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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Having an unsecured gun stolen during a robbery vs having a secured gun stolen during a robbery are different though.
Hard to prove if it was secured without some sort of surveillance on the safe. But easy to prove if they have no records of ever owning a safe.
If you have a gun stolen, reporting the theft would presumably indicate that you did not willingly give the firearm to the person who stole it.
The "safe storage" laws are usually pretty worthless just on how they define "safe" on top of the actual problem with enforcement. They're not meaningful in any practical way, as anyone responsible enough that they should be allowed to own a gun already locks their shit down.
People who only lock their firearms away because they're required to are the reason shit like Nanovaults are so popular. They're a good-sounding concept, but in reality are held together with flimsy plastic internals. You can literally pry them open with a knife or housekey, or even just slam them onto the ground to pop them open.
tl;dr: Given the lax legal definition of a safe, using one doesn't necessarily add any meaningful security.
As an aside, I have safes for valuables and documents I'd like to survive a housefire...but I don't have any record of owning them. Were they stolen, I don't think it'd be easy to prove I didn't have them.
Sometimes that is enough. For example think of how poor the locks are on most front doors, how flimsy the frame is. There are many ways to defeat the pathetic security on most people’s houses yet they do actually discourage some break-ins. Many crimes of impulse can be prevented just by making it inconvenient enough for the impulse to pass or the perpetrator to find an easier target.
I’m not saying that is the case here, but I’d like to know if it is.
It's not. The reason I called out the specific Nanovault in another comment was that a friend had locked his (the gun bumped into the internal button to change the combination and it had gotten changed and was unknown, another ridiculous design flaw). Rather than mess around with cracking the new combination, I shoved the blade of my pocket knife into it, twisted it, and it popped open. Literally the same amount of effort/force and sticking a key into a keyhole and turning it, but without needing the actual key.
After realizing how secure it wasn't, he decided to test the other one he had before replacing them. Picked it up and dropped it from about waist height onto the garage floor (empty, no gun in it). It popped open, sending little plastic bits from the locking mechanism everywhere.
Yet, these are generally considered to meet the California legal standard of "a locked container or in a location that a reasonable person would believe to be secure."
Safes are meant to keep out children and casual thieves. A dedicated attacker can break into any safe with enough time and effort.
A lot of storage boxes marketed specifically as gun safes won't even keep out casual thieves. That was my point.
On one hand, I think there's an argument to be made about this depending on how "secure" is defined, but this has too much in common with the case that promiscuous enough clothing implies consent, so I'll reject that notion outright.
And "robbery" implies force or the threat of force. If somebody has a gun to your head and tells you to give you the gun in your safe or the gun in your nightstand drawer, is there really a meaningful difference? I somebody stabs you then takes your gun while you crawl around bleeding, does are you really any more/less a victim based on where they take it from?
I don't think they're that different. I also don't think there's many (any?) cases where kids are getting their hands on gun where existing laws could/should not be used to charge the owner, as happened with this case. I'm rarely in favor of new laws when the existing ones would accomplish the same goal, were they actually being enforced consistently.
In your example if you are coerced through violence or threat of violence to give a secured gun away, that clearly is different than not locking a gun in a safe or having a trigger lock installed and available to anyone. Having taken some measures and there are several that would be considered common practice and even the barest of minimum is better than not bothering because who can define secure is a false argument.
I disagree. The safe or trigger lock does nothing in this example, making them functionally identical situations. You're literally suggesting making it illegal to be burgled but legal to be robbed, which is an asinine distinction.
And you're implying that not using a safe or trigger lock means no precautions are taken. If the gun is in a locked house already, is that not "secure"? It's as secure as a knife needs to be to not be a liability if stolen and used in a crime. Hell, a locked building is sufficient security for a pyrotechnics company to store their literal explosives.
I also specifically disagree that the barest of minimum (as you're describing it here) is better than nothing (as defined as no safe/trigger lock). A gun locked in one of these in an easily accessible room meets your "barest minimum" criteria, but is more easily stolen than one hidden in a non-locking box in a locked apartment.
I think the better solutions focus on harsher penalties for the theft itself and more laws/enforcement around failure to report thefts.
I could agree with you but then we’d both be wrong.
Not at all: a better analogy is the requirement to build a fence around your pool. You have an attractive nuisance where inappropriate use can result in injury or death. However a fence has been proven to reduce such usage or at least make it clear that they shouldn’t. It may deter the littlest kids but is easily circumvented, yet works
Sure, if you're willing to count my house as a "fence," otherwise the same logic would make you liable if someone breaks into your house and drowns in your bathtub. Of course it's not likely at all, but if someone were to smash down your front door to commit suicide in your tub, nobody's going to argue that's your fault.
I'll agree that leaving a firearm laying in the open in your back yard should be criminally negligent though, so can get behind that much of the pool analogy.