Is Your Truck a Gun Safe: Everyday Carry Pocket Dump of the Day

1. I never leave my weapon in my vehicle. Of course, being retired means no employer telling me “no weapons” allowed. If for some reason I can’t carry, I simply carry anyway, As long as it’s not a violation of federal law, I carry. In my state, I can even carry on school grounds. A firearm does you no good if you leave it in your vehicle, which in some states you are guilty of a crime if it gets stolen.

2. One of the jobs I had when I first moved to CA over 30 years ago was freeway cone work. Close lanes of the freeways off so work could be done on them. Traffic control. One job over near the San Francisco airport and Candlestick Park was a long term night job. Our company yard was at an offramp. We parked our POV’s there and got out company gear.

   One night about 3am two trucks of us were pulling back into the yard to get more equipment. The guy riding shotgun with me suddenly sat straight up and said we had to get out of the yard, now. As I whipped the bitch he signaled the other guys to leave. They did.

   We got up the road and he told us why he had hit the panic switch. He could see the window on his truck had been broken out and under the front seat he had a loaded .45. A dark, secluded construction yard with a possibly armed bad guy was enough to get his attention.

   I don’t store guns in vehicles.

3. State of the world right now, anywhere I go, my firearms go with me. I won’t allow my money to go anywhere my firearms aren’t welcome. When things go sideways, there will be no warning. -30-

4. I NEVER leave my weapon in the car. I’m also retired so no boss telling jack squat. Today I went to the mall for some smell good and the mall has a teeny weeny little sign with one line that says in their rules of conduct, no illegal weapons or firearms. I ignore it.
   There’s WAY too many car break-in for that. Now maybe if I lived in Phillipsburg, KS. I might leave my gun in the car, but that’s not the reality of things and pretending risks don’t exist is the same as pretending there is no reason to have a firearms for self defense.
   Face it, having your gun stolen isn’t at the top of my list of things I want. I’m not giving my $1,000 Sig to some dirt bag.

5. I live in the city, a large city. Where I am, if you leave your car unlocked overnight it’s a 50% chance homeless/addicts will prowl your vehicle. I would never leave a firearm in a car, at least not in this area.

6. I never leave a firearm in my car. It goes where I go and that means everywhere I go. Bank,post office,court house and police/sheriffs office. That is why concealed means concealed. In all the years I have carried. I have never been asked whether I was carrying. If you don’t look or act the part most people pay little attention to you. It also never hurts to be confident in your actions and give the impression that you belong where you are. Not being cocky. Just confident.

7. I sometimes have to leave a firearm in my vehicle. I have a cheap 20 dollar safe from stack on that I put it in. Not ideal but better then a felony.

8. Whether there’s a gun or two locked in my car has always had to be a question of where I lived, worked and where the car was when I wasn’t in it. Work has moved me around a lot, circumstances varied.

   Today my workplace has strict rules, no guns. But state law protects the inside of my car as my territory. So there are always two guns in the car, a pocket gun and a full size pistol, out of sight. When off company property I carry them. At times there have been more than that in there. Been thinking of adding a trunk box in the sedan I now drive to hold one of my AR’s and my 590A1.

   When I lived in mountain country and bears were a problem, driving a 4×4 everywhere, kept a shotgun close at hand.

9. I’ve got a small truck safe cabled under the drivers seat. A sturdy model with the 5 finger buttons.
   Anyhow, my company has a no guns policy, so, in the truck it stays.

10. I travel for a living and it burns me every time I’m in some anti-gun crap-hole (I run through Illinois pretty frequently) and I’m forced to either A) commit a felony by carrying illegally outside my vehicle or B) leave it in my truck and risk some low life sleazeball breaking in and finding himself a nice, fully loaded gun with which to rob, rape and pillage his weasley black guts out. It’s typically a 50/50 chance as to which I chose.
    I know full well the safest place for my gun, not just for MY safety but for others as well, is on my person at all times. Why some moronic politicians can’t seem to comprehend that and come up with some form of national reciprocy just frustrates, and infuriates me to no end!

    • I hit the head at the Micky D’s in Beloit so I enter the land of my birth with an empty bladder and roll on through to Indiana

      But yeah, at least they let you carry in the car

11. I carry on the job now, but one of my past employers (a Japanese Corp) stated that we were not even allowed to have so much as a pocket knife in our vehicles, and that they reserved the right to have their private security search any vehicle at any time. (In complete violation of our state laws) I didn’t stay with that contractor very long. As it stands now I won’t leave a firearm in a vehicle unless it’s going to be parked in a secure area (i.e. armed security), and even they I’d rather err on the side of caution and not leave it there.

12. Yep. Always an extra gun and sometimes my carry as well if heading through metal detectors.

    While I use a small safe, I always keep my doors locked – even when getting gas.

    If someone breaks into my car and takes it, that’s on them. Just as if it were my house.

    • I almost always keep one on body, and have a second (sometimes third) gun in the truck. They are not locked, but tucked away in unusual places. (aka not under the front seat.)

      I’ve had several vehicles broken into over the last 20 years. Every time, valuable items that were out of sight have been left behind, and less valuable items have been stolen that were in plain view.

      I’m convinced i could put a $20 on the passenger seat and leave $1,000 under it and i would be out $20 bucks if a thief broke into my vehicle….

13. I would lock up my carry gun in a car lock box for no more than a few hours. I made the lock boxes out of 30 cal ammo cans reinforced with 14 ga steel sheet metal and hinges with a padlocks. The lock boxes are mounted/chained under the driver’s seat.

14. “Hornady makes the RAPiD Vehicle Safe which is a solid way to store a handgun.”

    I would disagree with this statement. A safe that is as small and light as a vehicle safe needs to be out of sight IMHO and that’s not part of the RAPiD Vehicle Safe design.

    Otherwise it’s too easy to see the safe, break in, steal the whole thing and take it somewhere else to work on. The fact that the safe is noticed suggests that there is something of value inside the safe which entices criminals to break into the car to take the safe. Simply having the safe not be visible from outside the vehicle helps reduce the chances someone notices it and is thereby encouraged to try to steal it.

    I’m not a fan of the wire-attached safes in general. They’re too easy to remove from the vehicle. If you’re going to leave it visible it needs to be quite difficult to remove, much harder than a wire running from the safe to a seat mounting bracket. A quality vehicle safe requires modification of the vehicle. Again, IMHO.

16. In the oil field the Operator reserves the right to inspect your person and vehicle at any time (part of the contract). A weapon will get you escorted off the lease and, most likely, your company fired from the job. Even an empty brass will cause problems. Been awhile since I heard of an unannounced inspection but the risk is present.

17. In some states a cabled safe is legal to keep a gun, but if you bolt/weld/secure the box/safe to the vehicle, it becomes part of the vehicle and it is NOT legal to keep a gun there(it makes it the same as a glove box/console compartment or overhead console).

    Here in Ca, in a Surburban or other vehicle that has no trunk, that is the only legal way to have a firearm in your car. Even keeping a firearm in a bolted down toolbox in the back of a truck can get big problems if the officer is a prick.

18. Anything in the car to securely store a weapon is going to make accessing the weapon slow. The cold hard fact is that we face the MOST risk leaving and coming to and getting in our car and being in the car until you drive away.
    Anytime you slow down to retrieve your firearm out in the open is INCREASING the risk. For one, prying eyes may notice a routine. This is why so many cops lose weapons from vehicles. Bringing them in and out routinely actually increases risk. It allows observation and the ability to identify them as an officer, such as with FBI and others who you wouldn’t know were actually cops.

    There really is no way around the fact that while it may be an evil that some may have to accept, it’s a poor practice to be leaving your weapon in the car, hidden or secure.

19. I left a weapon in a vehicle once . The vehicle was destroyed. I really doubt a gun safe would have been of much use. I have also had firearms stolen from my residence, a gun safe would have probably prevented that from happening. It has just about come to the point, with all the anti-gun laws and crap that I am just about ready to say to hell with firearms, let the chips fall where they may. I, myself, would rather be dead then spend two weeks in D.O.C.

    • Wtf did I just read.

      Were you away from the residence for an extended time? Someone who does that is in your inner circle. Maybe start finding some better “friends”.

      And get a fucking car alarm.

      They also have this thing called personal property insurance. I would invest in that before waving your rights and allowing criminals to dictate your self defense tactics. Wise up lefty.

20. Regular occurrence with many.
    Several states with constitutionally correct laws regarding carrying border intolerant states. DE and MD, perfect example.
    DE residents and non-residents can carry legally easily. MD, you have to be LEO, business owner fudging cash on person or the governor’s nephew.
    Many people travel between the states regularly. DE to MD would mean locking unloaded weapon in vehicle.

21. 870 in the trunk and Heritage 22 mag in glovebox. They live there! My Sig carry pistol goes where I go or I don’t go!

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