I have a two year old grand nephew that frequents our home, I keep a few guns around but the one on the nightstand needs to be toddler proofed.
Looks like most small nightstand safes are fingerprint activated.
Do they work?

They work generally but sometimes have been known to short out.

I Have small kids and the best thing ive found to do is i keep my gun on me until i goto bed then i takeit off and put it in nightstand. It gos back into the holster when i wakeup and stays there

Put in a book shelf next to the bed but high enough to be out of jr's reach. Be creative as to how to hide the pistol without being inconvenient for that bump in the night.

After his dad passed his mom lived alone out in the country a friend attached a secure holster within easy and quick reach but out of sight behind the headboard of his mother's bed for her.

I had a couple of those gun safes early on for Moose, Angus and Junior. Mine were of an older variety with mechanical buttons. They both worked until they didn't. With Grandkid #1, I have just kept a pistol high and out of the way as a precaution, but I also never let the little booger out of my sight.

At age 3, my sons all began their indoctrination. I brought out pistols, deer rifles, shotguns-- the works. I had them touch them, hold them, and work the actions. Very quickly, they got bored with them. The mystery was out it. My oldest, Junior showed no interest again until he was in his mid-twenties. They're just very heavy tools that are too big for little kid to handle and as such, they're boring. I explained:

1) They are extremely dangerous. You will kill yourself if you handle them on your own without supervision.
2) When you are old enough to use them, you will have proper instruction.
3) In the interim, you only need to ask, and they will be brought out for you so you can handle them. Most kids will ask once within a couple of weeks and then be done with it until they're teenagers.
4) If you ever see a firearm out, go get an adult and tell them. Do not touch it.

The same was done to me by my father with his Win Model 12 Trap gun at age 4. I have vivid memories of that. It was big, it was heavy. I had no interest in it after that. I think I asked him once about the time I was 10 or 12 to bring it out once again after that. After that, I was in my 20's before I thought about firearms. I was a late bloomer.

At age 4, Mooselette went into one of her grandma's bedrooms and found a loaded 22 auto. Shame on that woman for leaving it out like that. Moose told me about the incident and said, "I think it's time for the talk."

Mooselette came to Grandpa's house and was ushered into the shamanic reloading cave. At first, she was scared. However, she quickly caught on and was asking to hold everything that caught her fancy. She's the oddball of the whole bunch. She regularly asks to go down to the cave and handle firearms now. Not only that, but she asked for instruction on "Pulling Grandpa's handle" (learning to reload). Her birthday was yesterday. She turned 8. She now has her own .22 and 30-30 deer rifle, for which she'd loaded her own rounds.

My advice for little ones is as follows:

1) Do "the talk" as soon as the kid is old enough-- age 3-4.
2) In the interim, keep all firearms locked up with ammo locked up separately.
3) If you feel the need to keep a firearm handy keep it high and out of the way.

My kids are 50 and 53!

Problem solved!

We used an electronic push-button design, ran off a 9v battery, also unlocked with a key. We used it until our son was well into his teens. One reason for this was so stealing it would be a difficult proposition in the event of a burglary, the other was whilst our son was introduced to guns and the handling thereof early, any friends he might bring in might not have been.

The one time it got used under duress was when I was at a dumb teacher inservice maybe 30 miles out of townwhere we were required to stay overnight . Feeling like a college kid again, I snuck out in the night to go sleep with my wife.

The dogs didn’t bark because they knew the sound of my motorcycle, my wife wakes up to the sound of someone quietly entering the house. Mere seconds to the bedroom and she was already on her feet, gun in hand.

No toddlers. No kids here.

I do keep my 1911 on the chest of drawers a step or two away from my bed though.

Gives me a bit of time to wake up before I lay hands on it.

I want it that way. Last thing I want to do is shoot a loved one while still half asleep.

Good point, when I snuck home that night my wife said she came close enough to shooting me.

There used to be a story about a guy who shot himself in the head when the phone rang in the middle of the night and he answered the revolver instead. Dunno if that was an urban legend.

I had one of the electronic locking nightstand safes. That thing keep killing batteries and locking me out. It would go thru a battery every 6 months or so, and you never knew when it would happen. Of course that is no good so I thru it in the trash.

Purchased a Fort Knox nightstand safe with a simplex push button lock, problem solved. I cannot recommend the Fort Knox more highly, but the thing is expensive.

keep mine in my dresser drawer, and a 870 right next to my bed. my 7 yr old grandson is not allowed in my room and only comes in when i'm here and he asks me for permission to enter.

only occasional G/kids here........this FN-S compact 40 is close by always....

Helluva buy from Euro Optics a while back for $380 delivered as shown w/night sights

Grandkids?

My Sig 320 Carry is in a ambi holster that is held by a flap between the mattress and foundation on my bed. When made, the holster and gun are covered by the bed spread. When we are visited by our grandsons, I remove it to a higher position until I go to bed.

On rare occasions I have one of the grandkids overnight. I keep the .45 ACP on top of the bedside book shelf then. It goes back in the safe when Ii get up.

Biometric Safe

Biometric Safe

Been eying one of these for some time.

That works for me as well, though my grandkids are a bit older.

Why not just put it on the nightstand when you go to bed and put it away or on when you get up?

I conceal carry a different handgun than I keep by the night stand.
Night stand has a 41 mag. I live in a Croatian built stone house so over penetration is little concern.
Additionally, child will sometimes use our bed for sleeping, screaming and as of late writing on the sheets with black sharpie....while his mother watches.

No help, my nightstand gun is a 7.62.

Kids that young shouldn't be roaming the house unattended.
Put a lock on your bedroom door.

Browning? ; )

LWRC REPR

Since almost all my grandkids are child-bearing age, or close to it, having loaded guns within their reach is sort of a moot point- - - -all of them have their own guns, and some of them CCW. The one exception is my step-granddaughter. She's 18, going on 10. She's a Down's Syndrome child, and my daughter-in-law always gives us a heads-up before she comes to visit. Bedroom doors get locked, and the loaded guns stashed away in several places in the common areas of the house get secured as well. Since we're 20-something miles from the nearest cop shop, we're rarely more than a few steps from a defensive piece of some sort, handgun or shotgun. A 30-minute response time to a 911 call would be "fast".
Jerry

Years ago an old friend of mine lost one of his two young sons when visiting another young kids home.

No parent or adult at home at the other kid's house at the time. Showing off, the other kid pulled out a loaded handgun stashed away in a bedroom nightstand drawer, gun discharged, my friend's son was in the line of fire, friend's son DOA.

My friend had taught all three of his kids (two boys - one girl) about proper gun handling and safety and they regularly hunted with him as they got big enough. .

You can control and secure the firearms in your house and teach your kids the dos and don'ts, but not those of other's.

My father did exactly the same with me when I was maybe 6 or 7. Guns were never locked up in our house when I was a kid , despite being a gun nut since age 5, I never went in and messed with them when I was home alone.

If you think you have something hidden in your house so your little kids wont find it, think again. Every kid in the world who has reached age 6 or 7 at the most knows the location of every single item in that house, without exception.

I have the small finger code safes that holds 2-3 handguns. There is a battery backup for power outages.

Most importantly, if someone tries unsuccessfully to get in, a light blinks showing that to the successful user. Meaning, I know when someone has been trying to get in. I think this is important when you have kids around. Actually, my big safes are like this too.

S&W 500, because you should always have enough gun.

In reality, just a subcompact 40.

Why not unlock gun and place on nightstand when going to sleep, then re-lock when getting up in the morning?

Make it your daily routine, just like fluffing your pillow.

Our neighbor when I was a teenager in the NY sunburbs was a former WWII Luftwaffe pilot and nonrepentant Nazi, had a big ol’painting of a FW 190 scoring hits on a crippled B-17 in his den.

He kept a stainless S&W-looking .357 snub hidden in his bedroom. I didn’t know handguns back then but it was a mid-size frame six shot version, and I think I’m recalling adjustable sights. This was in the 70’s.

Of course his son, about my own age, knew right where he hid it. One time we went to look at it and as a joke the son pointed the loaded revolver at me and pulled the trigger far enough that the cylinder began to rotate and the hammer move. I was too dumb back then to be alarmed.

My own son was shooting handguns just about as soon as his hands were big enough. Can’t imagine he’d ever be stupid enough to do that, dunno about his friends.

But ya know, even trustworthy teenagers sometimes do things so dumb it’s like a kick in the solar plexus, leaves you shocked and winded.

So my guns were always locked up when I wasn’t home.

Lock the bedroom door? Is what I do when the little munchkins visit.

Besides keeping guns stored securely from access by young kids and/or irresponsible/unstable older others, there's also the liability issue should the worst ever happen.

I remember reading where the grandfather of one of the boys that did the Jonesboro AR, school shooting where they got the guns from was facing possible liability claims soon after as to if had them stored securely. It was proven he did and that the kids had broken into a locked gun cabinet to get them.

Just put the guy out of reach when the kid is there & roaming around the house.

MM

Our parents and grandparents never put a gun up when we were young. The first time you touched it you got yelled at. The second time you got your hand slapped and if there was a third time you got your ass beat=there never was a 4th time because kids are smarter than we think.

1911 w heavy recoil spring
None of my kids could rack the slide.

Grandmas.............was an M1 in the corner by the back door. The clip was on a shelf by it.
All us grandkids could see it walking by.
Nobody ever touched it.

I had one in the nightstand

I’m not sure where it is now.

My youngest is 21, and has some health issues.
She still can't chamber a round in my 1911.
But can the HK 9mm.

I only have a round chambered when a gun is on my person,

Go figure......
Lol!!!

The youngest of my 7 grandchildren is 20. It’s the great grandchildren I now have to watch. Hasbeen

That is a good interim solution. I do have a 10mm 1911. Not sure my wife could cycle a round.
K

How old are you again? 😃

I keep my .357 Model 60 in a small drawer on top of my tall chest of drawers. It has a key lock and it is locked when g-kids etc. are over. When I’m out of town my wife keeps her Browning 1911-22 in her nightstand drawer and the magazine is in her dresser until she gets in bed then The mag goes in but no round in the chamber. Not perfect but workable.

If you have a closet in your bedroom with a swing-out type door, the solution is as simple as putting a keyed lock-set on your door, keyed differently from your house key. Keep your night stand gun in there during the daylight hours when your grand nephew is with you. That's what I did when my son was young or was older and had friends who might be nosy and not gun educated.

I’d hate to live somewhere that I had so much fear every night, I needed a loaded gat under my pillow.

What the hell, lol


I’ve stayed in some Roach Motels in Jacksonville that I wasn’t that scared. JFC


Shower guns ..., I seen some chit on this forum.

Less the neighborhood and more of the career choice.
My job upsets people.
Sometimes they get dumb....

DING!!

Mine couldn't.

Left defense to only when I was home.

Wants a J frame of some sort now.

Her job has her dealing with the scum of society, so we've had numerous threats.
Thankfully so far it's all been talk.

Denial before defense, that is a strategy too.


mike r

Make sure that you have a light with your gun so you can blind intruders and identify loved ones before you kill them.