Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
One of the most effective home defensive weapons you can own, without question, is a gun. A gun is what will equalize you to your invader (or perhaps give you an advantage) and should always be your primary choice for a home defense weapon.
That being said, owning a gun for home defense still comes with a large amount of responsibility. Two things need to be accomplished when storing a gun in your home:
1. The Gun Must Be Kept Hidden and Secure
2. The Gun Must Be Easily Accessible
The reason why your home defense gun(s) need to be kept hidden is so that children or guests can’t find them when they visit your home, and also so burglars can’t find them should you have a home intrusion when you aren’t there.
At the same time, your guns also need to be kept easily accessible so you can get to them quickly in the event of a life-or-death emergency.
If you're at a loss for ideas of places where your guns can be both properly hidden and readily available, you’ve come to the right place. Here are eleven places to hide your guns where nobody will see them:
1. Empty Food Box
Take an empty food box in your pantry and place a gun in it (such as a cereal box). This is a very creative place to hide your gun, and it’s easily accessible from your kitchen, but you also run the risk of a child or guest rummaging through the pantry and perhaps finding it on accident.
2. Pottery
So long as you have any pottery pieces that are large enough to hold a handgun, you can very easily stuff one in there. Be sure to wrap the gun in a towel before placing it into the pottery, so it will still remain hidden if anybody looks inside out of curiosity.
3. Electrical Outlet
Or perhaps more appropriately, a fake electrical outlet. Fake electrical outlets can be purchased online and are one of the most creative places to hide a gun. While it is true that some burglars may search the electrical outlets in your home for hidden valuables, the chances of them choosing the specific outlet where you’ve hidden your gun are pretty low.
4. Under The Floors
Cut into your wooden floors so you are able to lift up a piece. You can then stash a gun in there for hiding. Be strategic about where you make the cut; underneath or right next to a table or couch would probably be the best option. Speaking of couches…
5. Underneath Your Couch
Most couches have fabric underneath them. Simply cut away this fabric to store your weapon underneath it. The beauty about using your couch for storing guns, unlike a chair, is that you can store long guns like rifles or shotguns.
6. Your Closet
Really, your closet? Isn’t this the most obvious place for people to store their guns? Yes it is, but you can still be intuitive about how you hide your firearms in your closet. For example, you can hide it above the door frame on the inside of the closet, where it will be easy for you to reach but also not where most people will think to look.
7. Air Vents
The concept here is very similar to using the fake electrical outlets: you can either use fake air vents, or you can use real air vents if you want to. The best aspect about hiding a gun in an air vent is that children won’t think to look for anything there, but the biggest negative is that experienced burglars might think to look there. The average burglar, however, probably won't think of it.
8. A Book
An old gun hiding trick is to hide it in a book designed for concealing weapons: the inside of the book is carved out with enough space to store a handgun. The best kind of book to use for this concealment method will be a hardback rather than a paperback. Or you can buy a book gun safe online. If you do opt for this method, be sure that the book is among several other books (such as on a bookshelf), rather than resting on its own where someone may curiously pick it up.
9. Picture Frame
Just as how there are many ‘books’ designed for concealing handguns, so there are picture frames designed for the same purpose. You may initially think this is counterintuitive because pictures are often a target for burglars to steal, but you can offset this by selecting a rather ordinary or drab-looking photo/painting to put in the frame so no burglar will be compelled to take it.
10. Cabinets
It's possible to hide a gun in kitchen cabinets, but not right next to your food and kitchen supplies. Instead, put it on the top shelf between two corner cabinets below the counter in that little space that usually doesn't get used. You could also strap a gun to the underside of the counter where it can't be seen and where you can only get to it if you open a floor cabinet and reach inside.
11. On Your Person
Last but certainly not least, hide your gun in the place where it’s the most easily accessible: you! It may certainly not seem appealing to have to lug your gun on your person while you’re in your own home, but a smaller gun (such as a pocket .380) will still be very lightweight and hardly noticeable.
Conclusion
Obviously, not all of these places for hiding your gun are equal. Some are going to be more accessible or keep the gun more hidden than others. But if you have multiple home defense guns, then you need to have a variety of ways to hide those guns, which is why you will want to use more than just one of the hiding methods that we have covered.
If you're interested in hiding more than just guns, be sure to check out these 17 hiding places for valuables.
