I’m sure this topic had been debated before, but a quick search didn’t find me any threads like what I want to discuss here. The topic going right now about lube for staged firearms for me thinking. Also, last week I watched the home defense video series with Colian Noir on the USCCA training site. He stages guns around his house. Many guys have guns staged in different rooms, and I understand the desire to be always ready for an HD emergency, regardless of where and when you are in your home.
I don’t stage guns (for the most part). I live in a 2 story house. I carry my EDC on me at all times I’m awake. If I’m sitting in the living room watching TV and the SHTF, at minimum I have a handgun. In the bedroom upstairs, which is our safe room (no kids at home) I do always have my HD rifle at the headboard. That could be considered staged, of course, but it’s the only gun that’s not locked away besides my wife’s and my EDC’s.
Here’s the thing. If we’re home at night and someone gets in, we’re barricading in the room and taking up a defensive position, me with the rifle, my wife with a handgun. The BG can have his run of the downstairs. He can take whatever he wants, but the one thing I don’t want him finding is a gun. If he didn’t come in with one, I don’t want to arm him while he’s in my house.
How do you guys who stage around the house deal with this possibility? What do you see as the advantages of staging vs carrying at home (or do you do both)?
The one drawback of my own system I can see is that my defensive rifle is upstairs if I my handgun isn’t enough and I’m downstairs. I will say that, anytime the house feels vulnerable, like during a storm/hurricane when it’s loud outside and no power, or after when people might be out looting, the rifle is at hand all the time, I take it around the house with me.
As is always said, every person’s situation is different.
I am in a position right now that I cannot leave unlocked loaded firearms staged around the house. I have a bedside 40 S&W with 14+1 loaded, plus 2 additional 14 round magazines as backup. It has a light mounted on it. It stays in a lockbox 24 hours a day. I am the only one with a key.
The lockbox is unlocked and my EDC added to the box when I go to bed. The bedroom door is locked and my 4-legged alarm system sleeps in the room with me. The key stays with me at all times. There is always a very bright primary flashlight on my nightstand. The lockbox gets relocked when I get up in the morning.
Similar to you, I add a 300 Blackout with red-dot and iron sights hidden where short people can’t reach and tall people cannot see it during hurricane and/or power out situations. Loaded magazine inserted, chamber clear, and BCG closed.
I don’t have any permanent staged guns around the house. They are all locked in my safe at night and in the morning I take out my pistol and AR. The pistol goes in my holster and the AR goes on the window sill. When I go out I take the AR with me. If I am going someplace where I can’t take the AR I put it back in the safe.
Staging guns in my home would be difficult to do in my state without potentially running afoul of our state law that is intended to punish people who negligently leave firearms where minors could access them. Difficult, but not impossible.
The law is insane, because if someone breaks into my property and steals a firearm and uses it in a crime, it’s now up to me to prove that I didn’t leave it accessible even though the criminal had no right to be in my home.
I don’t have any weapons “staged” at home, per se. My home is too small for the need, and like Brother Joe, my EDC is on my hip from the moment I put my pants on in the morning until I take then off for a shower and bed at night. My Wife has her EDC with her for the same period of time. We both have two spare magazines on our belts.
Over night, my EDC is on the night stand on my side, hers is on her side. At night I open the safe and bring out my HD Shotty, Loretta. She gets placed in a mattress mounted rack I built. I have a sling pouch I keep full of 00 buck which is in close proximity.
I have spoken about my other constant traveling companion a few times, My PCC, which usually lives in a backpack I take with me darned near everywhere. When I unload from the truck at the end of the day, the back pack comes in and is deposited on a table in the hallway. When I pass that table heading to the back of the house for the night, it goes with me. All the magazines for the PCC also fit my sidearm, even the drum.
I agree with Brother Joe 100% on this point. On the back of the hall door separating the front and back of my house, I have a gravity activated brace which will prevent the door from opening, trapping the BG in the front room. He will be trapped up there with my Oldest Son who is a caffeine fueled Ninja Spider Monkey with about a hundred different knives laying around. He sleeps on my front couch.
I only have one so called staged weapon it’s a 12g mossberg 500 pistol grip. I always have my EDC with in reach or on me. I don’t worry about storms or power outages I have a whole house Generator.
That’s the same condition as my HD rifle. I practice grabbing it and charging it in one quick motion, just like I practice my draw with my EDC. My handgun goes in my nightstand drawer at night, but in a holster so I don’t accidentally, half asleep, finger the trigger should I decide I need that in the middle of the night.
I went to a Biometric access cable lock for my CX 712. My though is, if someone comes in when I’m not home, or, like you said breaks in, at least its tied to something. May not be an absolute 100% security but it will be a large inconvenience.
I have done similar. I don’t have space for a large gun safe, and would never keep ALL of my weapons in it if I did. But I do now keep everything that is not my EDC in a safe, secured by a steel cable, to a wall stud.
To the best of my knowledge, such is sufficient to relieve me from liability under this law if someone were to steal my safe, open it, access my firearms, and use them in a crime.
So, while I don’t like the law, it’s not entirely unreasonable. It mostly targets negligent gun owners who leave loaded firearms in their nightstands with kids in the house. Where it gets complicated for me is that an unsecured firearm that is stolen could result in liability if you didn’t take adequate steps to secure the firearm from theft.
One of my buddies who I respect DEEPLY and has worn out more t-shirts and carries more scars than all of us combined has about 12 guns staged around his house. His kids are older and 100% trustworthy and they are VERY capable handling firearms and so is mom. The benefit of having dad be an “operator” is serious mandatory HD training.
That works for him very well.
Me, I have two guns staged in my bedroom at all times, out of view but easily accessible to wife and I, both of the ARs and wife and I sleep with our EDC(s) on our night stands. When I go downstairs a gun goes with me, when I go upstairs a gun goes with me. If I don’t feel like having the gun ON me it’s never more than 3-4 feet away from me on an easily accessed surface.
When other folks come to visit, my gun is ON me.
That’s my idea of staging. BUT, I might change the plan some day because I’m always re-assesing and learning new stuff.
I also live in the communist state of California and don’t stage any firearms. All of my firearms are kept in my safe except my EDC that if it is not on my person, I have it always close by and at night is right beside me. are kids are all grown and out of the house.