leaving guns loaded

[Acer Saccharum]

Leather, you sure you want to advertise that info on the web?

[Dale Halterman]

Keep it civil and respectful, guys. I had to do a little editting this morning.

Dale H

[northmn]

As to keeping a loaded hunting ML around.  One can always lock it up when stored or lock up its system.  If the hammer is in a down position and the frizzen up on a flinter it can be locked in that position.  Most of us could come up with a system to do so or can use a plastic lock strip.  I am not sure that the gun is any more reliable freshly loaded every day after being shot off every day than saving the charge.  When I experimented with mine they were reliable as left loaded.  Again I no longer have smaller children at home, just a daughter about to enter college who has had gun training and has shot about 7 or 8 deer, piles of nuisance squirrels and other critters.

DP

[Acer Saccharum]

Beyond the safety issue, I'd be concerned if moisture or chemical action could cause the patch to damage the bore.

If there is no grease, the powder would be fine, if there is no water, the bore should be fine.

In theory.

I wouldn't do this with one of my good shooters, but reserve it for a blunderbuss, or other smoothbore.

[lew wetzel]

dpharris,you seem to assume alot...all my kids are trained in the safe use and handling of every firearm i have in the house even the girls.....and treat every gun as if it were loaded...and personnely if i had my way  i would have one loaded and kept behind my bedroom door....but i have this thing called a wife and have been round and round over this subject with her......and when she gets up i am going to let her read your post so she can get a good laugh to start her day off.....

[chuck-ia]

Acer, I have thought of that too, ya never know for sure what the patch lube has in it. The guns I am shooting now are from a blank, not as nice as you guys build, (far from it) but I have a lot of time in them, and money. So I will continue to care for them as best as I can. I don't baby them, I use them. I will use them in the cold, they get rained on, and such. I just feel better putting them away cleaned and unloaded, knowing they will be ok till the next time, and if I die in my sleep, someone will get a clean and unloaded flintlock. Maybe I am paranoid, but this is the way I have done it for the past 25 years, and the older I get the harder it is to change. chuck

[erdillonjr]

I like to plug the vent hole with a toothpick and leave the gun outside the cabin as not to gain moisture from the hot and cold

[Leatherbelly]

  Geez, Lew,
    Kids are kids! And,if they were mine,I'd have nothing loaded in the house,no matter what training and discipline has been given. Most kids are not as responsible as us grown ups and can slip up quite easily. Should something happen,It lands in your lap,the parent.Not worth the pain.Here in Canada we have a "Safe Storage" law,which means all firearms must be in a safe lock up, be it a safe or locked down in a room. Home defence is a non issue,LOL, use your cell phone. You can guess where I stand on that one! Single,no kids! (that I know of).
  As far as leaving a muzzle loader loaded while hunting or aprez hunting,I do it often. Greased patch,pan closed on a dry patch, left outside or in the vehicle.

[lew wetzel]

leatherbelly,thats why no guns are loaded....my 9yr.old boy shot the back widow out of the barn christmas day....so he lost his right to shoot his bb gun..so even that stays locked up...no matter how much training you give a child they will still find away to get into mischief...they are very entuned and cautious when we are shooting skeet...but they are being monitered and coached,but you never know what they will do when home and think they can gat away with something...

[J.D.]

I believe this subject has been pretty well covered, however, I'll add my tuppence.

I usually load in the basement before going hunting. My hunting grounds are right behind the house, so there usually is no reason for me to carry a loaded gun in the truck. During deer season, a felt wad is loaded, over powder, to prevent fouling the powder with mutton tallow patch lube. A strip of electricians tape covers the muzzle.

We usually don't have wide variations in temps, however, I usually leave the gun loaded, until fired, on an enclosed back porch. Frizzen stall covers the frizzen, and a toothpick blocks the vent.

Personally, I don't have a problem leaving a loaded gun in the house or car. My oldest was taught proper gun safety from an early age. He received a perfect score on the hunters safety test, most of which was old information, for him.

My youngest was severely developmentally delayed and didn't have the ability to discern real from toy guns. The 1911 was kept with a loaded mag, but with an empty chamber. James didn't have the strength or manual dexterity to jack the slide, when tested with an empty gun. The 45 was also kept where he could not reach it. I even had to stretch a bit to retrieve it, so it would have been impossible for him to get to.

Fortunately, I have never had to use a gun to defend my home. I was once confronted by a coupla punks in my woods, but never threatened in my home.

The coupla times we have had to call the Sheriff, response time wasn't all that great. One response took 20 minutes, and the fastest time was over 5 minutes when a truck load of kids hit the telephone pole near the house. I reported possible injuries, by one of the kids being ejected from the truck, and still not what one would call a real fast response. So much for fast help in the event of an emergency.

IMHO, its better to prepare the whole family to take care of one's self, in the event of an emergency. IMHO, part of that preparation is teaching the whole family proper gun safety, from an early age.

In the very few instances where self defense became necessary, there was no time to retrieve or load anything. If not for a gun immediately at hand, I would have been in a coupla real serious situations. As it was, the mere presence of a 45 cal hole lookin' at the punks who were up to no good dissuaded them from "mischief," with no shots fired.

IMHO, keeping a loaded gun anywhere all boils down to common sense and reasonable safety precautions.

[Dphariss]

leatherbelly,thats why no guns are loaded....my 9yr.old boy shot the back widow out of the barn christmas day....so he lost his right to shoot his bb gun..so even that stays locked up...no matter how much training you give a child they will still find away to get into mischief...they are very entuned and cautious when we are shooting skeet...but they are being monitered and coached,but you never know what they will do when home and think they can gat away with something...

When I was younger I knew better than to shoot windows. But we did play war with bb guns 
But we also had firearms and never shot each other with them so one does not lead to another.
Kids will be kids. You have to be sure the punishment fits the crime. Time passes a lot slower for a 9 year old.
I would have made him pay fer the derned thing too.

Dan

[lew wetzel]

dan,i used to keep a loaded pistol in my drawer...but after the bb gun incident the wife had me unload it.....we went round and round over that and the fact that he could not be trusted to even go in the back yard to shoot paper targets really upset me...i had spent a hour outside with him christmas morning showing him and explaining to him the do"s and donts of having this bb gun...then i went inside to warm up and the nieghbor boy came over and my boy said he put him up to it...so now not only am i fuming over the window but i am even more angry over the fact that he became a follower and not a leader...so he can only shoot when i get it out for him and i am out there also...and that really sucks because when i was a boy i had a 22 in my room and bb guns,knives.....i did alot of trapping and hunting as a kid...things are different now,kids are different.we shoot skeet as a family and the wife and kids love it...and they are all very serious and down to business on the firing line,they know the power of a firearm and respect it.....but i would not for a moment trust that knot head of a boy of mine with a loaded gun in the house...he ruined that when he chose to be a follower and not a leader and let someother knot head talk him into it...he had totally lost my trust and it would take a long time to regain it...so it is better to be safe than sorry....

[roundball]

Like a lot of folks do, I broke both my kids in with .410's and .22's.
When each of them got to about 7-8 years old, for a strong visual effect, I filled a big 2 liter bottle full of bright red cool-aide, and draped a white tee-shirt over it.

I then held up an innocent looking .410 shothell, let them handle it, feel it, etc...all the while sternly explaining the killing power of such a tiny thing...loaded the single shot .410, had them sit down 10 feet in front of the bottle, and shoot it dead center..."blood" went everywhere of course...and the "blood stained" messy tee-shirt lay there on the ground right in front of them.

My hope was that it would be a powerful image that would stick in their minds...then we began the learning curve about gun handling, shooting, etc.

[lew wetzel]

ya i got my boy a 410..we shot a couple gallion jugs full of water and he knows the power of a real weapon and he loves to shoot my 12 ga.pump...kids still will be kids and until he is older and more mature he will be closely monitered and he will have to earn the trust back and demonstrate he can be counted on to do the right thing..

[roundball]

ya i got my boy a 410..we shot a couple gallion jugs full of water and he knows the power of a real weapon and he loves to shoot my 12 ga.pump...kids still will be kids and until he is older and more mature he will be closely monitered and he will have to earn the trust back and demonstrate he can be counted on to do the right thing..

Just so we're clear, my post was simply an information post...had nothing to do with you and your situation

[hanshi]

When my son was small (grown up & moved away, now) I taught him about guns and allowed the little guy to shoot anything he wanted to.  All he had to do was ask me to take him out to shoot.  He could also handle any gun he wanted.  He only had to ask me to get it out.  I was always with him, of course, and never, never said "no" to a request no matter how inconvenient at the time.  He knew the safety drill, too.  He was absolutely, completely and thoroughly trustworthy, but was a special kid in many ways.  I realize all are not as tractable as he.  We were fortunate and blessed.

I spent many years in law enforcement and know first hand the limits of what you can expect in the realm of "protection".  I've had occasion to call police since then and the wait sometimes extended to more than an hour.  A home invasion takes only minutes.

[Mike R]

I'll just relate a minor incident.  When we were young and I was a fresh USArmy lieutenant stationed at Fort Holabird in downtown Baltimore, we [wife and two babies] lived in off post housing in a slum area.  I could see the post from my window, but it was a high fence away.  Wife was alone alot in that slum and crime was high.  Plus the KGB were always prowling around--Holabird was then the USArmy Intelligence School. Two KBG agents routinely sat in a car across the street, photo'ing everyone for their files and breaking into our apartments for info on us. One evening I was home and right after supper three hoods came up to our door and demanded entry. I asked their business and they said "we are going to kill ____". Well, they had the wrong apartment, but I could not convince them of that and they started to try to kick in the door.  Fortunately we had a steel-framed steel door with deadbolt--and I had a little Colt .22 revolver[loaded]--I yelled at them that if they came through the door I would shoot each of them immediately.  They held a pow-wow and decided to give it up.  My wife during this had called the cops.  They never showed up.  I guess crime was so bad in Baltimore then that  they had bigger fish to fry. Days later a woman was assaulted in the laundry room a few doors away. I insisted that my wife keep the little gun loaded and close to her when I was gone [alot].  At Fort Benning, a previous assignment, the neighbor that shared our wall in off post housing was raped one night when her husband was on maneuvers, and the rapist hit several others in the complex--again my wife slept witht the revolver close by as I was gone alot there too.  I have been shot at in the US on several occasions, once when I was unarmed.  Once when I was armed with the same little .22, it probably saved my life, as I scared off the assailant with a couple well placed shots.  I almost never carry a gun except when hunting, but a couple of other times have luckily had one when threatened. Like the time when I discovered a big pot growing operation in the Death Valley area and was spotted by the grower--but that is another story...

[Roger Fisher]

dan,i used to keep a loaded pistol in my drawer...but after the bb gun incident the wife had me unload it.....we went round and round over that and the fact that he could not be trusted to even go in the back yard to shoot paper targets really upset me...i had spent a hour outside with him christmas morning showing him and explaining to him the do"s and donts of having this bb gun...then i went inside to warm up and the nieghbor boy came over and my boy said he put him up to it...so now not only am i fuming over the window but i am even more angry over the fact that he became a follower and not a leader...so he can only shoot when i get it out for him and i am out there also...and that really sucks because when i was a boy i had a 22 in my room and bb guns,knives.....i did alot of trapping and hunting as a kid...things are different now,kids are different.we shoot skeet as a family and the wife and kids love it...and they are all very serious and down to business on the firing line,they know the power of a firearm and respect it.....but i would not for a moment trust that knot head of a boy of mine with a loaded gun in the house...he ruined that when he chose to be a follower and not a leader and let someother knot head talk him into it...he had totally lost my trust and it would take a long time to regain it...so it is better to be safe than sorry....

Lew: Your up front honesty is understood and I'm sure appreciated by the parents here!  My youngster is now 55!!

[Cory Joe Stewart]

A buddy of mine was busting a cap right before the first hunt of the year to clear the nipple and blew a hole in the hood of his car.  This guy is an army combat veteran and someone that I would trust around guns more than anyone.  But anyone can make a mistake. After it happened he kept saying over and over again.  "I always check it, why didin't I check it"  The old timers probably kept them loaed.   I have a gun that my grandmother gave me that was in our family and when I was cleaning it I found it was loaded, for 60+ years. 
On a hunt or trek go for it.  But in a house I think it is a very bad idea to leave it loaded. 

Coryjoe

[beleg2]

There is a very good book called "gunproof your children"
You have to train your children to handle guns even if you do not have loaded guns in your house.
When i was a kid I used to play with my father .38 special. He have it loaded so every time I was alone I unload it paly for a wile and load it again.
He never knew what I was doing. Every time I unload I count 6 cartridges, just ot be shure.
I had never an accident but it can be just luck.

Martin

[Leprechaun]

I have always left a load down the tube during hunting season (back when I used to hunt) and I would always put a piece of masking tape over the muzzle to indicate so. Did I say always?, well, I always intended to put masking tape over the muzzle. Several years ago, we were at a rondy and my son (about 16 at the time) was going to use the GPR for a buddy shoot. We go to the line and, when his turn comes up, he steps to the side, points the gun at a dirt birm and snaps a cap. BOOM!. He turns and looks at me with eyes as big a saucers. Apparently, I forgot to tape the muzzle the previous fall and the gun still had a load down the tube. So, what does this mean?. What have we learned?. To some, I suppose that it means that leaving a load down the tube is dangerous because it can lead to accidental disscharges. Perhaps. Or prehaps it's a testiment to gun safety training. You see, my son had had toy guns since he was 2 years old and, right from the start, he was taught to NEVER point one at someone EVEN BY ACCIDENT and if he did, he would lose all of them. Did we have to take his toy guns away? Of course. But the learning took place with toys where mistakes are harmless. By the time he was old enough the handle and shoot the real thing, muzzle awareness was second nature. There are two basic schools of thought regarding gun saftey. A - guns are perfectly safe when they are ALWAYS considered loaded and handled accordingly, and B - the only way to be TRUELY safe is to not have guns around at all. So, does leaving an unprimed load down the tube pose a risk or does proper gun handleing training negate that risk?. I report, you decide. Fair and balanced .

[quigleysharps4570]

Only 2 people in this house so it doesn't bother me to leave one loaded if it hasn't been shot. Out of habit though I tie a red rag around the trigger guard to serve as a reminder to me that one is loaded. 
On the down side...guess the gal would also know which one to grab if she wanted to settle an arguement with me. 

[chuck-ia]

good habit, leaving a gun tagged, LOADED, I do it not to remind me, but others, (if something was to happen to me). chuck-ia