Camping With a Firearm

My wife’s family reunion was this past weekend. We went camping and fishing at Panguitch Lake in Southern Utah, which is a beautiful and remote lake that doesn’t even get cell phone service.

Everybody had a good time and was still speaking to each other at the end, so I guess you could say the reunion was a success even though we didn’t catch any fish that were big enough to keep and eat.

At the reunion, and whenever I go camping or spend time in the outdoors, I’m always carrying my gun with me. Recently, someone asked me what I did with my gun during the reunion since there were a ton of kids running around and I obviously didn’t want any of them to have access to it.

Well, during the day I always carried my gun on me as I typically do, even while fishing and other activities. But at night, I didn’t sleep with my gun on my hip and clearly, I wasn’t about to take my gun off and just put it in a corner of my tent. My daughter was in the tent with my wife and I, plus, I can’t trust the cousins not to go into my tent either.

So at night I simply took my gun off and stored it in a rapid opening safe.

The safe that I brought with me is the Gun Vault MV-500 STD Microvault safe. This is a smaller safe that stores my full size Smith & Wesson M&P and also my Ruger LCP. It uses a four-digit code that allows me to open the safe in about two seconds.  

I slept with the safe next to me along with a flashlight (plus a Rayovac camping lantern) that way I could easily access my gun in the event of an emergency. Thankfully, the only problems we had at night were barking dogs and my 2-year-old niece who decided to scream bloody murder half the night and wake everyone up about 5 times.

The bottom line is, these days there are dozens of rapid opening safes out there, and whether you’re camping or just hanging out at home I think every responsible gun owner ought to keep their gun locked up when it’s not on their hip or in their pocket… but it’s also very important to be able to access it quickly, which is why I took the rapid opening safe with me this weekend and why I also have each gun that’s stored throughout my house in a rapid opening safe.