USA Carry published a blog post today talking about carrying a gun while camping. The author discussed what he choose to do with his gun at night while sleeping. His solution was to bring a rapid opening safe in the tent with him. While a agree keeping a gun secured is important and necessary, from my perspective and with the type of camping I enjoy doing with my kids, a safe would not be a viable option.
Here is my perspective
I was camping last weekend with 2 of my kids in a remote location in NW Wisconsin. There had been reports of bear and large cats in the area we camped, as well as ‘campsite partiers’ who show up drunk and disorderly looking for a good time. There is little to no cell phone service in the woods, so your basically on your own.
As is typical, I carried my Kahr PM9 with Crimson Trace Laser in an OWB holster on my strong side. While I didn’t sleep with a safe in my tent, I did secure my firearm and felt completely at ease with my system.
How do you know if you can trust your kids around guns?
My kids have been educated on gun safety for years and I do trust them around guns; not because they can handle them alone, but because they know the rules and obey them. They both enjoy supervised shooting exercises and in a pinch, if I were incapacitated – I know my oldest could successfully retrieve and defend himself with a firearm.
The protectionists in our culture cringe at the thought, but every year we hear stories of hero kids who defend their homes, siblings, or themselves from bad guys breaking in the house while mom and dad are away. Had they not had access to the guns in the home, they may have been beaten, raped or killed.
At the same time, if they hadn’t been trained properly, they could put themselves or others at risk and certainly not been able to defend themselves during an attack. Yet there are those in our culture who want to keep guns away from children and protect them from dangerous things. The reality is that the world is pretty dangerous and if you are going to be safe, you’ll probably have to assure your safety on your own.
At this time, my kids do not have unsupervised access to firearms or ammunition. They are not quite ready for that responsibility, but I continue to work with them and educate them so one day they will be.
While sleeping in a tent, I secure my firearm in a “special” location easily accessible by me, but extremely inaccessible to anyone else without my knowledge. As a rule, my gun is on my person, because I control my firearm. If it comes off my body, it is secured in a trigger guarded pocket holster or other container and kept in an undisclosed, but secure location that I have full control over. If those rules cannot be maintained, it is locked up in a safe or lock box.
To read the original story from USA Carry, go here: Camping with a Firearm
Stay Safe, Train Hard, and Carry On!
Andy
