Pardon me for pointing this out, but it sounds to me that by the time the bad guy reaches your bedroom at o'dark thirty, if he wasn't armed already when he came in, he will be then. The only one without a weapon will be you because you keep your weapons everywhere but where you'll be when the perp pays you a visit.

I keep a handgun in the nightstand, and a shotgun loaded in the master bath, which is opposite the only point of entry into my bedroom. If I can't get to one, I'll get to the other.

As far as the two kids killed by gun accidents, I can only say that the cause was not with the fact that the guns were accessable, but with the fact that these kids, ages 12 and 13-14, were old enough to know better HAD THEY BEEN TAUGHT TO KNOW BETTER IN THE FIRST PLACE. The fact that the parents did not educate their kids was the real base cause for these tragic accidents. Like many of use here, I was raised around guns long before cable and trigger locks became the quick-n-easy substitute to responsible parenting. The only thing between me and dads guns was his sliding bedroom closet door and the zippers on the gun cases. I could access the guns any time I wanted provided dad was present, as soon as I could pick up any of the guns I knew how to safely shoot and handle them, and I knew that if I did play with the guns without dads permission, shooting myself was preferable to what would happen to me when dad got home. It all boils down to demistification, education and dicipline.

And make no mistake about it, there was plenty of violence on TV when I was growing up. I grew up with old westerns, Arnold Swartzenegger, Sly Stallone, Clint Eastwood and such on the TV as often as dad could find such shows and movies on TV. The only difference today is that the violence is much less sterile, much more bloody and graphic, but no less prevalent. Violence on TV is another parental cop-out.

By the time I was 12 I owned MY OWN SHOTGUN. My brother also got his first shotgun at the same time (sibling rivalry, you know) and he was 10. Yet we never harmed ourselves or others, we never took our or our dads guns out to show our friends (without supervision), and never played with them without permission and supervision. We were as safe then as we are now with guns. I have many friends that I grew up with who lived in similar circumstances, and all are alive and well today.

It won't be long before I have to make this very decision as my wife is due to deliver our first child in February. During the childs very young years before s/he is old enough to understand firearms safety I will likely adjust the way I keep my defensive weapons. Once s/he is old enough to understand I will teach him/her the safe safety rules and safe gun handling techniques that have kept me safe with guns for my last 29 years. I will also make it as clear to him as my dad did to me the boundaries of when and where the guns may be handled, yet encourage them to feel free to ask any time they wish to see or shoot one.

And yes, I have had a person walk into my house unannounced. The person was heavily intoxicated on alcohol and probably drugs and came barrelling into my apartment yelling obscenities toward someone he thought lived there. I heard the door and his shouting and ran from the living room to my bedroom where my shotgun was. By the time I got back to the hallway he was already stumbling his way out the door. I called the cops, who picked him up outside the building. Turns out he was looking for his girlfriend who lived in the same apartment in the identical building next door. Apparently, they'd been fighting and he went out and got blasted and came back to finish the argument, but was sober enough to realize that my apartment was not hers once he got inside.

While the possibilty of being attacked in my home is slight, it is still worth taking a few sensible precautions against such an eventuality. I was a Boy Scout myself, and I believe firmly in the motto "Be Prepared".

Semper fidelis et semper paratus.

Mike