Benelli M4 and Marlin .357 on the wall (courtesy thetruthaboutguns.com)

I consider firearms functional works of art. Well the best ones. So why would I want to hide them away in the darkness of a gun safe, only to emerge for show-and-tell or range trips? I don’t . . .

So I’ve hung a few of my favorites on the walls in my home, and I’m looking to buy a gun cabinet. But they’re all long guns.

When it comes to handguns I home carry. And store a small gun safe or two here and there.

I guess you could say those guns are hidden. But they’re not really. Not compared to guns that people stash in stealthy places. Like the rifles cleverly disguised by the furniture in the video above.

Do you hide guns around your home? Are they locked-up?

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82 COMMENTS

  1. Nah. I do the home carry thing. Everything else is locked away in the safe. Felt it was a good habit when the kid was younger and I see no reason to change now that he’s older.
    🤠

  3. Hide, lock up… It’s not an either/or proposition…

    Most are in the safe. Some are locked to the wall. Some are stashed around because constant home carry isn’t always an option and I don’t have kids that might get into things they shouldn’t.

    • “Some are locked to the wall.”

      Without giving away your specific ‘op-sec’, how does one secure to a wall? Big-assed padlocks on shackles?

      And – Is there such a critter as a display gun cabinet that offers a level of security?

      Thick Lexan instead of glass, steel rod or cable for security, anything?

      Beuller? Beuller?

      • I used to have a couple of shotguns with a cable through the action and a 2X4 that was in the wall. I cut a hole in the sheetrock and drilled a hole through the 2X4. It wasn’t pretty but it worked. When I moved out of that apartment I just taped and floated the whole.

        • Ha!¡
          As if.
          I get the point of it, but OMGosh…
          Looks like that would be on the wall of either a drug lord, an over zealous SWAT member, or a Mall Ninja, just ‘cuz.

      • My BIL has something mounted to his bedroom wall that looks like it belongs in the front of a squad car. Has an older(read reliable) 870 in it.

      • Geoff:

        There’s a product out there called a “ShotLock” (they make them for AR’s, shotguns, pistols and, I think, other guns too) that mounts to your wall. I use them for my Mossy 500 Tactical, my wife’s M590A1, a Rem 870 and I’ll probably add one for one of my AR’s here later this month after I get this badass camera system that my neighbor turned me on to.

        A well selected location and some 4″ deck screws make it a real PITA to get off the wall. Could it be done? Sure, an out of control methhead could probably rip one out of the wall during a meth-induced rage but he still can’t use the gun because the unit locks out the action (works for both pump guns and semi-autos).

        They’re not going to keep burglars at bay for long but they prevent guests, children or home invaders from getting a hold of your gun and using it *cough* improperly while giving you rapid access should you need more firepower than you tend to carry on your hip.

        https://www.shotlock.com/

  4. I’ve been thinking about building a drawer for under my bed that’s sized for my shottie. Get either a keypad or maybe even a biometric lock of some sort for it that could be placed behind the headboard. Would make a convenient go-to for a bump in the night gun.

    • Right. I even have specific bathroom guns. When are you going to need a gun the most? When your pants are down!

    • Me too. I home carry, have multiple gun vaults and cases, and have tasers and pepper spray. Plus dogs, cameras, motion lights, and a home alarm system.

      • Dang.
        All I have is a carry Ruger and a wife that looks like Steve Bannon and is built like The Rock.

        Even the Dobermans know she’s the alpha.

        I feel safe at home.

  7. I cerakote mine to match the walls, floors, appliances and furniture and leave them out. Chameleon style. Be careful to open the real fridge when going for the milk. You sure you want to put your bread in that toaster?

  8. I also consider them art, but also tools. All it takes is one person mentioning it to someone and so on until some punk kid gets wind of it. All locked up or hidden. Same reason I don’t post pictures of my guitars on facebook

  9. Handguns locked in metal file cabinet in my office. Husband built wood rack next to file cabinet for cases the handguns came in plus extra ear and eye protection in a closet with doors removed.
    When we put our house on the market, will revert back to being upstairs office/bedroom.
    When we had a new roof installed, kept the window that shows the wood rack, with blinds closed.
    Don’t need workers on roof to look in and think “guns”
    Self defense handgun is wedged between seat and arm of recliner. If I go downstairs, move SD handgun into pants pocket. I dress around Concealed carry with Cargo pants since tend to have larger pockets. Concealed must work since no one has ever noticed
    Retired, no more skirts, dresses or high heels, Life is grand!

  10. I keep a pistol in my office desk and one in a drawer in the kitchen. My home defense rifle generally leans against the wall in the main room I’m that day although it goes in the safe when I leave the home. No kids or little children that even visit so I’m not worried about safety concerns.

  11. I keep a 20 gauge shotgun in a discrete, easy-to-access location so that my oldest child can access it in an emergency. And I have some firearms in a safe. And I usually keep my handgun on my hip when I am at home.

  12. I like mantles (have 4), well out of reach of kids. Main floor mantle has Glock in holster and spare mag, all in a fancy decorative bowl you have to be over 6’8″ to look into, 3rd floor (master bedroom only) mantle has undisguised 1911 and spare mag. And I home carry. If SHTF, shottie and suppressed SBR will come out to play, but currently have zero crime in the area. Also have 1911 in one car, in dash console.

  13. I keep a few of my cerakoted rifles unloaded in a locked display rack on the bedroom wall
    I keep 2 loaded pistols in different pieces of furniture downstairs
    One loaded pistol in the bedside drawer
    My kids have been taught from a young age that an awful punishment awaits anyone who touches a gun without permission
    When little playmates come over, the drawer guns get locked in the safe
    They go back after the friends leave
    My older kids and wife have been taught how to shoot and can use the hidden guns if I am not home
    House rules dictate that any fools who need shooting get shot twice!

  14. Not “hidden” around the house, but around the house.

    I have a 1911 in the night stand.
    A 9mm glock in the desk drawer.
    And one by the front door which is my carry gun. As I leave I grab, as I return it goes into a drawer next to the front door.
    Other side of the house (garage, where I spend a lot of time) is another 9mm glock in the tool box.

    Besides stashing/storing guns where they may be useful, the most important thing is for others in the house to know what to do when the guns come out…

    Wife knows to grab a phone, call 911, explain what is up and that I’m armed.
    daughter on other side of the house knows to get in the shower and on the floor (most concealment and cover) and wait for me to come.

    But yes. keep guns around the house.

  15. Most homes are easy to break into and guns are an attractive target, so most of mine are locked up in a safe to at least slow down a thief. I home carry too for my protection and have 2 other stash guns (cheap but reliable) out of sight, but for the most part, concealment lessens my change of being a target. Add a couple of yapping dogs, an alarm system and some camera recording all entrances, I hope my home is less inviting than the rich neighbors down the street. I worry less about loosing valuables than being caught in the middle of a home invasion due to display of high value doodads.

  18. “So I’ve hung a few of my favorites on the walls in my home,…”

    I can tell that you don’t live in MA. 8>) Gotta be locked up unless it’s/they’re under your control.

    (I know, you’re from RI.)

    Up here in NH, I don’t leave them out related to burglary.

  19. Not really hidden…shotgun stashed behind the bedroom door. My other guns are right next to me. If everyone is away they’re put in a difficult to access draw. As I add to the stash I’m looking into a safe.

  20. Nope, home carry. The rest are in safes, except for the HD .300 AAC suppressed AR that is in reach with me every. single. night. Then back in the safe.

  21. If you’re going to hang rifles on the wall, for God’s sake, invest in a bubble level. A $2 investment will keep your house from looking like a child in a neck brace hung up your guns.

    Then again, maybe it’s a security technique. If a thief has severe enough OCD, he might steal your shotgun, but would probably just passive-aggressively straighten that lever gun for you.

  22. Anything not in use is best stored in a safe or stored in a doom tube. Keep something that goes bang every time for home defense, preferably inexpensive.

  26. Good topic; one that deserves a concerted effort toward development of a “best practices” standard-of-practice. Something analogous to the “4 Rules” that we’ve accepted as best practices.

    What – exactly – are the issues associated with the practice(s) of “keeping” arms in the home? This is the place to start. Presumably, we should be concerned with:
    1. accessibility in case of a home invasion;
    2. accessibility by residents or visitors who ought not be able to use guns;
    3. theft: separately for long guns and handguns;
    4. . . .
    Once we can settle on a suite of issues we can then propose and evaluate solutions. E.g., let’s suppose that theft of long-guns is deemed primarily an issue of property-loss, not criminal access. Conversely, theft of handguns is deemed both a property-loss and a social concern for the implication of guns falling into the hands of criminals. If such were a rational conclusion then the implication would be that handgun owners ought to invest in a small safe or an effective hiding strategy whereas large safes for long guns would be warranted primarily to prevent property-loss.

    A major consideration for us PotG is the looming threat of “safe storage” laws. Who would WE prefer to address this issue? The Moms and their paid-for legislators? Or, we the gun-owners. I suggest the latter.

    Suppose we make a diligent effort to develop, recommend and promote a suite of best-practices. In a matter of years, most of us would be able to adopt these practices as our “10 Commandments” just as we have adopted Jeff Cooper’s 4 Rules. Thereafter, incidents of unauthorized access (children or visitors), theft of handguns and any other incidents of social concern will drop; reducing the justification for legislation. At least, we will be able to make this argument to our representatives.

    If we neglect to figure-this-out-for-ourselves we can be confident that the Moms will step-up-to-the-legislative-forum to figure it out for us.

    • Agreed! Gun owners should create agreed-on standards that thoroughly address the core concerns of the non-gun-owning public. Love the comparison to 4 Gun Safety Laws. I absolutely believe that if we don’t, “They” will. I think the primary concern from non-gun-owners is safety of children/ignorant innocents. “What if my kid goes over to a friends house and their parents leave guns around the house?” The second main concern is criminals stealing guns for criminal use. For both of these core issues, I hear lots of dismissive responses from gun owners that simply assert their rights from the 2A, and also the “personal responsibility” argument–“I’m not responsible for other peoples kids being dumb and playing with firearms, those parents should teach their kids to be safe” and the “Stealing guns is already against the law, it’s not my job to keep people from breaking the law, so I don’t need to conceal my guns in my own home or car.”

      While I agree with the principles behind these statements, I don’t think that they are good responses to the concerns. I think about it like this–it’s my “right” to smear myself with honey and walk naked through the woods, but if I do and a grizzly hunts me down and eats me, whose “fault” is that? Who’s “responsible?” I’d say that I am. I know what grizzlies do. They just do it. Likewise, I know what kids do, and what criminals do, and they’re both around. The statistics make it clear, kids are infatuated with guns and do dumb things, and criminals steal guns. To say “it’s my right” or “it shouldn’t” to the grizzly makes no sense, and I don’t think it makes much more sense for kids and criminals either. So I think there’s some responsibility we need to accept as gun owners around controlling and securing the guns we own.

      We need to come up with some “best practice” ways of controlling and storing guns, between carrying them and locking them up, that preserves access for self-defense while addressing the realities of kids and criminals.

      • C Laliberte,

        With respect to child visitors, a host home should not have any exposed or readily accessible deadly hazards, whether those hazards are firearms, razor blades, exposed high-voltage conductors, poison, broken glass, etc.

        In terms of burglars and “secure storage”, see my comment below.

    • MarkPA,

      Developing a “secure firearms storage” protocol is fraught with peril.

      Consider the following:
      (1) Firearms in your home (even if left out on the counter) are secured if you close your doors — and even more secure if you lock your doors.
      (2) Handguns stored in handgun safes are even more secure.
      (3) Long guns stored in firearm cabinets are even more secure.
      (4) Large, heavy, and expensive ($2,000+) gun safes are truly secure.

      And yet:

      (5) Breaking into a home with glass windows is easy.
      (6) Removing a handgun safe from a home and opening it elsewhere is easy.
      (7) Removing a gun cabinet from a home and opening it elsewhere is easy.
      (8) Large, heavy, and expensive gun safes are EXPENSIVE and prevent rapid access in an emergency.

      So, we can see that the only truly secure storage is cost prohibitive for many people and makes your firearms inaccessible in an emergency — which makes mandated truly secure storage a no-go.

      Given the above, I argue that hidden storage is superior because hidden firearms are still immediately accessible, hidden storage typically costs nothing, and a burglar will NEVER steal something that they cannot see/find.

      However, hidden firearms will not be exciting to gun-grabbers who demand, DEMAND I TELL YOU, “secure” storage. Thus we will be battling over secure storage forever if we fail to just say “NO” to secure storage.

      Oh, and one more thing: what is the legal definition of “secure” and who gets to define/interpret it? Best that we not open up that can of worms.

  27. If they’re works of art and your favorites, get better hangers than the garage hooks from the Home Depot. That mounting is a disgrace, Robert.

  28. I have some guns on me. I have some guns in my truck. I have some guns locked up in the house but on display. I have some guns locked up in the house but hidden. I have some guns hidden in the house, unlocked, but require knowledge of their location and destruction of parts of the house to access. I have some guns locked up in various sheds and barns. I have some guns on display. I have some hidden guns buried in tubs in the woods. I have some guns in locked cases at friends homes. I have some guns buried in the desert far away on friends’ properties.
    I think you’ll see a pattern.

      • I’ve sold quite a few guns over the last couple of years and I think now I have maybe less than 100 guns in total. And I feel ashamed to even write that in public. It’s pathetic. I know.

        • You think you’re the only one with a Gun Monkey on their back ?
          Don’t ever apologize.
          Sometimes ya just gotta scratch that itch.

          The real reason that I read the entire comments section (just like ATF/NSA turds do) of this post, was to get new ideas.
          Kinda disappointed that nothing really “new” jumped out at me.

  29. no, they are all inside.
    not a bad idea. maybe something in the cotoneaster and another buried in the privet hedge.
    i’ll have to get them out there before my wife sits around the house though.

  33. Good question, but terrible OPSEC. There can’t be that many Farrago’s in the city of Austin or in the county records, and you regularly tell people ahead of time when you will be out smoking a cigar… i.e. not at home. Now we all also know you don’t lock up your guns and they’re just hanging on your wall. Just Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant idea to announce that on the internet.

    • Does it occur to you that the garage hooks are only mounted temporarily, and that the pic is only for this post, and that the guns were only hung there for a couple hours of a photo shoot, and are long off the wall by now?
      The internet, much like TV…. is NOT REAL…

      • Kenneth,
        I seriously hope RF’s aesthetic taste is better than the picture. If those are the nicest looking guns he owns, we all need to find a new blog to read. I do however believe that there is enough honesty in his description of “functional art” that there probably are guns on his wall. Even if there aren’t any unsecured guns, that’s not much comfort if he comes home to a smashed window or a kicked-in door.

  34. I home carry. The rest are in the safes in three different locations. I did come up with a slick way of hiding my hd shotty though. I hang my only suit in the closet and tie the shotty to the hanger with the tie.

  35. I normally display my firearms on the lawn, and out by the mail box, some are leaning against trees, and by the front door, but all of them have a “I DIAL9-1-1 ” sticker on their buttstocks and grips

  36. Handgun, in a clip-on holster, on the shelf above the desk where I work at home (it is the one that goes inside my waistband when my wife tells me to walk the dog). Handgun in the fast open handgun safe attached to my side of the bed. Handgun clipped under the end table by the sofa in the living room. Short barrel 12 gauge clipped to the wall by the hinge side of the front door. Another 12 gauge in that “cute” cabinet by the back door. Colt model 1851 Navy .44 in a pretty case on the wall in the den (only my wife and I know it is loaded and capped and that the case has a quick release opening). One of my usual CC handguns is always in the car (in the garage) when I am not wearing it. The other regular CC is in a concealed handgun safe near the house door from the garage.

    I leave a dated sticky note under (or next to) each weapon to indicate the last time it was fully cleaned. Most of the weapons come out of hiding at least once a month for a trip to the range. Some, like the Navy .44, are a lot of fun to shoot. The shotguns, not so much, but I still pop a couple of rounds at paper (or my wife does) to keep fresh with the experience. All of the firearms get a thorough cleaning, a function check, and replacement ammo (the “old ammo” goes into the range ammo bin) once a month whether taken out or not, and a complete parts breakdown cleaning/oiling every 6 months.

    The rest of my firearms are kept in a closet (the muzzleloaders) or in my gunsafe. I don’t “home carry,” except when I don’t park my carry gun in the garage, but I am not far from a firearm anywhere in the house!

  38. Everything not being used or carried is in actual safes. Have two guns on display, one over fireplace, that look functional but have no firing pins and loaded with dud ammo. Hope smash and grabbers will be excited and just leave with them.

  41. Gun safe bolted to studs covertly mounted has most of them two wall hangers rifles 30/30 and .22 lr. I carry at home, have combat rated service gun in bedroom. One old .22lr is in the barn for varmints and pests. There is a weapon unassembled in the truck bag with fire making material, metal canteen with cup knife and ammo along with coffee and tea.
    I don’t advertise and have dogs in the house.
    All firearms are pictured, serial numbers and spec stored in case they get stolen.

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