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How a 3-Year-Old Can Open a Gun Safe
New submitter bupbin writes "We are providing a detailed report and analysis of eleven different popular gun safes produced by Stack-On, GunVault, and Bulldog to warn the public of the dangers inherent in some of these products because the manufacturers nor their major retailers will do so. In that report you can view eight different Stack-On models, one produced by Bulldog, and one manufactured by GunVault. A similar design defect is demonstrated in an inexpensive safe for storing valuables that is sold by AMSEC, a very reputable safe manufacturer in the United States. Unfortunately, their digital safe with their claim of a 'state-of-the-art electronic lock' can also be opened (literally) by a three-year-old because of a common mechanism used in the industry that is subject to circumvention."
Is that life a normal safe only:
1) it's labelled as "'specially for guns!";
2) its manufacturer is prone to shooting itself in the foot?
How is this really news for nerds? Seems like gun stories are here only to spark the inevitable flamewars over gun control.
Cue up the comments that have nothing to do with this story and use it to further their own political agendas.
Best way to be gun safe is to have no gun in the first place.
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
Umm... the StackOn, etc. aren't safes. They are locking steel boxes, kinda flimsy, no fire rating, not UL listed, etc.
Compare with products from Liberty, Cannon, etc.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I've always heard that all serious safes are rated in "minutes" - meaning that's how long they'll delay a serious attacker from penetrating it's security.
Given the cheap and shoddy (and imported - Yes imported. The lighter and thinner the construction the cheaper it is to ship) nature of pretty much all appliances marketed to the general public nowadays I'm not surprised that the new metric is "minutes against a bored 3 year old"
My sister and I were picking pin tumbler locks when we were 6 and 7, getting us into all sorts of trouble as most people on /. could guess. A lot of electronic locks, can be bypassed by sharp jarring. Which is exactly what this appears to be, not a real surprise. Even mechanical locks that they use in hotel rooms can be bypassed using this manner.
Beh, the most elegant designs are usually defeated by the most simple solutions.
Om, nomnomnom...
Why was it loaded?
As a father of young children, I given thought to having a gun in the home. I've concluded that if your reason to have a gun is for safety or defense, then if you can't sleep with it loaded under your pillow it probably can never be used in time to be useful. The problem is that you cannot do this with young children in the home; therefore, what are the alternatives? Some I've come up with, with debatable usefulness might be:
- A dog
- Martial arts training
Of course this is if you don't have the option of moving to a more peaceful location..
When I was in middle school (many years ago!), after earning the riflery boy scout merit badge, I managed to convince my very-reluctant parents to buy me a BB gun. It was not in a safe, but I purchased a trigger lock from Master Lock to prevent my little sister, who was in elementary school at the time, from getting into trouble with it.
One day when I was away, she picked the lock with a pocket knife. She was not particularly mechanically adept, either.
Fortunately, nothing came of it--she just went out back and shot some soda cans--but there's a real problem here.
QUOTE: "Ed Owens began voicing concerns about the security of these containers and that every other officer within the Department might be at risk. As a result, he was subsequently fired after fifteen months for allegedly violating department policies."
Oh yeah. Hide the problem instead of facing it head-on and dealing with it. Damn politicians.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Short version: The locking solonoid mechanism can be mechanically disrupted into an open state by applying a sharp vertical acceleration. The three-year-old used in testing achieved this by picking the safe a few inches off the ground and dropping it. The mechanism design is common across models and manufacturers.
An obvious countermeasure is to use the bolts usually supplied to securely attach the safe to a wall or floor. If it cannot be lifted, there is no way to apply the jolt needed to knock the mechanism open.
If only we had a consumer group that could protect children from getting into their parents guns... Oh wait, we do, and they are more worried about kids swallowing small magnets instead.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
What does poor safe design have to do with guns??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty
Those safes are not fit for their intended purpose.
Start suing.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'm reasonably sure that all of these are supposed to be installed by bolting them down (mine certainly is) which would prevent that kind of tampering. You'd reasonably also want to install these boxes where a child will not normally be able to reach as an additional precaution. Oh and don't keep shims lying around to pop locks with, apparently that happened in the house the video was shot...
Not really parallel because...
Yeah, in the modern US, communities are mostly planned and constructed on the assumption that people will use cars for basic tasks like travel between home and work, travelling between home and places to by food and other necessities, etc. So its often impractical to get through daily life without a car.
Guns...not so much. That's not to say that there aren't people who legitimately need them, or at least live/work/etc. in circumstances where the benefits of having one outweigh the risks such that it is rational to own them. But its not really parallel to automobiles at all.
and the Bazaar already dead. It is NetBSD posts on being GAY NIGGERS. developers. The will recall that it You don't need to duty to be a big but now they're It transforms into ones in software BSD culminated in Bad fOr *BSD. As 'superior' machine. outstrips I'll have offended
I know her... Anne, right?
Remember the Stack-On press release that touted the fact that their containers met “TSA airline guidelines” as if this endorsement is added evidence of the security of their products? We tested these containers, and the reality is they can be opened in a variety of ways including with a tiny piece of brass by a three year old.
That pretty much says it all right there. The TSA approves something because it can be opened by a three-year-old, meaning their own employees might have a 50/50 shot at it.
A gun is designed to kill other things ...
No. They can also be designed or used for putting holes in pieces of paper, knocking over or pinging metal plates, breaking pieces of clay, etc. Shooting is also a sport. Given that slashdot seems to be on a current events theme I'll add that shooting is an Olympic Sport.
I'm not aware of any age limit in the Constitution. 3 year-olds should have the right to carry guns too. What if there's a shooting at the kindergarten? An armed 3 year old could conceivably end that tragedy. Stupid libs and their gun safes.
what's the next story going to be? "How a 2 year old opens drawer full of kitchen knives"?
Seriously, it doesn't matter what you get, there will be a cheep version available. You get what you pay for. No news there.
That locking mechanism is just atrocious. They thought using a single solenoid which when actuated retracts to allow the bolts to be withdrawn was a secure design in a safe the size of a shoebox? Add in that because it is battery powered it can't have a strong return spring and of course it will be easy to open by giving it a small physical shock. FFS even something simple like a bolt driven by a small stepper motor and a worm gear would be orders of magnitude better.
That the company and distributors are refusing to admit there is a problem is disgusting, but understandable given how large the potential liability is in this situation.
Locksmiths have been using these exact techniques for 20 years to open safes. This is nothing new nor secret. What's next, a video of a security consultant picking a deadbolt in 20 seconds?
First off, safes (which store anything) should be bolted into the foundation of your home. Therefore the pick-up-and-drop method is ineffective. A sturdy strike from a hammer may open some of them, but not all.
Second, none of these are real "gun safes". A real gun safe weighs 300 lbs. and cannot be opened using any of these methods. You need a large drill and a schematic of the inside of the door. These lock boxes are intended to be hidden somewhere (back of a closet, behind a bed) and allow for quick access (15 seconds to open) in the event of an emergency. Kids should not know where they are, nor be able to reach them. A real gun owner would know this.
sudo make me a sandwich
The trick is to teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery. When I grew up we had guns in the house and not locked up at all. My dad's shotgun and hunting rifle generally were leaning up in a corner. No trigger locks. If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded.
It was like that from birth till I moved out. Wanna know why me and my siblings didn't die horrible deaths? Because we didn't feel a need to secretly "play" with the gun. If I wanted to go out and shoot it all I had to do was ask and my dad would take me out shooting. Not only that, but during those shooting sessions he taught me exactly how the gun worked, how to safely load and unload it, and how to handle it. Even if I HAD handled the gun while he was gone I was perfectly capable to doing so safely.
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
In what world can owning a car be compared to owning a gun? Quick reminder: one is designed to go from one place to another, the other is designed to kill other people.
No. At Boy Scout summer camp we used guns designed for putting holes in pieces of paper and breaking pieces of clay. Check out the Olympics, you will find guns used for similar things. Shooting is a sport, that it the most common usage of firearms.
I'm always amazed how many pro-gun nerds there are on Slashdot. When I read their postings coming to the defense of the 2nd amendment, I have this chilling image of a thirty-something programmer polishing his Glock and recalling the memory of an atomic wedgie whilst staring at the heavily circled calendar date of his high school reunion.
Since when was knowing how to pick a lock not a part of a young nerd's rite of passage?
It is like taking clocks apart or building "spy gadgets".
Let me guess before I read the article. They used the brute force technique, right?
Indeed. I have found more low-cost safes than not can be opened merely by dropping them on the floor at an appropriate angle. Granted any electric safe that uses a spring actuated solenoid can be opened in such a manner.
Usually this is not a problem for most applications, but when the payload is a loaded handgun this is a disaster.
The most effective thing to do would be to do both.
Which is what my parents did. Safes for the guns, ammo in another place and plenty of range time for the kids.
Gotta love the 2nd Amendment - where the best way to keep your family from being raped and murdered is to keep guns in the house, so everyone has the opportunity to accidentally/on purpose shoot themselves before a bad guy gets the chance.
They're cheap sheet metal locking boxes. A SAFE, a real safe, first of all a three year old couldn't lift and drop on its corner.
A real gun owner would know this.
1) The guy whose kids got into the lockbox was a cop.
2) The lockbox had been issued to him by his police department.
if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
Politicians would force you to hire a lifeguard.
sudo make me a sandwich
Look at the submitters account. Never even posted a comment. And then we have this dumbass question below about deleting personal data off a computer, submitted by an anonymous user no less.. These stories are being submitted to push other more relevant stories to the bottom and off the front page.
More and more we're seeing trolls and outright BS on the front page of this site.
He elaborately describes what happens when you leave responsibility to commercial
enterprise in an environment of competition.
That is not news here, but apparently it is a shock in the USA.
What you need is rules and regulation, no matter how fierce commercial enterprise is against it.
They cannot act responsibly on their own, no matter how often they claim it.
Because an unloaded personal defense weapon is as useful as a brick. You don't see many people carrying concealed bricks or with bricks next to their bed for a reason. It's worthless.
Since we are discussing safes then we are discussing storage. In storage guns should be unloaded. The anti-gun crowd doesn't often have the facts or technical details on their side, but in the case of storing a gun loaded they do have it right. A loaded gun in storage is more likely to cause an accident than to be necessary for self defense. To expect that there will not be enough time (3-5 seconds) to load the 12 gauge is truly paranoid, probably delusional. Is there an incident where that was the case, sure, but there will be far more instances were the seconds were available and far more instances where a kid found a loaded gun.
Storage Wars on A&E here in the US shows how when they find safes in the lockers they in a lot of cases just throw them at the ground and pops them open. This is nothing new or special. If it was bolted down or was a very heavy duty type safe, that needs welding torches and drills having a 3 year old opening them with no tools would be int interesting. Although I understand the story and it is said that the makers of these safes don't tell people, or do they? I don't know what the documentation of the safes say.
http://www.aetv.com/storage-wars/
http://youtu.be/JMN30huZLxk
http://youtu.be/hdR2v5kVNLQ
sorry to say I can't find them opening up the smaller fire safes. They just toss them to the ground.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
Similar story: I slept under the gun rack at my grandparents. People talk about sleeping with a pistol under the pillow, but I had more firepower and ammo with nearly the same convenience.
Yet I never touched them. I was told not to and that was that. My brother and I weren't allowed to handle guns until late teens (probably because Granddad didn't want to have to clean them after firing them). But we were taught proper gun handling any time we had a cap gun or water pistol.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Doing both is more effective than your "or": taeching your kid that gun are dangerous and putting it out of their way is the safest route. In fact I knew somebody like you , which was taught by his father about rifle and handgun. He still nearly killed a friend because he tougth he knew enough (just like all kids do).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Nope--Lindsay. Apparently it's a common story.
... in the same way and tell me that no other kid would ever do something stupid with a loaded gun. Like most accidents, stupid shit often happens because more than one thing went wrong. Your dad was called away at an emergency, you had some friends over but had to go to the bathroom... this is why most "safe" designs require a two point failure on top of a system designed with best practices. Leaving a loaded gun around is a single point of failure with a lot of assumptions built-in.
You live in a pretty black-and-white world that allows for no statistical variation. Humans, if anything, do not all act exactly the same under the same circumstances.
Create a gun lock called "Homework" and place near the kids toothbrushes...it will never be touched!!
I currently do not own any guns, but I come from a family of hunters and gun owners. I have been through gun safety training. At some point in my life it is highly likely that I will inherit guns from family members or purchase my own guns. I'm not into hunting, but I do enjoy target shooting and skeet. My father always kept his guns in a large combination lock, fire rated, etc. gun safe. It was a 1,000 pound monster of of thing. OK, possibly exaggerating, but it was huge, solid, and heavy and not something that can be moved without at least a heavy duty moving dolly and at least two people.
I would never store a gun in a lock box. A lock box is for transporting your gun from your home to the range or other place of it's use. Properly storing your gun means a quality gun safe that is bolted to the floor (for smaller safes) or a full on monster of a safe (for rifles, shotguns, etc.) that is not easily moved should a thief (or multiple thieves) enter your home. Even with my guns were in a safe, I would also have trigger locks on every one of them with the keys stored in a separate, smaller safe, again bolted to the floor.
Now this is my own opinion of proper gun handling based on personal experience, information from experts, as well as a dose of personal paranoia. I have a 3 year old child who will someday be instructed by myself or my father in proper gun safety, because she will be exposed to guns in our family. This is not optional. If she shows interest in joining her family in target shooting and hunting she will also go through gun safety courses before participating. Also not optional.
So I find it very irresponsible that these are being sold to meet the federal requirements. I do appreciate the opinion of gun owners who feel this type of law is infringing on their rights, but my personal opinion is that this is simply putting good, common sense into law, and that while selling these lock boxes does meet the letter of the law, it completely skirts the intent of the law.
That a law enforcement agency issued these defective by design devices to it's officers is very concerning, and the reported response to being shown that they are flawed devices is even worse. It is equally concerning that at least some of the officers in question didn't secure their weapons in the first place and that this wasn't a policy of the department before a member of the department was hit with personal tragedy. The sheriff department should expect their officers to show a good dose of common sense when it comes to their service as well as personal weapons, but in the world we live in common sense is no longer sufficient.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
This just shows why we need to radically change gun laws, as in ban all guns!
You seriously think you can teach that level of understanding to a 3 year old?
"Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?"
And if they have trouble swimming still? Neighbor kids wandering over?
People buy these "safes" because they are cheap and appear to be effective. The average consumer can not be expected to know that they are nowhere near as secure as they are advertised and commonly assumed to be. Given that, there is no free market and a responsible community would see to it that such snake-oil was taken off the market and, better yet, a standard caused to exist against which such products could be evaluated. But no. A dead kid or two is way better than "more gubbamint regulation". Right?
So to "break in" to one of these safes you have to be able to move/drop it? Guess its a good thing mine is bolted to a 300lb (including contents) gun locker. Anyone with any sense could tell you upon seeing one of these safes that they wouldn't stop a determined individual. They are intended to prevent casual/quick access, and if properly secured (mine came with all of the necessary hardware to do just that) they will apparently do so. Should the locking mechanism be redesigned to be more tamper resistant? Of course. Are people being duped into buying insecure safes? Only the idiots who think $39.99 will get you an impenetrable super secure safe....
Sadly for your point, death by computer still lags far behind death by shooting.
However child deaths by swimming pool exceeds child deaths by firearms. So there must be a need to ban swimming pools.
According to the risk data, taking a bike to work INCREASES your risk of violent death on the road, but DECREASES your risk of death from coronary heart disease, et cetera. It turns out that, for all but the most reckless and foolish cyclists, the improved health benefits outweigh the increased risk of violent death, by a large margin. In other words, if you are the sort of cyclist who often rides the wrong way against traffic, in dark clothing at night without a light, runs stop signs, and otherwise does everything WRONG, your average lifespan will be shortened. For all other cyclists, despite the slightly elevated risk of violent death on the roads, the health benefits of cycling will increase your average lifespan.
Incidentally, the best thing a cyclist can do to become safe is to sometimes ride with an organized cycle club. The riding habits this will instill reduces your death-per-distance-traveled risk rate below that of the average car driver. This is based on AMA data collected as part of a 20 year study.
The trick is to teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery.
3 year old kids?
More than enough kids have killed themselves or someone else by accident because they knew how to get to a gun.
While I'm glad you and your siblings survived, it's bad public policy to encourage the not-storing of loaded guns.
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
I'm going to go with "Putting a fence around it" if you want to avoid being sued out of house and home if someone else's kid drowns.
In most jurisdictions, you'll start racking up daily fines if you refuse to put up a fence around any attractive nuisances on your land.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
...no need for a gun-safe.
And a lot of money saved.
Just saying.
(posted from a country where guns are very controlled and in which there are ten times less deaths per capita by firearms than in U.S.A.)
Without all the emotional bull crap, and just cutting to the chase on how the safes fared? I know how important it is that (most of) my kids not be able to get to my guns. I don't need the 6 o' clock news version of this story.
Do you have kids? 3 year olds don't always listen the first time. It only takes one time to shoot themselves.
im ok with ammo in another place as long as its not one of those 'completely separate room in the house' kind of ideas.. after all its only useful if you can actually use it when an emergency arises.
The response he got from the manufacturers and retailers is unbelievable!
I'm not an exec at a big corporation, but if I saw a video of a 3 year old opening a lock box that I was marketing and selling as a "gun safe", I'd at least stop selling new ones. The bean counters would coldly calculate the cost of a recall vs. the cost of settling a few lawsuits for the items already in use, but what motive would they have to keep selling the same junk? I suppose the retailers could just point the finger at the manufacturers of course, but it still makes no sense.
I'm going to forward the source article to the NRA, and I encourage others (esp. members) to do so. Hopefully we can get permission to re-print parts of it in American Rifleman. The last F*&^%!$ thing we need is firearms accidents in cases where people are trying to do the responsible thing by keeping the weapons locked up.
If a three-year-old can open a gun safe, then a six-year-old can open two gun safes.
Saints preserve us.
Has anyone else confirmed this?
"which at least in part could be directly due to what we believe was the security-defective design of a gun safe produced by Stack-On"
LMFAO....seriously? Stopped reading right there.
Same here, in our family we had BB guns, bows, shotguns, etc all sitting perfectly accessible in the living room (in a display Cabinet, the key always in the lock). We could retrieve "our guns/bows" whenever we wanted, and could ask to shoot the "grown up guns" whenever we wanted. Worst I ever did was accidentally shoot out a window in the front porch with a BB gun trying to kill a pigeon. But we knew that if we ever touched the "grown up guns" without permission we wouldn't be walking straight for a week. Locking up firearms AND teaching kids about them is probably the wisest thing to do, but I think teaching them is far more important than locking them up. If you only lock them up you have to absolutely positive that the firearms are secured 100% of the time (which is impossible in the real world), if you teach you only have to take reasonable precautions (keep them out of easy reach/unloaded, don't let them be handled unsupervised, etc)
"As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?"
You should teach your kids to swim. But since you can't control whether the neighbors teach their kids to swim, you should still have a fence.
Same thing applies to guns in the home. Even if your kids are perfectly safe around the guns, you need to be cognisant that their friends may not have the same education. You really don't want to find yourself in the position of saying "it's not my fault that the neighbor kid accidentally shot himself with my gun, his parents should have taught him gun safety". Not only will the jury not be very interested in that argument when the parents sue you, but I imagine you'd feel bad if the neighbor kid killed himself with your gun. (Even if you would believe it wasn't your "fault", I imagine you'd still wish it hadn't happened.)
I say it's a "Fun" safe!
Everyone always knew where to go if there was a family fight or if they became seriously depressed.
You can't teach a very young child to swim because it doesn't float (bad bone/fat ratio). I wonder if the rest of the post might be just as insightful...
All of you guys act like the gun safe shouldnt be openable by anyone with the key or combination. In reality (thats where some people live where they understand things for what they are) we know that a lock is only meant to keep out honest people. A thief can and will defeat any and all locks anytime they want or simply circumvent them. A lock just keeps out everyday people and nothing else.
People with big gun safes are hillarious anyway at how they waste so much god damn money. But I guess a gun safe gives people the sensation of having a giant vicarious cock to store their other powerful penis extensions in. Only place you would need a gun safe is in the ghetto or low rent housing and chances are if you live there you cant afford a gun safe anyway. If you keep your guns hidden away (and not in a giant metal box that screams "expensive stuff in here") and dont fucking going around blabbing about your guns then they wont get stolen and you wont need to spend a lot of money on a gigantic safe. Whats funnier is people put these giant safes in their homes and then think they need to bolt them down as if they think someone is going to come in the middle of the night and carry out a 500lb safe filled with 200lbs of guns. You guys are funny.
Ive lived 40 years and ever since I was a kid I kept all my guns in the closet. Never had a gun stolen or anyone break in because I practice discretion with my guns, my items worth money and what I tell people.
or don't you read Pratchett?
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
This is what I am working on with my kids. The oldest is 3 and has become aware of guns at a surprisingly young age (I don't think I knew about them until 1st or 2nd grade) from other kids at preschool who "play" guns. As I have firearms he has been introduced to the concept of them and has seen what they are capable of (milk jug full of water meets 12 gauge slug). As I don't want him to have an innate fear of them I have also started teaching him about them and how to handle them even though he is still too small to hold one himself. He already understands the basics of proper handling such as point in a safe direction, only point it at something you want to shoot, always treat it like it is loaded, etc. He has seen me use my target air rifle (.22 cal 1200 fps) to take out yard pests. When he is big enough to actually handle one I will get him his own BB gun to learn with and then move up to a real firearm once he has mastered that. All of my guns (1 shotgun, 2 rifles, and 1 air rifle) are kept in a real gun safe (cost more than all 4 guns combined) along with other valuables for the protection of my kids as well as for the protection of the firearms
Time to offend someone
I have watched the video and (full disclosure) I have worked within the banking industry. I know for a fact that safes with solenoid unlocking devices are widely used. Either with a biometric or electronic numeric keypad method of unlocking. I also know that as one of the persons (formerly) responsible testing these devices, that this attack vector never occurred to me. And I'm talking about the picking up and dropping of it, primarily. Mostly because the safes in question are several hundred pounds and had to be delivered to my testing area on a forklift. And partly because if I did so the people of the floor beneath me would have freaked out and I would have had a talking to by my boss. But I'll bet you anything that you could lift up a corner of one of the small bank safes and drop it the same way. I would be surprised if that *DID NOT* work. Mostly considering that the companies that make those safes are as equally negligent in testing as the ones in the Forbes article.
The whole point of the article, I think, is to show that there are a lot of so-called "child-safety" locks and safes that are appallingly bad. Following a few links deeper show that it's not just the electronic lock boxes.
Trigger lock? Drop the gun on a hard surface. Lock often breaks right off.
Cable Lock? Cheap $1 tumblers, and the cable can be trivially defeated with a pair of pliers
Lock box? Well, watch the videos.
More than anything, if it can't do the job it's advertised to do, than it's a problem. The cable locks are required in many states - you'd expect the thing to do the job it was designed to do.
So more than anything, I think this is a great case of educating the customer - that if you want such a safety mechanism, there are products to avoid.
The problem is, the idea of gun locks are an abomination to many gun owners - enough that many magazines are afraid to review them to not "upset" loyal readers. So where can the good devices be found, to those interested?
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I completely agree, and was just talking to my wife about the same thing a few weeks ago.
My dad collected guns (though he wasn't a hunter), and always had at least a few in our basement, sitting in a wooden gun cabinet. They were readily accessible, but I never touched any of them because he made it clear they had to be handled safely/properly. When I was old enough, he bought me a BB gun to practice target shooting with in our back yard. (We had a big hill in back which made the perfect backstop for the BBs.) He taught me some of the basics of gun safety at that time, and I wound up becoming interested enough in target shooting that he bought me 5 or 6 other BB and pellet pistols and rifles over the years, after that.
I never really did get that interested in shooting anything other than those BB and pellet guns, but I did eventually upgrade to "competition grade" models similar to what's used in Olympic target shooting.
But really, the problem I see today is with so many "anti-gun" households around, you can practically count on the fact that your kid has at least a few friends who have NOT ever learned a thing about gun safety. That plus a little peer pressure could lead to some bad scenarios, and you can't pretend you're capable of teaching everyone he/she pals around with how to treat guns with respect.
That's one reason I don't have any firearms in my home today. I like the idea of having at least one for personal protection/home defense, but until the kids are older, I just don't like the potential risks involved. And locking everything down in hard-to-open safes makes it rather worthless in an emergency where you need quick access to it.
As a gun owner and a father of a 4 year old, I have to plead that if you're going to own a gun, you MUST properly train your children, no matter how young, in Gun Safety. If you are not going to, or you do not trust your child to do what they are trained to do, do not keep a gun in the house. Period. Gun safety is the only way to keep your kid safe. A vault is there to keep out buglers, not children with indefinite amounts of time on their hands. What's the proper training for someone that's 3? If you see a gun, ANYWHERE, tell an adult immediately. Every time they see one and tell you, you give them a treat. Basically, every time my kid sees a cop he gets an M&M. It gets irritating, but that's the price you pay.
As far as the safe goes? It's supposed to be bolted to a concrete floor you morons. You've got a loaded gun, in a safe that's not bolted down, you're really lucky the gun didn't just go off INSIDE the damned safe while the kids were bumping it around. And no, the safe probably wouldn't stop the round. Read the directions next time.
Understand what he said... He is advocating an "all of the above" approach but he is saying that it is MUCH more effective to educate (teach a kid to swim) than block (build a fence). Besides, education lasts a lifetime, where that fence may not be there all the time. Personally it only makes sense to do it all. My son and daughter have both been to the gun range and know how to properly and safely handle various weapons. Guns are stored with trigger locks in a locked cabinet separately from the ammunition. In my view the *education* effort (taking them to the range) buys me more gun safety than all the locks.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
In all honesty, the best thing for hunting game would be a bow of some sort, because it's silent. It may not have a mushrooming head[emphasis mine], but at least you won't scare away all other game within a kilometer radius.
Clearly not a hunter. In most states, you are legally required to use a broadhead arrow point which is at least 7/8 inch across. Some of these DO expand on impact, opening up to be a couple inches across.
An appropriate handgun can be quite effective as a hunting tool. In some part of the country it's a necessity to carry some kind of gun for defense against wild game -- you may not be the highest animal on the food chain.
People can and do teach less than one year old infants how to swim.
and incompetent?
News at 11.
Real Gun Owner, try government appointed gun owner. As with anything, a true hobbyist knows how to do it right and strives to do so, give someone a title and your doubtless going to find they don't feel obligated to live up to the ideals.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You should teach your kids to swim. But since you can't control whether the neighbors teach their kids to swim, you should still have a fence.
You can get Swimming made a part of the public school curriculum. Then the neighbors kids will know how to swim.
It's not a safe. It's a " Lockbox "
It's designed to give you fast access to the weapon when needed, yet provide a simple deterrent to keep your ( obviously unlearned ) kiddo from casually picking it up. It's not designed to be " child proof " any more so than the crazy lids on prescription drug containers are. Want to increase its ability to keep little Timmy from getting it open ? Mount it to the wall, or inside a drawer where it can't be thrown around the house like a football.
Besides, these devices are really only necessary in either of the following circumstances:
1) You live in a nanny-state that has imposed these requirements upon you under the " Think of the Children " clause
2) You are a lazy or terrible parent that failed at teaching little Timmy / Susie what a firearm is and how / why to handle one correctly and safely
( In which case you probably shouldn't be handling firearms either )
So you're saying don't say no to your children because they'll go and do it anyway?
Hammer? Fist? It's well known that door locks can be bypassed this way as well, and they're bolted to the wall. Look up "lock bumping" or "bumpkeys". In the door case, you need a special key, but the impact is the key.
Wow, I had a BB gun when I was six. But dad always had guns around back then, and taught us gun safety at an early age. My grandpa gave me a pocket knife when I was five, I got a .22 when I was 12.
Hell, these days they probably would have locked my parents up for child endangerment, but it was a normal thing back then. Funny, you never heard of kids shooting each other back then like you do now.
Free Martian Whores!
When I grew up we had guns in the house and not locked up at all. My dad's shotgun and hunting rifle generally were leaning up in a corner. No trigger locks. If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded. [...] Wanna know why me and my siblings didn't die horrible deaths?
Because all the kids like you who *did* die arn't here to write on Slashdot...
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
The fence around the pool isn't just there for your kid's safety -- the main reason is to keep the neighbor's kids from drowning and their parents from suing you. In the case of your dad's loaded gun leaning in a corner when your neighbor friend billy comes over to play and decides to have at it.
If I had touched my dad's guns, he would have killed me. I guess I was raised to leave things alone that weren't mine.
BTW -- my dad was a police officer for 25 years. Had more than one gun in the house. I knew where they all were. But I wasn't allowed to go into their room.
The real tragedy is that more and more parents want to be their kid's friend instead of their parent and don't know how to raise them
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Why bother with something that requires reach?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded...
I would consider that a gun owner fail.
Gun shouldn't be loaded till you want it to shoot, because at that point there just isn't much stopping it. (Consider the case of the gun getting bumped and falls over, what would it be pointing at? would the gun fire?)
Same reason I don't store my gasoline next to my fire pit, some things just aren't supposed to be stored together.
Interesting story, by dad was at someone's house, the guy was showing my dad some guns he had in the closet. He handed my dad a gun to look at. First thing my dad did (what he always does when picking up a gun) was check the chamber. The gun was locked and loaded, if he'd have pulled the trigger, it've shot. The guy was shocked to see that his gun had been in the closet ready to go off all that time, and thankful that my dad didn't just put it too his shoulder and dry fire it.
Those safes are not fit for their intended purpose.
Yeah, so about six months ago my 5-year-old son broke into a bank vault. He goes with his Mom to the bank. He didn't know his numbers at the time, but he apparently is good at patterns, so he remembered the 7-digit pattern the teller would often punch in when he was watching what was going on (clearly not paying attention to the banking).
On a subsequent visit he wandered off (to play with the bead toys, right?) while his Mom did the banking, and a few minutes later, they notice the door opening unexpectedly. I think they were far too embarrassed about their security to say anything. I was far to impressed to scold him afterwards.
Back to the video of Toby - he's clearly a smart boy who's been taught how to defeat the safes. Now, it looks to me like several of those failures could be triggered accidentally, and obviously the designs aren't good enough. But, if you have a safe, ideally the kids won't know where it is, you certainly won't ever let them watch you opening the safe, and there will be consequences for even fiddling with the safe.
Yes, a perfect lock would be much better, but don't forget the other parts of the security process.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Or the neighbor kid killed YOUR son.
TFA says the safes in question cost $36 each. Confirmed on Amazon. Many years ago, when my daughter was born, I invested in a small heavy bedside safe with a Simplex lock (think, the mechanical pushbutton locks to some labs or machine rooms). Advantage: don't need to fumble with keys, and don't have to worry about the battery failing in an electronic lock if I have to open it in a hurry. Disadvantage: it cost almost $200. But I gritted my teeth and paid it, because, how much is your family worth to you? (And it still works perfectly today, almost 20 years later.) To the cynic in me, supplying officers with cheapie safes and hoping for the best might seem attractive if it makes your budget look better, but you have to figure something like this would happen eventually.
Side note: open the safe by dropping it? Why is dropping it even an option? Why wasn't it screwed into the floor? Many safes of this type have pre-punched holes in the bottom for this very purpose.
Mother-in-law, who now lives alone in a remote location, acquired a handgun a couple years ago. I looked for an inexpensive safe to keep it in. I came close to making a choice, but then I thought of all the grandkids who visited her regularly, and decided to significantly increase the budget to something I was certain couldn't provide accidental access. And I didn't need to have read this article -- you look at the cheap safes and it's pretty apparent that they're mostly for show.
I think the moral is, "cheap" and "safe" tend to be mutually exclusive.
Parenthetically, if you're going to have a safe by the bed, keep a flashlight in it with lithium batteries. Don't put the flashlight *near* the safe, because if people know it's there, they'll borrow it. (For the same reason fire buckets have pointed bottoms.)
And finally, a $15 trigger lock might have prevented the tragedy in TFA from happening, regardless of whether or not a safe was involved.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery
I find your anacdote quaint, but your logic quite flawed, being that most gun owners with more than three guns are adults and have these weapons for no good reason other than simply because they like guns. The "mystery" is still there. Nearly all gun accidents happen to people just like you, and if you can believe it, even to those far better trained than you and your father or any gun owners you or your father know.
No, I'm afraid the only trick to preventing gun accidents in the home is to not have them there. Worried about crime? Gun owners have a far far far better chance of injuring or killing themselves or someone they love than ever having the opportunity to effectively protect themselves against crime. You like to hunt? Well, there is a strong minority that like to kill things just for fun... though I'm unaware or any valid reasons for it. We have these things now called "supermarkets" so that the inefficient method of feeding yourself by hunting for your own food is completely unnecessary. My moderation score will be reflective of whether the search for civilization, or even responsible maturity, continues.
The Admin and the Engineer
That is the sad thing. Responsible people are having to create incontinence, and sometimes even danger for themselves and families because so many other people are irresponsible and won't educate their children. Then our legal system tells the negligent parent that they didn't do anything wrong.
I'm conflicted about the legal case in TFA.
On the one hand, a little research shows that the department really did screw up -- it's a crappy safe, and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
On the other hand, a responsible father would have looked at that safe and said "holy smokes, that's a crappy safe" and went out and bought something that actually worked. (About $180 -- $200, not $35.) Sure, he'd have to go without beer for awhile, but what's your family worth?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Every consumer needs to understand that most of these gun safes are produced in China. They may look secure but they are not, for a variety of reasons, all based upon poor to non-existent security engineering practices. Their manufacturers, in my view, do not have the slightest expertise in designing these kinds of products.
That is all.
unsafe gun safes aren't safely able to be safely called safes
The trick is to teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery. When I grew up we had guns in the house and not locked up at all. My dad's shotgun and hunting rifle generally were leaning up in a corner. No trigger locks. If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded.
It was like that from birth till I moved out. Wanna know why me and my siblings didn't die horrible deaths? Because we didn't feel a need to secretly "play" with the gun. If I wanted to go out and shoot it all I had to do was ask and my dad would take me out shooting. Not only that, but during those shooting sessions he taught me exactly how the gun worked, how to safely load and unload it, and how to handle it. Even if I HAD handled the gun while he was gone I was perfectly capable to doing so safely.
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
Wish we could score to a +10.
Education is the key to most 'problems'.
My dad let me shoot a nice big magnum when I was really little. KA-POW!
Wasn't about to touch ANY gun after that.
Then when I was old enough, he took me out, taught me how to
use a gun, clean it, actually hit things with it.
And best of all, he let me shoot a pew, pew, .22
I thought... what a bastard. Not all guns will break your arms? Lol.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
"Same thing applies to guns in the home. Even if your kids are perfectly safe around the guns, you need to be cognisant that their friends may not have the same education."
There's a flip-side to that coin.
Even if you don't have a pool in the backyard, teaching your kids to swim is a good idea. Likewise, even if you don't keep guns in your house, you should teach your kids about them and about gun safety. Imagine how you'd feel if your kid kills himself or another kid with a gun he found in a neighbor's house.
Which is why I'm keeping my Mosin M44 as the ready gun: it's got a permanently attached bayonet, so even if I can't get to the ammo quickly enough it's still got /something/.
Mind you, it's got a couple big deficiencies as a home-defense arm. One, 7.62x54R will over-penetrate like mad. For another, it's bolt action, and furthermore a bolt that was made by the Russians in the middle of a war - the fit-and-finish is very much "just good enough".
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Doesn't the second amendment apply to 3-year-olds?
Here's the clue: "The Sheriff’s Department paid about $36 for each Stack-On Safe."
For $36, you do not get a high-security safe. You are getting a metal box with a cheap lock. Really, you'd be better off sticking the gun in your nightstand - at least then there is no illusion of security.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Also important to remember your teenage son can't bring the pool to school and drown his classmates in it
You forgot "and I will be _completely_ deaf once I use it inside." If you don't hit the perp, he'll be easy to identify because he's the guy digging in his ears and going "WHAT?!"
I would consider that a gun owner fail.
Ok. So you are stupid.
Gun shouldn't be loaded till you want it to shoot, because at that point there just isn't much stopping it. (Consider the case of the gun getting bumped and falls over, what would it be pointing at? would the gun fire?)
No you moron. Guns made after 1900 or so, and that haven't been tampered with or modified are extremely unlikely to fire when just "knocked over". Even for those with a free float firing pin that's true. Revolver "won't fire until trigger is pulled" safeties are considerably newer, but the BS you see on TV of the gun just going off because someone dropped it are a myth. Glocks, the infamous "gun without a safety" has no less than three independent safety mechanisms that ensure it won't fire until the trigger is pulled. My Beretta has three as well, one of which is a standard safety and the other two worked into the design.(DA and hammer machining).
What is bad about a dropped gun, is GRABBING FOR IT and getting the trigger or firing mechanism activated by the grab. So, like a straight razor, let it fall and deal with the damage.
An unloaded gun for defensive purposes is STUPID. Unload your Bambi killers and curios, but SD firearms are needed right fucking now when they are needed.
Same reason I don't store my gasoline next to my fire pit, some things just aren't supposed to be stored together.
Interesting story, by dad was at someone's house, the guy was showing my dad some guns he had in the closet. He handed my dad a gun to look at. First thing my dad did (what he always does when picking up a gun) was check the chamber. The gun was locked and loaded, if he'd have pulled the trigger, it've shot. The guy was shocked to see that his gun had been in the closet ready to go off all that time, and thankful that my dad didn't just put it too his shoulder and dry fire it.
Yup, and your dad didn't need to own guns for him to be exposed to them. Which is why teaching EVERYBODY the basic rules (one of which is consider it loaded all the time, another is "check the chamber your damn self") is important. This ninny "head in sand" thing with guns is an increase in risks for everybody. You don't have to let your kids handle guns, and you don't have to own them, but you should make sure the kids and you know and practice all the rules.
Right... it's a great libertarian frontier story... but if the kid is injured or injures someone else... dad goes to prison for 3-20 years... in most US States... for child endangerment, manslaughter, etc... similar in many other countries... ... ...
When my children were growing up they knew to stay away from my firearms as a matter of course under severe penalties. Children visiting were kept away from the room where the firearms were kept simply by keeping the door closed and their being told to keep out. No exceptions. The young visitors weren't told why they were to stay out (to reduce temptation) just that was not up to debate.
Never even had a incident where the kids went near the firearms.
When my children were at an appropriate age they were taught the basics of firearm safety with the understanding they were to stay away from them without my supervision and to keep their friends away (no show and tell either!).
I reckon you made all that up. OR your dad was a dickhead who should not have been allowed to touch guns.
Why? You wrote "Not only that, but during those shooting sessions he taught me exactly how the gun worked, how to safely load and unload it, and how to handle it" ... but earlier you said "My dad's shotgun and hunting rifle generally were leaning up in a corner. No trigger locks. If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded."
Any person who leaves loaded shotguns and hunting rifles lying around, loaded. is an asshole. End of story. (And all too often, end of life...)
....more BS to support the liberal agenda.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Forgot about that, yes. Even outside the thing's nasty loud.
Wish I'd gotten one of those Yugo SKSs in '05 when you could get them new-in-box for $150.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Not news, trigger locks are shit. They give parents a false sense of security, and get them to believe that as long as the lock is on there, I don't need to get my kids socialized to guns. Check youtube, there's several videos that show firearms being fired with a trigger lock on them. The best way to keep kids from hurting themselves with firearms is keep them out of their reach when they're young, and when they're a bit older and more responsible (5 or 6, could be more or even less depending on the maturity of the child) educate them about guns, and don't make them a forbidden fruit.
The most effective thing to do would be to do both.
Which is what my parents did. Safes for the guns, ammo in another place and plenty of range time for the kids.
The most effective thing to do would be to do both.
Which is what my parents did. Safes for the guns, ammo in another place and plenty of range time for the kids.
If you want to reduce home pool related deaths, then definitely both.
Teaching swimming isn't effective at very young ages. A fence reduces the likelihood of accidental deaths.
This can be clearly seen in those parts of Australia which have mandatory pool fencing requirements. Given the Australian cultural orientation towards swimming it is a rare small child who does not get some form of swimming training. Training alone is not the answer and has been clearly shown not to be, hence the continual push for fencing as well as mandatory safety checks.
Wow, good thing the Law prohibits three-year olds from owning guns.
What I find most odd about this ...
"... when an emergency arises"
Assuming you own a gun (which I expect you do based on the tone of the comment) ... what percentage of the time do you use your gun in an emergency situation vs not?
And your friends with guns?
IF I were to have a gun it would be for sport not protection.
Ouch
That's an obsurd level of reasoning. I have an alarm system, but by your logic it'd pointless because noone ever breaks in. Why keep a spare tire, a jack, and fix-a-flat in the trunk, it's not like I am changing tires everyday. You do understand the concept of emergency being something that doesn't follow a schedule right?
two things to say about this:
You have kids? You Damn well better make sure they know how to swim. You're the parent, that's your job!
You have a pool? All the places I've lived in, here in the US, local laws required you to have a fence around the pool.
TEN people die from drowning everyday (USA). Many times that number are rescued, BUT - require further care for severe brain damage that result in long-term disabilities and permanent loss of basic functioning (e.g., permanent vegetative state).
1 IN 5 who die from drowning are CHILDREN. For every child who dies from drowning, another five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.1 (from http://www.cdc.gov/HomeAndRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html )
Even if the local laws don't require a fence, having one lowers your liability against lawsuits when a drunk neighbor (teenager?) decides to go swimming one night while you're away. (Concept of "attractive nuisance?, maybe)
Anyone ever heard of the Wegmans grocery store chain? Based in upstate New York? Family owned, Great store's, great family, great people. How many companies provide health care and child care for cashiers?
Wanna see the family compound that holds the pool they lost one of their kids in? Nevermind. The water in a pool, lake, stream, river or ocean doesn't care how rich, smart, or pretty you are. once you go in, you better know how to get yourself out.
Water safety: Make sure your kids know how to swim. Make sure the pool is fenced, If above ground, keep the outside ladder off, and the inside ladder, in. (Just in case a kid does get in, so they have a chance to get out).
Think of the children. Really.
(someday I will tell y'all the story of how my brother used Wegman's Stores to intimidate the commies back in the 1970's. Also, the 'garbage plate')
(I listened to a noise outside one night, had no idea what it was, next morning, found a squirrel floating in the pool. Ever since then, inside ladder stays in. )
[[ Squirrel's are the tiny terminators of wildlife, nothing stops them. I had one chew through a 1/8 in steel cable once, to take a bird feeder down! If they ever get organized, human life in suburbia will be over! ]] .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_(1971_film) >
Also - for your perusal:
https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=child+drowning+pool
I don't think that's a fair characterization. I would be irresponsible and creating some kind of unnecessarily-extra inconvenience for you if I had not taught gun-safety to my 3-year-old?
Oddly enough, the article didn't mention the back story behind the police office who's 3 year old died. If we look at the local media: http://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/index.ssf/2012/01/former_clark_county_deputy_fil.html
We read: "Investigators further state that Owens blamed his son's death to his 11-year-old daughter and tried to force a confession out of her.
"...Deputy Owens did not maintain the highest standards of conduct and discredited himself and the Sheriff's Office....," the document states. "....His selfish, shameful and cowardly behavior has left an indelible mark on our agency and has raised serious doubts about his credibility, judgment, truthfulness and fitness for duty."
The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Owens for allegedly coercing his daughter. The incident happened in the Portland area."
and wonder what in the world it takes for a police office to actually get arrested. He & his wife apparently dragged the daughter to a fast food joint where the wife "questioned" the daughter: http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/nov/18/his-selfish-shameful-and-cowardly-behavior-has-lef/?print -- "But prosecutors declined this fall to try the deputy because it was in Multnomah County, Ore., where he allegedly coerced his daughter, when Owens and his wife were driving the girl to the airport about a month after the shooting.
“In review of the evidence in the case, the charges we were looking at were witness-tampering allegations,” Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik said Friday. “Because of jurisdiction, we didn’t feel we had” sufficient evidence that a crime occurred in Clark County.
The case was referred to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. A deputy district attorney there declined to press charges on either Owens or his wife. A call to the spokesman for that DA’s office was not returned Friday."
You hate government. We get it. Give it a rest.
Not for me personally, since I don't own any guns that shoot anything but water or nurf darts, but Yes. You not teaching your 3 year old about gun safety (or taking full responsibility for making sure your 3 year old doesn't get access to a gun) creates the same kind of unnecessarily-extra inconvenience for people that you not teaching your 3-year old other basic safety measures. Things like "Don't put things in electrical outlets.", "Don't play with knives.", and "Don't run out into the street." There are lots of dangerous things in the world. It is impossible to lock down every object that can kill a kid. It is the parent's responsibility to teach the child not to kill themselves. That includes me. I don't own guns, but I have taught my son enough about gun safety to keep him from killing himself. That can be as simple as "Don't play with it." I taught him not to drive the car, don't lick knives, look both ways before crossing the street, and never swim alone. These are MY responsibilities as a parent. If my neighbor has a pool, and my kid were to climb over the fence and drown, it would be heart breaking for me. It would destroy me, BUT it would not be my neighbors fault.
So, yes. It would be irresponsible for you as a parent not to teach your child how to be safe.
and as we all know, "Guns don' kill kids, kids kill kids".