Am I crazy for sleeping with a gun nearby?

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Wedge

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Guy hear me out here.... I just got into the world of guns last December. I have since purchased a few rifles and handguns and enjoy this very much.

At first I kept the safe open with my Glock and a loaded clip next to it. Then I moved the loaded Glock to my nightstand drawer. Finally after a few more weeks I decided to start keeping a round chambered in it. Please don't laugh, it just took me a while to be comfortable to have a loaded firearm that close to me without my hands actually being on it AND sleeping.

The thing that kept me from doing it was this. I have never had a break in when I was at home and I live in a good neighborhood. I kept wondering if I was being paranoid by keeping a loaded gun nearby and if it was really necessary. Just made me feel like one of those "gun nuts" the media is always portraying... Anyhow, I am over that now.. btu I am wondering if anyone else has ever felt like that... Which makes me wonder.. If I am successful in getting a CCW here in CA (HA HA HA, dream on) would I really need to carry.. just thinking out loud.
 
Been doing it for years, with a Sig 229, a Glock 26, and a MK-9. I keep them holstered and chambered. That way, I won't inadvertently discharge them but can get them ready to go just by drawing.

Personally, I don't like sleeping anywhere without a ready to roll weapon handy. That's one reason I hate hotels. When I travel with my girlfriend, she cracks up as I unpack my firepower (one for me and one for her).
 
You never need a gun until you need one. If you could predict when you would need one, then I want to get to know you better, cause you probably do well at the track. I carry mine hoping I never have to use it. It is the arbitor of last result. I like to believe I am smart enough and lucky enough to avoid potential crises, but the other guy may not feel that way. ;)
 
I sleep with my Ruger P95 next to my pillow. Personally, I don't think of myself as paranoid, just prepared. You never know what's gonna happen and I would hate to be caught with my "pants down" so to speeak.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his onlly begoten Son...
 
What is the difference between being prepared and being paranoid. One incident.

You never know when or of an incident is going to happen. Thats why it pays to be prepared.

My wife has her 3913LS loaded within reach. I have my Sig P228 loaded within reach and my M4gery with 2 20's and 2 30's within 6 feet.
 
I've got a... hum... what DO I have in the night stand right now? I can't quite remember. I rotate the guns there occasionally.

It might be my Beretta 92, or it might be my Model 19 S&W. I can't remember what I put in the drawer.

I know what's under the bed. A 12-gauge riot gun.

Both are loaded.

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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
varies with me ,some nites the commander,others a cz52 9x19 or 7.62x25.somenites a .25,just depends what i grab first is all............
paranoia is a good thing at the right time but not all the time.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wedge:
Guy hear me out here.... I just got into the world of guns last December. I have since purchased a few rifles and handguns and enjoy this very much.
[/quote]

I think that a reasonable ethical decision in this area includes a lot of factors. The problem to be avoided is shooting someone when you're sleepy that you wouldn't chose to shoot when you're wide awake. My Dad used to like to keep a gun in the nightstand, and then when we were on Guam in that early 50s, a buddy of his shot his wife (or some other relative) when woken out of a deep sleep. I was only three, so I may have the details wrong.

So I guess that for me, some of the variables are: "How quickly do you wake up?" "What is the chance that an innocent person might wake you up, versus an intruder?" "If you have kids, even if you teach them to leave how to use weapons, how confident are you that your children, and all of their friends could not discover and use the weapon?"

For me, I sleep soundly and have woken up pretty confused on several occasions. I live in a relatively safe neighborhood in a house that a lot of my wife's relatives visit. My son occasionally sleep walks. There are tons of neighborhood kids in and around the house all day long. You can derive my answer to this question for my situation...

Munir


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ahlan wa sahlan
PCV Yemen 1984-86
 
Good points Munir.. I live alone and no one enters my house unnanounced... if they did they would be breaking in.

Coming into all this, it just took me some time to be able to do this comfortably. Now I do it all the time and feel much better about it. I just wanted to see if anyone else might have felt like this at the beggining.
 
Makarov on the nightstand, ready to go.
Having a gun is not being paranoid. Two guns and a knife, that's paranoid.

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Never do an enemy a minor injury. Machiavelli
"Stay alive with a 45"
 
I have slept with a gun under my pillow or nearby for probably 30 years. Feel very comfortable with it.
I would like to say that if you are going to switch guns all the time as some of you have said, that you become VERY familiar with the operation of every one.
Waking up in a fog is not the time to try to figure out which gun you have, and how to get it into action.
Dennie NRA Life, GOA
 
I have to agree with dennie. If you need it in a hurry, it should be the one that your hand knows in the dark. Face it, your brain wont be up to speed for a second or so---maybe longer. I sleep with a 1911 in the same position every night. I always know where it is and how to grab it.

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You have to be there when it's all over. Otherwise you can't say "I told you so."

Better days to be,

Ed
 
While I alternate depending on what mood I'm in. There's a 6 inch Colt Anaconda in .44 Magnum in my nighttable drawer right now. I have 6 rounds of full house hollowpoints in the gun, 6 more rounds in a HKS speedloader, and if that's not enough the thing weighs a few pounds, I'll just whack them over the head with it!
 
I used to leave a "nightstand" gun on my side of the bed for my wife when I travelled, as she was uncomfortable with having one too close to her. She never minded me carrying or having a loaded weapon close by at nite, tho she did occasionally say I might be a little paranoid.

Abt 4 mos ago she came home from work and happened upon an intruder in the house (rural area, nice neighborhood, no prior breakins, etc., etc.) who had laid out and been ... ummm ... "viewing" .... pics of her, among other things.

No harm done, luckily, but she is now 1) armed daily in her car (legal here) 2) awaiting the arrival of her CCL, 3) entering the house with weapon ready, unencumbered by her briefcase and purse, and 4) sleeping with a loaded pistol (with which she's been formally trained and is quite accurate)in very close proximity. Oh, and she thanked me profusely for being paranoid all these years.

Paranoid people are those who've not yet been violated, and to h*ll with those who would deny us the ability to protect ourselves.
 
I live in a gated community where access is restricted and the crime rate is so low, that it is almost off the scale. In addition, we have a home security system that sounds an alarm and notifies a central monitoring station in the event of a security breach.

Despite that, I have a loaded (magazine inserted with a bullet in the chamber) firearm within easy reach when sleeping. Having a small child who is starting to get into everything, the gun is no longer kept in the nightstand but in a bolted down strongbox under the bed with a simplex lock on it. The strongbox greatly reduces the risk of the little one getting her hands on the gun and I have trained myself to quickly open the lock in the dark just by feel alone -- we've actually had a few cases where I was awaken from a sound sleep and had to reach for the gun (malfunctioning house alarm, short-circuited doorbell ringing, something falling over and making a loud noise -- loud enough to wake us up; etc.) and I was able to get to it quickly and easily despite the fact that it was locked up and I was sleepy.

Munir brings up some very good points. As with everything in life, you have to adjust your behavior based on changing circumstances in your life ...<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI> When I lived alone, I was prepared to fire at anything (any human that moved because no one had any business being there.
<LI> When I go married, my behavior had to be modified in that if I was awaken at night and my wife wasn't in the room next to me, there was a very good chance that she was the cause of the noise as we came to the understanding that neither one of us would go to investigate something without informing the other one first. With this knowledge, I had to modify my behavior when reaching for a firearm late at now.
<LI> Now that we have a little one, the way our guns are stored had to be changed. Instead of just placing them in the nightstand, they are still nearby for quick & easy access but still secure from curious hands.
<LI> When she gets older and starts taking trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night or to other parts of the house, our behavior with firearms will be adjusted once again.
<LI> And so forth and so on.</UL>Do I see anything wrong with you having a firearm nearby when you're asleep? Not at all. It makes a whole lot more sense to have one right next to you than in another room where you might have to first get past the BG to get to. Regards,

FUD
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Share what you know & learn what you don't
 
Wedge, I too have just begun keeping a loaded gun by my bed. I don't feel paranoid to be doing it (we live in an area where a fast police response would be around 30 minutes), but I did have some real concerns since we have young children in the house.

I wouldn't keep a gun by my bed if I still had a child young enough to sometimes climb into our bed with us -- the protection would simply not be worth the risk.

Next to my side of the bed -- chosen because my side is furthest from our bedroom door -- we keep an open lockbox with my Glock 26 in it. The Glock is loaded, with one in the chamber. It's inside my kydex holster, which covers the trigger area completely, minimizing the risk of an AD caused by fumbly fingers in the dark.

At night our front door is locked and our bedroom door is locked every night, all night, without exception. If my husband comes in late, he has to unlock both doors to get in. And our children can't reach the spot where the bedroom key is hidden.

When I get up in the morning, I close and lock the lockbox before I open my bedroom door. Later, when I'm getting dressed, I unlock the case to put my gun on.

All this sounds like a hassle but it truly is not: we've maximized safety while minimizing the time it would take to grab a weapon in the event we needed it.

The first night of leaving the case open, though, I could hardly sleep. I "felt" that open case next to me, all night long. I kept waking up, or half waking up, looking at the time, groggily wondering if I should just close the case now so I wouldn't forget and accidentally leave it open in the morning, if I forgot the kids might find it, and even though they know not to touch a gun no parents in their right minds rely on their children to be 100% obedient on pain of death and I was sure the kids would get my gun and play with it and probably shoot each other ... I had terrible nightmares all night long.

Fortunately, that didn't last. We took the necessary precautions and eventually I convinced my subconscious mind to trust those precautions.

Now I feel almost the same level of anxiety if my loaded gun isn't within reach as I sleep.

pax

"It is dangerous to confuse children with angels." -- David Fyfe

"We hear of an unfortunate woman who, during an nighttime asthma attack, confused the small handgun she kept under her pillow with an asthma inhaler and proceeded to relieve her symptoms. It was not a fatal mistake, partly because she used a .25 ACP, which everyone knows is not sufficient to clear sinuses." -- Jeff Cooper
 
no i dont think you are paranoid.
if its there when u need it then you have done good in my opinion.

i keep a tarus pt92 on my nightstand, with a round up the spout.
my motives are for the large coyote problem we have out here on the ranch. but i think its a good thing to keep one where you can reach it in the night.

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while u are burying your head in the sand i will be out doing something about the problem, excuse me if i tramp upon your skull.
 
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