How a 3-Year-Old Can Open a Gun Safe 646
New submitter bupbin writes "We are providing a detailed report and analysis of eleven different popular gun safes produced by Stack-On, GunVault, and Bulldog to warn the public of the dangers inherent in some of these products because the manufacturers nor their major retailers will do so. In that report you can view eight different Stack-On models, one produced by Bulldog, and one manufactured by GunVault. A similar design defect is demonstrated in an inexpensive safe for storing valuables that is sold by AMSEC, a very reputable safe manufacturer in the United States. Unfortunately, their digital safe with their claim of a 'state-of-the-art electronic lock' can also be opened (literally) by a three-year-old because of a common mechanism used in the industry that is subject to circumvention."
they aren't safes (Score:5, Informative)
Umm... the StackOn, etc. aren't safes. They are locking steel boxes, kinda flimsy, no fire rating, not UL listed, etc.
Compare with products from Liberty, Cannon, etc.
Re:they aren't safes (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah you're quite right. I probably should have added that to my post under yours. My gun safe has a key lock(pin tumbler), a dial lock, and a bar-handle lock. You need to engage all three before you can open it. It's tedious, but in Canada you're required to store guns in a safe manner. And ammo has to be store separately from the guns as well. I dislike these "security safes" they're cheap, useless and best of all they try to make a showy face of being secure, when at best they're inviting disaster. And anyone with about 8 seconds of time, can open them. 3yr old not required.
Re:they aren't safes (Score:4, Funny)
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No one expects these "safes" to be secure against a burgular or fire. The threat model is young children pilfering the top dresser drawer. That SHOULD be possible to defend with a locking steel box, and I would expect that level of security even for the very low price, but the lock is so incompetently designed that a drop from a few inches unlocks it.
Re:they aren't safes (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the truth. I do not expect a $100 safe to keep out a world-class safe cracker, or even stop an adult with power tools, but I **SHOULD** expect it to stop a 6-year-old.
The purpose of a safe is to protect the contents from anything, including fire, flood, tornado, as well as the occasional thief. The porpose of a lockbox is simply to stop a child from accessing the contents. That is the ONE REASON for a gun lock box, and apparently, they cannot do even that one thing right.
Shouldn't be a big shock (Score:5, Interesting)
My sister and I were picking pin tumbler locks when we were 6 and 7, getting us into all sorts of trouble as most people on /. could guess. A lot of electronic locks, can be bypassed by sharp jarring. Which is exactly what this appears to be, not a real surprise. Even mechanical locks that they use in hotel rooms can be bypassed using this manner.
Beh, the most elegant designs are usually defeated by the most simple solutions.
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My little sister picked my BB gun's trigger lock (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was in middle school (many years ago!), after earning the riflery boy scout merit badge, I managed to convince my very-reluctant parents to buy me a BB gun. It was not in a safe, but I purchased a trigger lock from Master Lock to prevent my little sister, who was in elementary school at the time, from getting into trouble with it.
One day when I was away, she picked the lock with a pocket knife. She was not particularly mechanically adept, either.
Fortunately, nothing came of it--she just went out back and shot some soda cans--but there's a real problem here.
Re:My little sister picked my BB gun's trigger loc (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick is to teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery. When I grew up we had guns in the house and not locked up at all. My dad's shotgun and hunting rifle generally were leaning up in a corner. No trigger locks. If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded.
It was like that from birth till I moved out. Wanna know why me and my siblings didn't die horrible deaths? Because we didn't feel a need to secretly "play" with the gun. If I wanted to go out and shoot it all I had to do was ask and my dad would take me out shooting. Not only that, but during those shooting sessions he taught me exactly how the gun worked, how to safely load and unload it, and how to handle it. Even if I HAD handled the gun while he was gone I was perfectly capable to doing so safely.
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
Re:My little sister picked my BB gun's trigger loc (Score:5, Insightful)
The most effective thing to do would be to do both.
Which is what my parents did. Safes for the guns, ammo in another place and plenty of range time for the kids.
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im ok with ammo in another place as long as its not one of those 'completely separate room in the house' kind of ideas.. after all its only useful if you can actually use it when an emergency arises.
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That's an obsurd level of reasoning. I have an alarm system, but by your logic it'd pointless because noone ever breaks in. Why keep a spare tire, a jack, and fix-a-flat in the trunk, it's not like I am changing tires everyday. You do understand the concept of emergency being something that doesn't follow a schedule right?
Re:My little sister picked my BB gun's trigger loc (Score:4, Interesting)
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Similar story: I slept under the gun rack at my grandparents. People talk about sleeping with a pistol under the pillow, but I had more firepower and ammo with nearly the same convenience.
Yet I never touched them. I was told not to and that was that. My brother and I weren't allowed to handle guns until late teens (probably because Granddad didn't want to have to clean them after firing them). But we were taught proper gun handling any time we had a cap gun or water pistol.
Now roll the dice a million times (Score:4, Insightful)
... in the same way and tell me that no other kid would ever do something stupid with a loaded gun. Like most accidents, stupid shit often happens because more than one thing went wrong. Your dad was called away at an emergency, you had some friends over but had to go to the bathroom... this is why most "safe" designs require a two point failure on top of a system designed with best practices. Leaving a loaded gun around is a single point of failure with a lot of assumptions built-in.
You live in a pretty black-and-white world that allows for no statistical variation. Humans, if anything, do not all act exactly the same under the same circumstances.
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The trick is to teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery.
3 year old kids?
More than enough kids have killed themselves or someone else by accident because they knew how to get to a gun.
While I'm glad you and your siblings survived, it's bad public policy to encourage the not-storing of loaded guns.
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine [wikipedia.org]
I'm going to go with "Putting a fence around it" if you want to avoid being sued out of house and home if someone else's kid drowns.
In most jurisdictions, you'll start racking up daily fines if you refuse to put u
Re:My little sister picked my BB gun's trigger loc (Score:5, Insightful)
"As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?"
You should teach your kids to swim. But since you can't control whether the neighbors teach their kids to swim, you should still have a fence.
Same thing applies to guns in the home. Even if your kids are perfectly safe around the guns, you need to be cognisant that their friends may not have the same education. You really don't want to find yourself in the position of saying "it's not my fault that the neighbor kid accidentally shot himself with my gun, his parents should have taught him gun safety". Not only will the jury not be very interested in that argument when the parents sue you, but I imagine you'd feel bad if the neighbor kid killed himself with your gun. (Even if you would believe it wasn't your "fault", I imagine you'd still wish it hadn't happened.)
Re:My little sister picked my BB gun's trigger loc (Score:4, Interesting)
The trick is to teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery. When I grew up we had guns in the house and not locked up at all. My dad's shotgun and hunting rifle generally were leaning up in a corner. No trigger locks. If he'd been hunting earlier that day they may very well be loaded.
It was like that from birth till I moved out. Wanna know why me and my siblings didn't die horrible deaths? Because we didn't feel a need to secretly "play" with the gun. If I wanted to go out and shoot it all I had to do was ask and my dad would take me out shooting. Not only that, but during those shooting sessions he taught me exactly how the gun worked, how to safely load and unload it, and how to handle it. Even if I HAD handled the gun while he was gone I was perfectly capable to doing so safely.
As they say: if you have a pool in the backyard, which do you think would be more effective: Putting a fence around it, or teaching your kids to swim?
Wish we could score to a +10.
Education is the key to most 'problems'.
My dad let me shoot a nice big magnum when I was really little. KA-POW!
Wasn't about to touch ANY gun after that.
Then when I was old enough, he took me out, taught me how to
use a gun, clean it, actually hit things with it.
And best of all, he let me shoot a pew, pew, .22
I thought... what a bastard. Not all guns will break your arms? Lol.
-AI
Why do governments always resort to coverup? (Score:5, Insightful)
QUOTE: "Ed Owens began voicing concerns about the security of these containers and that every other officer within the Department might be at risk. As a result, he was subsequently fired after fifteen months for allegedly violating department policies."
Oh yeah. Hide the problem instead of facing it head-on and dealing with it. Damn politicians.
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Oh yeah. Hide the problem instead of facing it head-on and dealing with it. Damn politicians.
That's not politicians; That's human nature. Whenever a person's ego or sense of pride is at stake, they're going to rationalize, minimize, lie, etc. It doesn't matter what their position is -- everyone does it, from janitors to presidents. That is why any organization which values objectivity in its decision-making process does its utmost to ensure that those making the decision are impartial -- that is, they have no emotional attachment to it. Police departments are famously lacking in this; They steadfas
Simple flaw. (Score:5, Interesting)
An obvious countermeasure is to use the bolts usually supplied to securely attach the safe to a wall or floor. If it cannot be lifted, there is no way to apply the jolt needed to knock the mechanism open.
Re:Simple flaw. (Score:5, Insightful)
In your universe hammers do not exist?
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>>> If it cannot be lifted, there is no way to apply the jolt needed to knock the mechanism open.
True but also false. If you RTFA you will see they secured the safe to the floor, but were still able to jiggle-open the lock with a piece of metal. The locks are no more secure than the lock on a child's piggy bank.
Re:Simple flaw. (Score:4, Insightful)
The safes should be designed such that they cannot be used until those bolts are in place, perhaps similar to how smoke detectors have a small lever arrangement so they cannot be installed in their bracket if you don't have a battery in them. It isn't exactly a secret that a sizable number of people (perhaps even the majority for the smallest safes) don't bother to bolt the safes down.
If something is a safety-critical requirement for the operation of the device then it should be designed in a way that the device will not operate without it.
If only... (Score:2)
warranty of fitness for a particular purpose (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty [wikipedia.org]
Those safes are not fit for their intended purpose.
Start suing.
The 3-Year-Old Measure (Score:3)
Those safes are not fit for their intended purpose.
Yeah, so about six months ago my 5-year-old son broke into a bank vault. He goes with his Mom to the bank. He didn't know his numbers at the time, but he apparently is good at patterns, so he remembered the 7-digit pattern the teller would often punch in when he was watching what was going on (clearly not paying attention to the banking).
On a subsequent visit he wandered off (to play with the bead toys, right?) while his Mom did the banking, and a few min
TSA airline guidelines (Score:5, Funny)
Remember the Stack-On press release that touted the fact that their containers met “TSA airline guidelines” as if this endorsement is added evidence of the security of their products? We tested these containers, and the reality is they can be opened in a variety of ways including with a tiny piece of brass by a three year old.
That pretty much says it all right there. The TSA approves something because it can be opened by a three-year-old, meaning their own employees might have a 50/50 shot at it.
Utterly useless design (Score:5, Insightful)
That locking mechanism is just atrocious. They thought using a single solenoid which when actuated retracts to allow the bolts to be withdrawn was a secure design in a safe the size of a shoebox? Add in that because it is battery powered it can't have a strong return spring and of course it will be easy to open by giving it a small physical shock. FFS even something simple like a bolt driven by a small stepper motor and a worm gear would be orders of magnitude better.
That the company and distributors are refusing to admit there is a problem is disgusting, but understandable given how large the potential liability is in this situation.
Not News (Score:5, Insightful)
Locksmiths have been using these exact techniques for 20 years to open safes. This is nothing new nor secret. What's next, a video of a security consultant picking a deadbolt in 20 seconds?
First off, safes (which store anything) should be bolted into the foundation of your home. Therefore the pick-up-and-drop method is ineffective. A sturdy strike from a hammer may open some of them, but not all.
Second, none of these are real "gun safes". A real gun safe weighs 300 lbs. and cannot be opened using any of these methods. You need a large drill and a schematic of the inside of the door. These lock boxes are intended to be hidden somewhere (back of a closet, behind a bed) and allow for quick access (15 seconds to open) in the event of an emergency. Kids should not know where they are, nor be able to reach them. A real gun owner would know this.
"Real gun owner" - right (Score:5, Informative)
A real gun owner would know this.
1) The guy whose kids got into the lockbox was a cop.
2) The lockbox had been issued to him by his police department.
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He owned a gun. He was, therefore, a "real" gun owner, unless you want to debate his existence.
Stop arguing it, because it sounds like you're trying to claim that this isn't a problem. If you meant something else, like, "responsible gun owner", then clarify. Of course, it's still a problem even if you restrict your statement to that because a whole lot of people aren't responsible, and whether you like it or not, everyone has to deal with the messes they make, which may be the hole in your own chest when so
As a potential gun owner (Score:3, Interesting)
I currently do not own any guns, but I come from a family of hunters and gun owners. I have been through gun safety training. At some point in my life it is highly likely that I will inherit guns from family members or purchase my own guns. I'm not into hunting, but I do enjoy target shooting and skeet. My father always kept his guns in a large combination lock, fire rated, etc. gun safe. It was a 1,000 pound monster of of thing. OK, possibly exaggerating, but it was huge, solid, and heavy and not something that can be moved without at least a heavy duty moving dolly and at least two people.
I would never store a gun in a lock box. A lock box is for transporting your gun from your home to the range or other place of it's use. Properly storing your gun means a quality gun safe that is bolted to the floor (for smaller safes) or a full on monster of a safe (for rifles, shotguns, etc.) that is not easily moved should a thief (or multiple thieves) enter your home. Even with my guns were in a safe, I would also have trigger locks on every one of them with the keys stored in a separate, smaller safe, again bolted to the floor.
Now this is my own opinion of proper gun handling based on personal experience, information from experts, as well as a dose of personal paranoia. I have a 3 year old child who will someday be instructed by myself or my father in proper gun safety, because she will be exposed to guns in our family. This is not optional. If she shows interest in joining her family in target shooting and hunting she will also go through gun safety courses before participating. Also not optional.
So I find it very irresponsible that these are being sold to meet the federal requirements. I do appreciate the opinion of gun owners who feel this type of law is infringing on their rights, but my personal opinion is that this is simply putting good, common sense into law, and that while selling these lock boxes does meet the letter of the law, it completely skirts the intent of the law.
That a law enforcement agency issued these defective by design devices to it's officers is very concerning, and the reported response to being shown that they are flawed devices is even worse. It is equally concerning that at least some of the officers in question didn't secure their weapons in the first place and that this wasn't a policy of the department before a member of the department was hit with personal tragedy. The sheriff department should expect their officers to show a good dose of common sense when it comes to their service as well as personal weapons, but in the world we live in common sense is no longer sufficient.
Now that's disturbing (Score:3)
The response he got from the manufacturers and retailers is unbelievable!
I'm not an exec at a big corporation, but if I saw a video of a 3 year old opening a lock box that I was marketing and selling as a "gun safe", I'd at least stop selling new ones. The bean counters would coldly calculate the cost of a recall vs. the cost of settling a few lawsuits for the items already in use, but what motive would they have to keep selling the same junk? I suppose the retailers could just point the finger at the manufacturers of course, but it still makes no sense.
I'm going to forward the source article to the NRA, and I encourage others (esp. members) to do so. Hopefully we can get permission to re-print parts of it in American Rifleman. The last F*&^%!$ thing we need is firearms accidents in cases where people are trying to do the responsible thing by keeping the weapons locked up.
as a gun owner (Score:4, Informative)
As far as the safe goes? It's supposed to be bolted to a concrete floor you morons. You've got a loaded gun, in a safe that's not bolted down, you're really lucky the gun didn't just go off INSIDE the damned safe while the kids were bumping it around. And no, the safe probably wouldn't stop the round. Read the directions next time.
Never was a need for a gun safe in our house. (Score:3)
BTW -- my dad was a police officer for 25 years. Had more than one gun in the house. I knew where they all were. But I wasn't allowed to go into their room.
The real tragedy is that more and more parents want to be their kid's friend instead of their parent and don't know how to raise them
Re:gun safe? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's like saying the best way not to die in a car accident is to bike to work.
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That's like saying the best way not to die in a car accident is to bike to work.
Well... yes actually that is what it's saying. If you don't own a gun, you are safe as you can reasonably be from gun accidents. If you don't own a car, you're as safe from them as you can be.
You can still get run over or shot when you're outside. So really staying in your basement is the only answer to complete safety, unless there's a flood, or tornado... or radon.
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is more FYI than trying to niggle with you, but most gun deaths are suicides, not crime or accidents. So it is pretty related to whether there is a gun in the house. We could have a discussion about whether you're more likely to succeed in a suicide attempt in a house with a gun, but that's for another day.
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Interesting)
but most gun deaths are suicides, not crime or accidents.
More so when you realize that almost all fatalities "while cleaning his gun" are suicides, not accidents. It's an official fiction beneficial to society in many places even today, but it does muck with the statistics.
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Informative)
The odds of my being killed by a gun have almost no relationship to whether I own one myself.
Actually, they do. People with guns in the home are around twice as likely to be murdered and 10 times as likely do die of suicide as people without guns (source [oxfordjournals.org]). People carrying guns are about 5 times as likely to get shot as people who aren't carying guns (source [nih.gov]). This is not even considering accidental shootings. You say you're "not the sort of idiot who is likely enough to shoot myself by accident," and I hope you're right, but I doubt many accidental shooters thought they were either.
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, those statistics are idiotic. Perhaps people that are about to commit suicide go out and buy a gun? Perhaps people that live in high murder rate areas buy and carry more guns?
And of course, the #1 - gang members are the majority of gun murders, both giving and receiving. And, of course, they carry guns.
Uncontrolled statistics do not convey useful information.
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
There were no significant differences between those with only handguns in the home and those with only long guns or both handguns and long guns, those with two or more guns, and those having one gun in the household; and between those who stored one or more guns unlocked and those who stored all guns locked (table 6).
The suicide rate wasn't lower for people with multiple guns or for people who kept their guns locked, so I don't think the data supports the hypothesis that the suicide weapon was purchased for the purpose of suicide.
To the "people who live in bad neighborhoods get guns" most of the second article is about that point and how to disentangle all the different predictive factors behind getting shot. I'm sure there's some truth to "people who are planning on entering a dangerous situation carry", but there's also some truth to "if you try and draw while you're getting mugged, you're gonna get shot." In support of that, note that having a gun increases your risk of geting shot even more for "assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist"
Sad truth is that if you try to resist a crime, you generally place yourself in more danger than if you passively submit. I'm not saying that recommends any particular course of action. Personally, I hope to act bravely, even if it puts me in danger, though my soon-to-arrive child might change that opinion. We shouldn't let the ethical question of how to respond to violence obscure the fact that going for your gun does not make you safer. Escalating a robbery to a gunfight is a risky move--why does stating that fairly obvious fact upset people?
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That's like saying an apple is an orange.
Not being in a car does not magically make one immune to the other eleventy billion imbeciles on the road.
Not having a gun in the house kind of makes it hard for a kid to shoot himself in the face with your non-existent gun.
I think the fundamental problem is that any safe that protects your kid from a gun, will also prevent you from swiftly retrieving it should you ever need to protect yourself. Or did you think that half-bred gang member was going to wait a few min
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Not quite. For your translation to be accurate, the GP would have had to have claimed that the best way to be gun safe is to only carry knives [substituting one weapon for another, as you translate one mode of transportation for another]. If you were accurately mocking the GP's statement, you would have said "That's like saying the best way not to die in a car acci
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Guns owned by private owners mostly kill or hurt innocent animals or people.
You are mistaken. Target shooting (paper, clay pigeons, metal plates, etc) is far more common.
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kill or hurt innocent tasty animals
there fixed that for you.
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People like to point out that there were not assault rifles when the Constitution was written. If there were, those would definitely have been protected weapons. Heck, they included canons in the right to bear arms.
It can be argued whether the 2
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Not to take away from your sentiment about the OP blaming the tools, but some areas it is indeed necessary... however, in the absolutely, unfathomably larger vast majority of the population it is not. I'd honestly be surprised if people in the USA for whom it's absolutely necessary to shoot animals to live was a percentage higher than .000001. So trying to use that as 'not just recreation and self defense' is stupid. That's like trying to equate the number of people that absolutely need to specifically c
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not if you include obesity.
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By owning a gun you are declaring that at somepoint you intend to kill *something* (or someone).
I bought mine for target shooting, because it's fun. I have no intent on using it to hurt or kill someone, ever. It's not even assembled right now. I guess that rules out most of your arguments.
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Be sure to also avoid going to a movie theater to see Batman.
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Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Informative)
Not correct.
A gun is designed to kill other things, not explicitly people, though people are often the target.
This is something that gets me very unhappy with the gun control crowd. A pistol *IS* an indispensable farm implement.
(Ever tried to shoot a pack of coyotes eating your spring calves using a bolt action rifle? You tend to get only one of the bastards, and then you end up losing another calf the next night. Something more rapid fire and quick to handle is required for effective pest control.)
Re:gun safe? (Score:4, Informative)
A pistol is not the right tool for this job.
You want an SKS or if you have more money a Mini-30. Coyotes are small enough that even cheap FMJs are quite effective.
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but those are those scary "assualt rifles"! Don't you know how "assault rifle" is defined here in the states?
Mini-30 [tfsa.co.uk]
SKS rifles [simplesurvivalskills.com]
But would you suggest using one of those for say, euthanizing injured stock? (Say, your cow bugs the shit out, and disembowels itself on the barbedwire fence. It is dragging itself around in the lot dragging several meters of intestines behind it. Doesnt need to be a cow either. Sheep get themselves fucked up like that too.)
Shooting is an Olympic Sport (Score:5, Insightful)
A gun is designed to kill other things ...
No. They can also be designed or used for putting holes in pieces of paper, knocking over or pinging metal plates, breaking pieces of clay, etc. Shooting is also a sport. Given that slashdot seems to be on a current events theme I'll add that shooting is an Olympic Sport.
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More stupid non-gunowner talk right above me.
You do realize they sell handguns for hunting right?
Large frame revolvers are well suited to such a task. If the recoil is so great as to be a problem the shooter has selected a round to large for them to safely handle.
Pump actions nor lever guns are any safer than a large single action revolver.
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Try committing suicide with a lever action Winchester. Now try committing suicide with a large single action revolver. Notice any differences?
Yeah - it was easier with the revolver since I'd already killed myself with the Winchester.
Re:gun safe? (Score:4, Informative)
I own no guns designed to kill other people. One is designed to kill small game, another to kill turkeys and another for deer.
What sort of guns are you buying?
I compare them because they are both deadly in the wrong hands.
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Or maybe because I enjoy meat that has not been raised in a cage all its life.
Actually I would say the actual death of the animal makes me far less likely to waste the meat or take it for granted. Unlike so many that buy meat at the grocery store.
Re:gun safe? (Score:5, Funny)
In what world can owning a car be compared to owning a gun? Quick reminder: one is designed to go from one place to another, the other is designed to kill other people.
Wait, guns are designed to go from one place to another?
-- a battle-weary cyclist
Re:what is a "gun safe"? (Score:4, Informative)
It's a safe whose dimensions and interior is specifically designed for storing firearms.
Re:what is a "gun safe"? (Score:4)
Re:what is a "gun safe"? (Score:5, Informative)
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Well for a pistol the thing to have is one of those rings that lets you and only you shoot it. Those big gun safes I doubt any 3 year old could open but if you have a 3 year old about, keep the ammunition and the guns separate. If you have to keep one loaded get one of those ring safeties added.
http://www.tarnhelm.com/magna-trigger/gun/safety/magna1.html [tarnhelm.com]
Be safe with your gun or don't own one.
Re:what is a "gun safe"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most "safes" that you see in your average retail store are just locked cabinets. Well, they usually have fancier locks, but a hasp and padlock would work better.
I'm giving someone one of my old safes. It looked similar to the first one, so I decided to try the drop test. It didn't open. They need it to keep a single firearm, and some papers, away from a 3 year old. I found it oddly coincidental that this story came up now. The one I'm giving away is sitting on my floor waiting for me to take it over and mount it.
When I was reading reviews on the "economy" safes (like anything under $200), quite a few are easily defeated. Some can be opened by just jiggling the handle until it opens (about 3 seconds). Some take a screwdriver to pop the dial off (combination lock).
I want a nice rifle safe. After look at the prices, I'm tempted to build my own. If you have welding and machining skills, you could craft one pretty easily. Double layer steel (inner and outer shell), with a few inches of concrete make for a respectable vault. Then you have to make the bolt mechanism, which takes a little more thinking.
Jamming the bolt mechanism so it won't open, is the hardest part. You can't exactly use a residential deadbolt. There are plenty of ways to open those in seconds with little skill. (lockpick gun, bump key, lockpick rake, etc).
It would take me time, but I could build something that would normally cost thousands.
I picked my first lock when I was about 8 years old. I had a toy that needed a key to open a panel. I had lost the key long before, so I got it open with a paperclip and small screwdriver, acting as a rake and tensioner.
I know people who want to keep guns in those cheap moneyboxes. They change their mind when I show them that I can pick the lock in seconds, or force it open with a screwdriver. Come on... Why protect a $600 gun with a $15 lockbox?
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My nightstand doesn't have drawers. :)
It just sits next to your bed all night ...with no pants on?!
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this really news for nerds?
It doesn't specify compter nerds, does it? There are plenty of gun nerds out there.
In any case, it follows up yesterday's story about hotel room door locks nicely - same theme (poor physical security measures), different instance.
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
If those videos are true to what they show, that safe manufacturer is in for some hefty lawsuits.
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Locks are designed by engineers. (Nerds)
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently not gun safe locks. Those appear to have been designed by circus clowns.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Usually this is not a problem for most applications, but when the payload is a loaded handgun this is a disaster.
There's the problem.... what kind of idiot stores a gun in a loaded state? I'm not going to get into the whole gun control argument*, but in all seriousness... how stupid do you have to be to not make the weapon safe before you store it? And don't give me the "what if somebody breaks in!" argument, it takes very little time at all to load a weapon and chamber a round... so little, in fact, that if you don't have it in a break-in situation then you're as likely to get yourself killed just reaching for a weap
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was in the military for 4 years (released because of a knee injury), and the first thing they taught us before we were given weapons on basic training was how to make it safe
The reason the military has such procedures is because they have to teach to the lowest common denominator, which is keeping a bunch of 18 year old dipshits that have never seen a gun from hurting themselves or others. How often were you actually given live ammunition?
The majority of accidents is due to unnecessary handling. Unloading your gun every night or even multiple times a day is by far not the safest method and increases your risk of shooting something you didn't intend to shoot. Keep the gun i
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Its related to security and the idea that "apparent security" and "actual security" are two distinct concepts.
There are a TON of parallels with the software security industry, where sometimes a vendor simply refuses to respond to a notification of an exploit, which leaves the researcher to go to the media and perform a full disclosure in order to force the vendor's hand so to speak. In this case, the researchers reached out to the manufacturer and walmart, and got no response, so they are spilling the beans to the public.
It is a particularly good submission because its not an anti-gun or pro-gun screed; its legitimate research about a legitimate issue that is being handled irresponsibly by the vendor, and now its up to the news-reading public to bring that vendor to task by avoiding their products until such time as they take responsibility for and address these kind of "vulnerabilities".
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How is this really news for nerds? Seems like gun stories are here only to spark the inevitable flamewars over gun control.
Cue up the comments that have nothing to do with this story and use it to further their own political agendas.
If your firewall doesn't protect your servers you have to turn to guns.
or lasers on sharks
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Yes, but can you imagine how much harder it would be to properly secure laser-toting sharks??? A gun safe is easy by compairson, as you do not have to provide water, oxygen, food, temperature regulation, etc.
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True, but in a corporate environment the associated savings in employee severance packages may make up the difference.
Not to mention the advantages of holding vendor negotiations in the glass-floored room over the tank - in which case a conspicuous trap-door mechanism under the vendor representative's seat is usually good for at least a few extra points off the final costs.
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I haven't had a virus in years!
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Change the Headline to "How a 3-Year old can get in your Macbook Safe"
And now it's important.
Priorities you know.
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Funny)
The caliber of stories is really down overall. Can't imagine what triggered this story. They're really shooting blanks some days. Or maybe I'm just going off half-cocked. Who knows?
I deserve every down mod I get.
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:4, Informative)
Cue up the comments that have nothing to do with this story and use it to further their own political agendas.
Like, er, yours?
How is this really news for nerds? That's an easy one: it's about three year old hardware hackers! What I'd like to know, is what idiots moderated that useless comment "insightful?" You could probably get more insight from a three year old hardware hacker!
This isn't a "guns are bad, mkay" story, this is a "some engineers really fucked up" story.
Re:News For Nerds??!! (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this really news for nerds
if this had been a defcon presentation rather than a forbes article there would be no question. They're talking about the ability to compromise locks (including electronic ones) by basically banging the safe a couple of times. As an exercise in technical security it's some combination of hilarious and terrifying.
Believe it or not, I think there's a lot we can philosophically grasp from this. What is the legal obligation for a company that sells a product that isn't even kind of secure, while claiming it to be? None. Security that can be compromised by a 3 year old will be, and that probably applies as much to computer security as it does safe security. etc.
The most obvious is a testament to 'obscurity is not security', a 3 year old, who isn't really capable of understanding safe design, and therefore faces complete obscurity can still open a safe by basically trying to pick it up, and then dropping it.
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Seems like gun stories are here only to spark the inevitable flamewars over gun control.
If a three year old can get at your gun, then you don't have gun control.
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I have a $100 stack-on gun cabinet (that's what it's called, nobody calls it a safe) with a manual keyed lock and I love it. It's roomy, stores all my guns including a large scoped rifle, and is quite sturdy. It bolts to wall studs from the inside. I dare anyone, even a gang of thugs who pumped iron in prison, to break it open by force or take it from my house with their bare hands. I'll even give them a screwdriver. They won't be able to.
It would take a large crowbar or a power drill or some other serious
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This is why you bolt them into a concrete floor, better yet set the safe right into the concrete.
Re:"Safes" are mostly a placebo. (Score:4, Funny)
Or your can set a few thousand lead pellets in it, each conveniently wrapped in a brass case with trace amounts of other materials.
Re:As a father (Score:5, Insightful)
Shotgun, with rounds only in the tube. A child young enough to not be taught firearm safety will not be able to cycle the pump.
Same thing with a big semi-auto pistol. A 3 year old will never be able to rack the slide.
I still suggest keeping them in a safe of course, and just keep the safe in the bedroom.
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yes, not being chambered is helpful. Im not a fan of shotguns, I worry about collateral damage of someone nearby when trying to shoot the perp. My 9yr old has a daisy bb gun. Everytime we use it for target practice I make her recite the safety guidelines such as
- every gun is always loaded even if you think it isnt
- never ever point a gun at someone
- never put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot
etc etc
Re:As a father (Score:4, Insightful)
A baseball bat is more useful than martial arts training. Gives you some reach and doesn't require any skill. Dogs that aren't professionally trained are mostly just good as alarms, and their false positive rate is horrendous.
Re:As a father (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I must be quite lucky then. My completely untrained dog has had exactly one false positive at night (during the day, not so good but during the day doesn't matter so much) and several 'true positives' where friends and family have come in without warning and gotten barked and growled at. He's about 20lbs so it's probably a good thing he does the barking and growling from out of sight around the corner, but he's certainly loud enough to get me out of bed.
Which, incidentally, made the one false positive actually pretty terrifying. If your dog isn't one to bark and growl for no reason suddenly starts up at 1AM it definitely gets your attention. Came hustling down the stars and there he is, staring out the back window, hackles raise, growling and barking. Flick on the back light and... there's a bucket. Just a plain blue bucket that had been left on the porch the previous afternoon. I'd never seen a dog actually look embarrassed before that moment. Gave him a treat, told him good boy and went back to bed.
Re:As a father (Score:5, Funny)
- A dog
- Martial arts training
Warning: Property guarded by martial arts-trained dog.
Re:As a father (Score:5, Funny)
Lemme guess, Ju-shih-tzu?
Re:As a father (Score:4, Insightful)
If your children are capable of getting into one of these safes, they are capable of being taught not to mess with daddy's guns.
There are ~ 50 million households with guns in them. Accidental gun deaths by children (most of whom were not educated on guns by their parents, and found access to completely unlocked guns) are in the range of 200-300 a year. ie, not even appearing on the top list of accidental causes of child death.
In short, teach your children, and get a quick open safe that requires some strong intent to open. This is almost entirely a non-issue with basic precautions.
Just FYI - the first google search you will make for children killed by gunshots will come up with a much higher number, because the Brady campaign defines "children" as anyone up to 19. Including teenage gang members shot while running drugs. While their deaths are also a tragedy, they are not relevant to whether your 3-year-old is going to try to sneak into your gun safe to play.
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Holy crap, whom [dailymail.co.uk] did you marry?!
Re:Loaded gun? (Score:5, Interesting)
A paving stone at short range is more effective than a club or sabre. The disappearance of cobble and paving stones has been more of a deterrent to the overthrowing of governments than machine guns, tear bombs and automatic pistols. For it is in the clashes when the government does not want to kill its citizens but to club, ride down and beat them into submission with the flat of a sabre that a government is overthrown. Any government that uses machine guns once too often on its citizens will fall automatically. Regimes are kept in with the club and the blackjack, not the machine gun or bayonet, and while there were paving stones there was never an unarmed mob to club.
-Ernest Hemmingway, Death in the Afternoon
Re:Loaded gun? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because an unloaded personal defense weapon is as useful as a brick.
Interestingly, though, an unloaded pump-action shotgun is of some use. The sound it makes when you cycle the pump is one that everyone recognizes, and it's loud enough to be heard through a typical interior door. There's a reason Mossberg has used the slogan "Nothing else sounds like a Mossberg".