guns as long as you keep your finger off the trigger... just like revolvers. There's a reason why they are so popular in military, law enforcement and the public... and why the Glock design is copied (even Ruger) and Glocks have become the bench mark all other semi-autos are judged by... sorry Ruger.

 

[sicboy13]

I wish I felt comfortable leaving either my revolver or P95 out at night, easily reachable, but I have a young daughter I dont want to find either one. I know she cant rack a P95, but still. So I have 2 paperweights in a safe under my bed :( Once she is old enough to shoot, and I mean 5-6, I want her to learn on the .22 revolver so she can learn to respect guns. I would feel better then. But we will see...

 

[tkarter]

I wish I felt comfortable leaving either my revolver or P95 out at night, easily reachable, but I have a young daughter I dont want to find either one. I know she cant rack a P95, but still. So I have 2 paperweights in a safe under my bed :( Once she is old enough to shoot, and I mean 5-6, I want her to learn on the .22 revolver so she can learn to respect guns. I would feel better then. But we will see...

She isn't too young to learn about guns right now. She is just not old enough to handle them and needs to know that. And tell mom and dad or any adult when she sees someone handling one.

Kids don't spend much time thinking about guns really. They need to be taught they are a tool just like a hammer is.

tk

 

[sicboy13]

You know, if I was sure I wouldnt forget, I'd just pull out the P95 before bed, rack one in the chamber, and put it on the nightstand. I hate to admit it, but I just don't know if i'd rememeber to lock it back up each morning. That is what I know I really need to do and that shows poor character calling myself out on that.

 

[tkarter]

Ah if you don't carry it. It shouldn't be loaded all the time. Only when you have control should any gun be loaded.

tk

 

[Spike]

Ah Boomer, I fully sympathize with your wanting to keep the lady happy. Very important.

But keeping the chamber empty on a carry gun is an emotional response, or a legal compliance. Either way, it's ostensibly a compromise that somehow takes the danger quotient down a notch: "Take the ready-round out of the chamber and the hand gun is just not quite as dangerous".
It's also less, well, ready.

I can only assume that your choice to carry was a decision made with the uttmost sobriety; A tool for the gravest extreme, as it were. With that in mind, if you ever need it (and here's hoping you never do), you will, in all likelihood, need it Right Now. Not in a minute. Not in a second. Not in the moment it takes you to fumble with the safety (because I'm taking a stab that's another emotional decision that's been made... I could be wrong), rack the slide and bring the pistol to bear on the aweful thing facing you.

Another way of looking at it, for me, is that carrying on a clear chamber is actually confusing (I did it for a brief transition period, back when I was trying to get confortable with the whole concept of carrying -- A Gun?!?!). I don't mean Where am I? confusing. More of a Is it loaded or is it not? confusing.

I'm sorry, I tend to preach sometimes. I just don't think an empty chamber's wise in a carry gun.

Oh and, just my opinion? If you're going to keep carrying, chambered or not, save the money, pinch the pennies; swear off Starbucks for a month, buy the cheap chew... Whatever it takes. Obtain an amazing holster. JMO.

All that said, (I'm sure you just can't wait to read yet more! :roll: ), if you carry unchambered, and that's how you carry all the time and train that way, doing draw & load drills and the whole bit, and can get proficient, well, who's to say it's wrong? (Somebody help me out here... wasn't Con3 known as "Israeli Carry" at one point?)

Carry One way, One place, All the time, Every time. Muscle memory rules.

-S

 

[Verndog]

Ah if you don't carry it. It shouldn't be loaded all the time. Only when you have control should any gun be loaded.

tk

Personally, I consider being in a locked quick access safe "in control" of it. I keep mine loaded and in the safe.

 

[terryg]

Personally, I consider being in a locked quick access safe "in control" of it. I keep mine loaded and in the safe.

I agree a million %. This is the only way to go, IMO, if you have young children in your home or if you have them visit your home.

 

[rmansu2]

When people ask me how many rounds my firearm will hold, I always say 15 +1. The next question is typically, +1? Why not just say 16? Response: My magazine only holds 15, but I keep an extra one in the chamber.

I carry fully loaded mag with one in the chamber and the safety off.

I always assume every firearm is loaded, especially because mine is.

 

[resident]

...Personally, I consider being in a locked quick access safe "in control" of it. I keep mine loaded and in the safe.

Gun in the "safe" are there for "storage" and are unloaded. (Guns in the safe are clean and have been wiped down with an oily rag and their bores have remembrances of oil/Hoppe No 9 ... oil that will kill a primer and make any ammo loaded in them fairly unreliable, and Hoppes No 9 has agents in it that will create verdi gris on copper and brass cartridges...stuff I don't want in my "cleaned" guns.

The guns I need for immediate self-defense are loaded. My DA P97 has one in the chamber (because my kids are all grown and gone.) My Colt 1911 empty-chamber/description was when they were still around the house even tho' they'd been taught to never pick one up and to tell adults if they ever say anyone else do so. (And when kids are visiting the guns are put away in a secret place, completely inaccessible to them.)
You know, this brings to mind my (adult, now) daughter's solution... a small, bedside safe that requires only a moment's manipulation of a secret combintation of 4 buttons..something she can do in the dark. Probably a good idea for when kids are around or not.

This has been a very interesting discussion and I enjoy reading everyone's opinions on this subject.

 

[tkarter]

My loaded guns stay on my hip unless I am sleeping. I do have a muzzle loader loaded but no cap LOL.

Loaded in the safe is okay. Not a defensive weapon at all. Safe from kids unless you're raising a safe cracker.

tk

 

[SEMPERFIDELUS8403]

My gun is loaded 24/7, except under three conditions... After firing 11 rounds (full load) and when being reloaded or when dry firing w/ my snap caps. Special note.... I live alone w/ my cat. So Im pretty sure no one else can get their hands on my gun. Unless Hemi (yes my cat is named after an engine :lol: ) is taking online gun courses, Im pretty sure its safe. No lil brats come into my home, and I do not have wanted visitors so....

 

[Verndog]

You know, this brings to mind my (adult, now) daughter's solution... a small, bedside safe that requires only a moment's manipulation of a secret combintation of 4 buttons..something she can do in the dark. Probably a good idea for when kids are around or not.

That is exactly what I own / mean by quick access safe. It's foam lined to prevent moister and scratching, and a 4 key code gets ready weapon in seconds. It even has a loud audible alarm that goes off is someone tries to carry it away while armed (bolted from inside to nightstand).

 

[sicboy13]

that sounds like my safe... but mine is under my bed...

 

[cndrussty]

This might sound like a jerk thing to say but would you carry a wheel gun without bullets in the cylinder? I see that as pretty much the same as carry with one in the chamber.

 

[Verndog]

I just received my CC permit and plan to carry a weapon in the car in case of emergency while traveling. This will rarely if at all be on my person, but it makes no sence to not keep it loaded while in a locked and alarmed car. It is somewhat hidden in console and I feel safe where its at. What are others thoughts on carrying in a vehicle but not on person?

 

[FergusonTO35]

Vehicle carry is my only option much of the time as I can't carry at work (LE agency and I'm not a cop) or college. When you're away from home a gun in your vehicle beats one thats at home in a drawer. One of my main reasons for me to get a CCW is so that I can carry a loaded pistola in my vehicle in Ohio, where my in-laws are from. In Kentucky one can carry loaded in the glovebox of their car without a permit. In Ohio, without a permit one can only carry a gun in their vehicle unloaded, in a case, and out of the reach of the vehicle occupants.

 

[147 Grain]

Actually, why don't we just keep the pistol completely unloaded with a single bullet in the front pocket like Barney Fife did and hope the police show-up before we are killed? ;)

Seriously, keeping a self defense weapon unloaded defeats the purpose!