bedstand gun illegal?

Cross-X said:
Here's a number for you: (508) 879-5879.

That's my office phone number. Call me when you get charged with a secure storage violation. [thinking]

A gun under your pillow is not under your control if you are asleep. If you think otherwise, it should be an interesting trial should you get caught. [hmmm]
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Darius,

Thanks for the segue!

I didn't want to muddy up my prior reply with this topic.

Food for thought!

- It's a common "dirty little secret" that at least in the days of yor, night shift officers would find a cozy little place (like a F&G club or behind a church), park the cruiser, and doze off for a while. Are they in "direct control" of their firearm? Or are they subject to prosecution for illegal storage?

[hmmm] [pot]
 
Cross-X said:
Whoever told you that was completely wrong. Loaded guns, including those with a round in the chamber, can be stored, carried, or under the control of a properly licensed person, legally in MA.
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Just to clarify so I have this straight: You can store a gun loaded in your home with a trigger lock or in a secure container BUT when stored or transported in a car it must be in a container (or locked trunk) and unloaded.

Is this correct?
 
Another_David said:
Just to clarify so I have this straight: You can store a gun loaded in your home with a trigger lock or in a secure container BUT when stored or transported in a car it must be in a container (or locked trunk) and unloaded.

Is this correct?
Click to expand...


Unless you have a Class A Unrestricted license. Then it can be loaded and on your person.

ETA- and CONCEALED, lest I bring the ire of the gun lords upon me.
 
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I am with ateamrob on this.

I hear everyone clearly. But if my passive or non-passive alarm goes off, I got a loaded gun in my hand ready let rounds fly. I would hope the intruder would leave. Because with children in the house, I find it hard to believe a jury would find me guilty if he attacked me.

Its almost impossible to sneak up on me while sleeping. And a Leo is not going to sneak into my house and catch me asleep with the loaded gun next to me.

Personally, I do not practice this. I have a safe that I can open quickly. But if I did do this, no one would ever know.
 
Like I already said-

HAVE A SAFE. Nobody can prove whether or not you were using it as long as you open it before the police show up.

Make sure to say nothing other than, "I heard a noise, I reached over, OPENED MY SAFE, pulled out my firearm..."
 
Another_David said:
Just to clarify so I have this straight: You can store a gun loaded in your home with a trigger lock or in a secure container BUT when stored or transported in a car it must be in a container (or locked trunk) and unloaded.

Is this correct?
Click to expand...


Ahhh, I'm surprised no one picked up on this... PLEASE don't use a trigger lock on a loaded gun.... not good.
 
I wonder if you use a gun lock (I know, they don't really work, but they satisfy the law), whether you keep a key hidden nearby and then just insert the key into the lock or even unlock it every night when you go to bed and then lock it again in the morning would work OK. I imagine it satisfies the letter of the law except for the time it is unlocked. I wouldn't suggest this, especially for homes with children, but it may work for someone. Is there any law against leaving a key in the lock?

LenS said:
"Under Direct Control" - a phrase that is subject to INTERPRETATION!

- As a chief who doesn't believe that the public should be armed, that sort of person's take would be that if you are sitting on a toilet with a IWB/OWB holster on your pants . . . you don't have "direct control".

...
Click to expand...

Hey, Clint Eastwood had pretty good control even while taking a bath! I think John Wayne maybe too. [wink]
 
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Hey guys,

I was just searching around for the answer to this and found this thread.

Here's my situation:

I keep a shotgun mounted in a rack right next to my bed. This is not a locking rack, it's just for retention purposes (so it doesn't fall over). Every evening when I come home from work, I take the shotgun out of my safe and put it in the rack. Every morning when I go to work (or if I go out at any time), I put it back in the safe.

From my new understanding from reading this thread, this is actually illegal. I have no kids, the house is securely locked while I am home. I put the shotgun away if I have company. No one else has access to the shotgun except me. But this is still illegal right?

My only option is to just keep the gun in the safe when I'm home (and asleep), right?

God that is stupid if it's true. I'm tempted to just store it any way I like, but I just know Murphy's law is gonna hit me. There could be a fire or something at night and the cops will find the shotgun just sitting in a rack next to my bed. Goodbye license forever.

I guess I'm gonna have to buy a handgun and keep it in a mini safe next to the bed. Or just keep it on me all the time. The big safe might take too long to get to if I ever needed it.

Dope
 
They make a locking device that bolts to the wall and will legally secure a loaded long gun (covers trigger mechanism). I think I saw it at Northeast Trading in N. Attleboro and it's in the $50 price-range.

Not to say that a chief/prosecutor will say that having the key in the same room, while you sleep (using same "not under direct control" excuse), may provoke them to still bring "illegal storage" charges.

I just hope I never live in a neighborhood where I seriously have to worry about armed home invasions enough to consider such measures. [I'm not saying that I don't take some precautions, just that this is so unlikely to happen around here (1 or 2 TARGETED home invasions/year maybe, usually less on average) that it's not high on the radar screen.]
 
the house is securely locked while I am home.
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No matter how many locks you have on your doors and windows, no matter how hard it is for a BG to break into your house, if you leave one gun out in your house without a lock on it, and someone manages to break in, YOU are the guilty one when it gets stolen.

Great state isn't it?
 
Pilgrim said:
No matter how many locks you have on your doors and windows, no matter how hard it is for a BG to break into your house, if you leave one gun out in your house without a lock on it, and someone manages to break in, YOU are the guilty one when it gets stolen.

Great state isn't it?
Click to expand...

Well yes, I agree. But as I mentioned, this is when I *am* home. So if someone manages to break in, they will have a hard time stealing it because I will be holding it at that point. ;) When I'm *not* home, then it gets locked in the safe.

I realize there are locking racks for storing guns, but that was the whole point. If I wanted to store it, I'd leave it in the safe. If I want to have it actually ready, I leave it out. Having to unlock it from a rack or stand is just as slow as opening the safe and taking it out.

Maybe I'll just buy a sling and keep it on me all the time while I'm at home. It will go well with my tinfoil hat.

*sigh*

Edit: in response to LenS, I too live in a town where home invasions are extremely rare (in fact, I've never heard of one happening ever). It's for peace of mind. I sleep better at night. That's the main reason I have it. In addition, I like the old adage "It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it".

Dope
 
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So the moral of this entire thread, is....

Buy yourself a cheep little safe, and mount it under the bed, and leave it open at all times empty. Sleep soundly with your firearm under your pillow, or on your night stand, or your shotty in the corner of the room. If you have to use your firearm in self defense, you only have to TELL when questioned that you retrieved your legally stored firearm out of your locked and secured safe from under the bed.

I get it now... [wink]

And Darius... I keep one of your cards in my wallet at all times!
 
Let's forget all the abstract arguments for a moment and talk about the real world. Let's say that you keep a loaded firearm next to your bed for protection. Now how exactly would you get arrested for illegal storage? If the police end up searching your home for some reason while you're not around, then the firearm was unquestionably not stored legally: it's unsecured and you're nowhere around. If you're there in the bedroom, then unless you're catatonic, I'd hope that you could grab the gun before anyone could enter the room. If the police did somehow manage to enter the room before you picked it up, you could simply assert that you just put the gun down in order to be safe, since you knew it was the police. Bottom line: there shouldn't be any problem with keeping the gun unsecured while you're actually there, but you've got definite problems if you're not there. Arguments about whether or not it's actually under your direct control while you're sleeping fall into the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" category.

Ken
 
Adam_MA said:
So the moral of this entire thread, is....

Buy yourself a cheep little safe, and mount it under the bed, and leave it open at all times empty. Sleep soundly with your firearm under your pillow, or on your night stand, or your shotty in the corner of the room. If you have to use your firearm in self defense, you only have to TELL when questioned that you retrieved your legally stored firearm out of your locked and secured safe from under the bed.

I get it now... [wink]

And Darius... I keep one of your cards in my wallet at all times!
Click to expand...
Also, do be sure to not fire more than one round because one would not want to look like a Rambo type infront of a MA attorney[wink]
 
I fully believe that having a firearm in the bedroom is a very good thing. For me though, I'm more then a little afraid to keep it unlocked at my bedside. Back some years ago before I had my gun license my wife was working an overnight shift, but wasn't feeling well so she came home early. I was sound asleep and she didn't want to turn on a light to wake me. When I heard the door of my bedroom creek open, I bolted out of bed and started swinging thinking it was an intruder. You know that haze your in sometimes where your awake but not really. That was the state I was in. I hit my wife twice before I actually realized she was screaming it was her from the floor. I never felt so bad in my life, plus I was so pumped with adreniline that I was shaking. My concern with keeping a loaded hangun on my bedside is that I probably would of shot her if had a gun then. For me, I'll take the extra few seconds to get it out of the safe.
 
KMaurer said:
Let's forget all the abstract arguments for a moment and talk about the real world. Let's say that you keep a loaded firearm next to your bed for protection. Now how exactly would you get arrested for illegal storage? If the police end up searching your home for some reason while you're not around, then the firearm was unquestionably not stored legally: it's unsecured and you're nowhere around. If you're there in the bedroom, then unless you're catatonic, I'd hope that you could grab the gun before anyone could enter the room. If the police did somehow manage to enter the room before you picked it up, you could simply assert that you just put the gun down in order to be safe, since you knew it was the police. Bottom line: there shouldn't be any problem with keeping the gun unsecured while you're actually there, but you've got definite problems if you're not there. Arguments about whether or not it's actually under your direct control while you're sleeping fall into the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" category.

Ken
Click to expand...

This is way too logical[wink]
 
KMaurer said:
Let's forget all the abstract arguments for a moment and talk about the real world. Let's say that you keep a loaded firearm next to your bed for protection. Now how exactly would you get arrested for illegal storage? If the police end up searching your home for some reason while you're not around, then the firearm was unquestionably not stored legally: it's unsecured and you're nowhere around. If you're there in the bedroom, then unless you're catatonic, I'd hope that you could grab the gun before anyone could enter the room. If the police did somehow manage to enter the room before you picked it up, you could simply assert that you just put the gun down in order to be safe, since you knew it was the police. Bottom line: there shouldn't be any problem with keeping the gun unsecured while you're actually there, but you've got definite problems if you're not there. Arguments about whether or not it's actually under your direct control while you're sleeping fall into the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" category.

Ken
Click to expand...

Finally! This thread was getting a bit tedious.

[smile]
 
I've got little kids. Absolutely need it locked up. I use a V-Line mehanical locking box. Didn't want to deal with electronic locks and dead batteries at the worst possible time. Can get into it without my head leaving the pillow in 3-seconds or less. My one and only complaint about the V-lines are they are not silent when the buttons are pushed.

Also, I like to have it in there ALL the time. Knowing I can always retreat to that spot (because it also contains hard line phone, cell phone, window ladder, 3d maglite, tact. light, etc.) is very reassuring.
 
Rockrivr1 said:
I fully believe that having a firearm in the bedroom is a very good thing. For me though, I'm more then a little afraid to keep it unlocked at my bedside. Back some years ago before I had my gun license my wife was working an overnight shift, but wasn't feeling well so she came home early. I was sound asleep and she didn't want to turn on a light to wake me. When I heard the door of my bedroom creek open, I bolted out of bed and started swinging thinking it was an intruder. You know that haze your in sometimes where your awake but not really. That was the state I was in. I hit my wife twice before I actually realized she was screaming it was her from the floor. I never felt so bad in my life, plus I was so pumped with adreniline that I was shaking. My concern with keeping a loaded hangun on my bedside is that I probably would of shot her if had a gun then. For me, I'll take the extra few seconds to get it out of the safe.
Click to expand...

I would actually say that is a great reason to keep the gun as close and accessible as possible. What would you do if she was an actual intruder, ask her to wait while you opened your safe? This is also why I do not turn off all the lights, because otherwise you can't see shit.
 
Okay. I understand the particular law and verbage, blah, blah, blah.

I"m with Ken. The only time an LEO is going to come in my house and worry about the aforementioned "gun" is because I had to inflict serious bodily harm to another. [thinking]

So. Do you secure the aforementioned weapon in the safe after said encounter and before the LEOs arrive?

And then I shutup and hopefully have my attorney present or on the way. [smile]

Am I missing something here?
 

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