Pistol Safe

Firearm safety is important. Not only when the firearm is in your hands, but when it's out of sight too.

A gun safe is an important part of your home security. To stop unwanted access. Whether it be unauthorized parties from without, or unqualified parties from within.

The law requires, in the very least, a metal gun cabinet with a lock. Once upon a time it was just a fine stained wooden cabinet with a glass front. More to keep the dust and fingerprints from admiring eyes. WIth crime on the rise and safety becoming more important in the household, a pistol safe will stop even the most determined thief because of it's smaller size and ease of concealment.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of safe manufacturers. Here are a few major ones that specialize in gun safes: American Security Products, Brattonsound Gunsafes, Brown Safe Manufacturing, Browning Arms Company, Cannon, Fort Knox, Liberty Safe, Merlo Safe MFG, Patriot Safe Company and SentrySafe.

The best gun safes are those that are tested by Underwriters Laboratory. Certain standards apply to the testing of gun safes.

The time it takes for a forced entry into the safe is the measurement by which the Residential Security Container (RSC) certification is applied.

Minimum security capabilities are guaranteed as well as normal use expectations, such as the safe lock being opened and closed 10,000 times.

Most home invaders are unprepared for the effort required to attempt a safe of constructed of solid steel and pry-resistant doors. They won't even give it a second glance.

The first place they will look though is in desk drawers and bedroom closets. If that's where you keep your pistol stashed, in a shoebox. Then you've not only allowed the theft of an expensive item, you've practically given them permission to become a violent criminal.

Out of sight is not good enough. Being completely unattainable means you've protected your investment as well as your life. And possibly the lives of many more people after the fact.

A hidden pistol wall safe will also mean that the perpetrators are completely unaware of the existence of firearms in the home. Just in case they thought they could take the entire safe and enter it at their own leisure. He may rightly assume that there's cash and jewelry in there, and if it's capable of being carried by no more than two people it could be worth his time and effort to remove the safe.

Not so with a hidden pistol wall safe. It could be behind a wall mounted framed photo or painting.

The additional security feature of being a voice-activated lock or requiring fingerprint identification could also mean getting your hands onto your pistol quicker, without having to rely on rummaging around for a key to open and access your last line of defense.

Forget about burglars for a moment, the other great fear we have for our homes in addition to home invasion is a house fire. Every day thousands of homes are lost through fire, be it intentional or accidental. Either way it's important that if there is a fire, that the safety of your family and those emergency services who deal with the fire, and friends who help with the aftermath of the fire, are safe.

One would expect that ammunition is kept as safe and sound with the firearm. With fires reaching 1500+ degrees those rounds are likely to cook off, and explode.

A pistol fire safe could stop a disaster from turning into a tragedy.

Fireproof safes could keep the ammunition and pistol from even being damaged. But short of that, if ammunition is going to explode, wouldn't you rather it be behind reinforced steel?

Electronic locks mean you don't need a key. You just have to memorize a PIN. The speed in which you can acces your handgun could mean the difference between life and death.

A personal identification number, chosen by you, will give you quick access after you've punched in the code.

While every effort should be made to choose a PIN that you won't forget, avoid it being the date of birth of any family members, the telephone number or a series of consecutive numbers like 0000 or 12345. Yes, people will actually do that. And no doubt it will be one of the first things that a determined criminal will try.

An electronic pistol safe, due to the fact that it is drawing electricity, may also have an inbuilt heater. This is to prevent rust from forming on the stored handguns.

Biometrics is a methods for recognizing humans based one a physical traits. The most commonly known method is fingerprint recognition.

You can buy a fingerprint pistol safe, though this will come at a price. The advantage of this over safe requiring a password or identification number is that only the person whose fingerprint is recorded in the system can open and access the safe. This means two things, others not being able to use a PIN by whatever means they've managed to obtain it, and the other is that you won't have the hazard of forgetting a PIN, particularly in a moment of stress or fear.

Other biometric characteristics, which may not yet be available in commercially available safes (though have been featured in films) is iris recognition (which has largely replaced retina recognition), face recognition, and even DNA (requiring a sample of DNA, usually blood).

All of these are unique identifiers of only one person, and what once was the stuff of science fiction movies is either available right now, or will be in the very near future.