When living in a dangerous place, owning and knowing how to operate firearms are paramount. Anyone who has ever stared down the barrel of a gun while being unarmed will know this very well.
This brings me to the next point: when circumstances call for an armed reaction, you must be able to access your firearms quickly. Imagine running into your house to get a gun, only to be caught by intruders while fumbling with the keys to your safe. In this case, you will be facing the genuine possibility of being robbed or shot with one of your firearms.
Hiding firearms in your house makes sense from the point of view that you can have fast access. But imagine the letdown if you ran for a gun only to realize that someone beat you to it. Or, getting home from a visit, realizing that you are not alone in your home, and when reaching under a pillow for your gun, you realize that whoever is in your house is now hunting you with your own firearm.
Related: 6 Reliable ‘Pocket’ Revolvers For Off-grid Defense
In this article, we will look at various rooms in a house and places in those rooms where you should never hide a gun. This is broadly based on police reports that indicate where in houses criminals look when ransacking a place.
These are “known secret hiding places.”Places that you and I may think are safe, but every criminal knows to look when searching for valuables.
Master Bedroom
Under the Mattress: Not only have I “hidden” my laptop under the mattress, but I have also hidden cash there. As we speak, I know I have a spare iPhone hidden there.
While researching this article, I realized its stupidity. For almost every database you query, the “under the mattress in the master bedroom” turns up first.
Related: 6 Signs Your Neighbor Will Become a Looter as Soon as SHTF
Inside Nightstand Drawers: Though not really a hiding place, we often place firearms within reach when we are asleep and then want to store them safely during the day. So we tend to want to put them in our nightstands.
But, what about way at the back of the drawer? This is still a bad idea, even at the back, underneath the torch, and behind whatever else you have in your nightstand.
I sleep with an old-school metal Baretta under my pillow at night and have a daytime hiding spot for that gun that involves magnets taped to a flat surface. I tried it with my Glock, but as you know, Glocks are poorly attracted to magnets.
Living Room or Common Areas
Behind Picture Frames: I used to tape spare keys to my safe behind my picture frames. This seemed like a good idea, again, until I did the research for this article.
Every idea I had that I thought was pretty original was thought of a million times before. Maybe just tape a note behind your picture frame warning criminals that they will soon regret breaking into your house.
Inside Couch Cushions: I have never hidden anything inside a sofa. Partly because I hardly ever sit on a sofa, so for me, it’s just a place where children sit and the pets sleep. However, the oversized cushions of sofas can easily seem ideal hiding places for valuables and guns.
However, police reports indicate that these are some of the primary places criminals look, even cutting the back or base open and taking cushions from their covers to inspect.
Kitchen
In Kitchen Cabinets or Drawers:
Why would burglars want to steal kitchen knives and teaspoons? I bet they wouldn’t, right?
They are coming for valuable items like laptops and expensive watches, or so the reasoning goes.
Related: DIY Gun Cleaning Kit
But when intruders look through kitchen drawers, they are not interested in stealing forks. They are looking for the valuables you hid in there. Don’t do it.
Inside Food Containers or Pantry Items: One would think that hiding your gun inside a big bag of breakfast cereal or rice would be a good idea. Apparently not.
Related: 10 Things That Will Be Extremely Valuable After an EMP
Criminals know that food containers and pantry items may contain hidden valuables, so this is also one of their go-to places.
Home Office or Study
Inside Desk Drawers: Drawers are one of the primary places burglars look, particularly in a home study or office. Since family and friends rarely enter our home office or study, we may think that it’s a pretty safe and secluded place. Not only should you never hide guns in drawers, but particularly not in the drawer of your study.
Behind Books or Bookshelves: I have occasionally hollowed out books to hide keys or gate remotes. I have never tried to hide a gun inside a book, but I can see the appeal. The last thing a criminal would want to steal is a copy of Stephen King’s novel. I mean, do criminals even read?
When tossing books on the floor, they are not searching for titles they have yet to read but are looking for valuables, also searching behind books. Bookcases are not ideal hiding places for anything. Except maybe knowledge, given how few people still read nowadays.
Basements, Attics, and Garages
Inside Unlocked Cabinets or Toolboxes:
Hiding things from the family inside toolboxes makes a lot of sense.
I mean, it’s not like your teenage son will stumble across your Glock when he, out of his own accord, fetches the toolbox to fix the garden irrigation.
Even if you ask or beg, chances are the toolbox will remain unopened.
But burglars know otherwise. There is also the chance that the burglar may need some tools to fix his own garden irrigation.
Behind or Inside Stored Items: You know those Christmas decorations that lie on that dusty shelf in the attic and are only used once a year. I bet that would be a great place to hide a gun. Right?
Also, attics are good places to hide from home invaders, as the odds are that you will get there first. They, when entering, have only one way of getting in, which makes a headshot highly likely. The issue is when you are not home, attics and basements make ideal hiding places, and criminals know this.
Firearm owners face the dilemma of safeguarding their guns from criminals or even family members who might be considering self-harm. There is even the issue that Granny may be getting fed up with the neighbor’s dog barking all day and, after a few late afternoon cocktails, may decide to settle the matter once and for all.
But all jokes aside, when you need a gun for self-defense, the odds are that you have a minimal amount of time to get to that gun.
Related: DIY Gunshot Wound Kit For When SHTF
A friend of mine’s father used to keep a rifle or two behind opened doors. He was old and slow and reckoned that he would either get to the gun first or not. But if the gun was in the safe, he would most assuredly not get to the firearms first. You must consider the odds, the pros and cons, and decide what your conscience can live with.
When it comes to safeguarding your firearms and other valuables, knowing where not to hide them is crucial. With criminals often targeting the most obvious spots, it’s essential to be more strategic in your approach. But while securing your home is vital, it’s also important to be prepared for more extensive emergencies.
If you’re looking to transform your home into a self-sufficient fortress, this guide offers comprehensive strategies for doing just that. Not only will it show you how to stockpile food and secure your home, but it will also guide you on what to do immediately once a crisis begins to drastically cut down the chances your house will ever become a target for looters, rioters, or unwelcome government officials.
This guide is designed to help you prepare effectively for long-term emergencies without ever having to leave your home. For more details and to see how this guide can enhance your preparedness, consider exploring what it has to offer.
You may also like:
Foraging in Autumn: 10 Edible and Medicinal Plants You Need to Forage Before They’re Gone
Where Free Land Can Still Be Found in the USA (Video)
my wife got me for christmas a shelf that hides a gun in it. you push the bottom of the shelf to release it and the bottom of the shelf swings down holding my 38 spl. it has a super strong magnet that holds the revolver in place. i don’t remember the brand of the shelf but they also make ones to hold long guns. the shelf i have looks nice and i keep a plant on it along with my rechargeable flashlight. i used to have a biometrics safe(i think it was called). you used your fingerprint to open it. my grandbaby liked to go over to it and sit on it and her butt would open the safe everytime. i got rid of that useless thing( the safe not the grandbaby) keep writing the good articles, i’ve learned alot from them.
No more privacy, no more secrets, thank you.
Another article give away of secrets on hiding our preps to the internet world. Just some information that gives potential home invasion criminals a better guess how to steal.
That is what we do in an open society. The biggest issue is we have ID theft because the nerds decided to put all information online then keep information on paper and pencil low tech.
You know what is funny, in California, the old saying what happens in California so goes the rest of the nation.
Or the fish rots from the head down, in relation to our American non-representatives today.
The movie “Trading Places”, we have in California radical Sacramento forcing the governor Newsom to sign a bill. This gives illegals interest free home loans on top of the free everything stuff these non-Americans are getting.
So we Americans who are being forced out of our unaffordable heavily taxed homes, us taxpayers are funding this craziness of sanctuary state-ism.
We legal American citizens will be mowing the lawns of the pampered illegal’s homes in America.
Is this what we want with a vote to Harris-Walz changing America in terms of another Obama term in office?
Is this our country or what?
God bless America, MAGA.
And when I saw those advertised, my first thought was “Now the bad guys know how those shelves work.” He best answer is to find your own answer and not tell a soul about it.
Places to hide your guns?
As in the past socialism of war hawks goes, is to go back to the dusty old playbook of repeating the same lies over and over until the mushbrain public believes the lying truth.
It is no wonder California vote total party line only for the Demoncrat 45 electoral votes needed to swing the November election.
That is why the radicals import illegals to vote in our elections to throw the vote in Demoncrat’s favor. Mail in ballots are a ripoff of our cancelled legal votes.
This year again the Dr Fauci Covid vax, mask scare is coming again as part of the over turning of our presidential election.
If Harris-Walz get voted in you won’t have guns to hide, there will be massive gun confiscations in all 50 states including the US territories. The 2A will be dead and Harris-Walz will have the police force pepper ball us to stay inside our homes if we can afford a home.
They import illegals so they get more representatives in the House.
Easy way to garner more power without having to rely on valid voting.
When we remodeled our house, I had several hidey holes created that are not obvious but spring open at a touch. The opening faces away from casual view.
I hide my pistol in my pocket and under my pillow when sleeping.
As for other firearms, they are locked in my safe, good luck getting in there before I get you.
Home security and blending into the neighborhood is the key. I keep a look like I am poor, no shiny fancy stuff, skip mowing the lawn now and then. I do not keep an appearance that I am worth breaking into. Really I’m not.
All my tv’s and electronics will instantly tell me where they are when they connect to the net, steal them and I know where you live now. Most of them need the net to even be useful, or worth stealing in the first place.
Everything worth value is guarded by wired and wireless security, a very large in house porcine that is grumpy and mean, and inside a safe. I know you’re coming before you get in.
If my security system goes down, I am notified and a video of the last scenes are sent to me for review. You have to knock out quite an area to disable my security. Someone is going to know something is up. You have a walk to get close to my house, I will have you on camera and know before you get close to try to disable my systems.
If I have to use force, my pig will help clean up any mess…….
I’ll see your pig and raise you 4 German Shepherds and one half maine coon cat and one oinker named Mizz Ruby ;}>
We are well armed, and I’m well experienced and seasoned by two back to back combat tours in Vietnam. If someone,(or more) decide to invade my house, may the good Lord have mercy on them…because I won’t.
Pig don’t bark. He also don’t care what food you have, you’re in his territory. lol. He’s silent and sneaks up on ya. lol
I feel ya on anyone sneaking up unannounced. God have mercy on them and I hope they are good with the creator if they come to your house or mine. They will be meeting him soon.
I appreciate the effort, of making an article like this, but …. anything spoken aloud, (even in writing) is there for the taking. The walls actually do have eyes … as somewhere, someone is reading this article and passing it on to fellow criminals (not that this says much … likely more will be said in the comments and replies.).
That said, free standing shelves are great, but so advertised in magazines and internet, that would be the first place I would look. Hollow books, or behind books went out with rotary dial phones … under the mattress went out with the horse and buggy. There are only two original places to hide a firearm … on your person. Or in a heavy strong safe.
Nothing else is secure enough, or hasn’t been thought of before … for you to leave, and think it is secure. Talking to a thief, was a way I thought of to find a good hiding place … but if an active thief, he or she won’t tell you everything, and if inactive, they no longer know.
Why does the subject of this article/information, and other times turn into a political outpouring of opinions that don’t relate to this article?????
Hey, I think Biden, Kamala and there keepers suck. You couldn’t print what I would say, but I go to others forums. For the most part, I feel this group of readers feel the same.
Remember to vote!!!!
I see all the places NOT to hide your arms, but WHERE SHOULD THEY BE HIDDEN in my home?
Do Not hide guns in an oven or a wood stove.. LOL!
Dang it! Now I have to find a new hiding spot.
Keep it in a holster on the hip. When the door gets kicked in all one has is what’s on their person.
In a surprise home invasion getting to a firearm could be a challenge. How many of us sit around with a firearm in our lap or propped next to us? Especially if we have children around us? The shock of the invasion will cause most people to freeze or worse yet wake up confused. You need strong barriers and a good early warning system. Mine has 12 legs and weighs a collective 275lbs . Not only do they have great ears and big mouths, but anyone coming in will have to deal with them first, giving me time to react. Years ago my neighbor was broken into several times and I was not. I asked why and he said everyone knows Cujo lives in your house.
Do bottom line don’t hide your gun anywhere. Carry with you at all time and you won’t have to worry about hiding places