From Bluesun.
Just out of curiosity, does/has anyone out there in the wide wide world of the interwebz sleep/slept with a gun under their pillow? And why?
Now first its his question not mine, so if you have an answer, feel free to comment here, but DEFINITELY comment over there.
My answer is “No”. I sleep with one arm under my pillow so I’d be worried the gun would either get pushed someplace I didn’t want it while I slumbered, or might be discharged. Massachusetts (illegally) requires all unattended guns to be locked, so its moot in my house, but in the various free states I’ve been do I’ve certainly locked the relevant doors unholstered the gun and put it on the nightstand or in a drawer. Loaded and ready to go. If everybody who will legally enter that space knows how to handle a gun (I will not leave a loaded gun lying around in a place where small children or people unfamiliar with guns about, even if it would be inappropriate for them to enter where the gun is).
I’ve never done this for any sort of romantic-type reason. I’ve never been concerned that my door might be breached and violent marauders might attempt to kill me in my sleep, so my at-the-ready gun would be my only hope. I DO know that home invasions are real things and a gun rendered totally inoperable is a greater liability than one that isn’t in the event of an attack, because the gun won’t save you but your attacker may still steal it to use it in a later crime. Also its easier and safer to not fiddle with you gun. Take the gun out and set it down, sleep, then in the morning do a quick chamber-check and then re-holster.
I personally suspect that sleeping with a gun under your pillow is an invention of pulp and espionage writers to add an allure of edgy danger to a protagonist or villain. If there are people who have stuck a gun under their pillow, I’m betting that it was some wannabe doing it because “James Bond does that!” rather than actually thinking it was a good idea.
So go let Bluesun know!
Anecdotally, didn’t one of safety incidents that lead to Bill Ruger putting transfer bars on all his Single Action Revolvers involve something like that? A guy (college student?) dropped his .44 magnum blackhawk off the edge of the bed while it was loaded six up, it landed on the hammer, fired, and shot him in the chest. I think he was crippled for life and would have been killed if the hollowpoint had expanded.
Yeah I don’t do it either. I have a small gun safe in the bedroom with my loaded pistol and gear in it. I’ve dropped the Directv and ceiling fan remotes off the bed behind the headboard enough during the night that I don’t want to do it with loaded firearm. Mine are all of dropsafe vintages but still.
That problem is likely MUCH older than that. All the old west cowboys, lawmen, and gunslingers all loaded their guns with the hammer on an empty chamber, and I even read somewhere that legendary lawman Wyatt Earp had an ND when a peacemaker fell out of his holster and landed on the hammer.
Still I suspect a gunman going to a showdown or a duel might load up with all 6 charge holes because more bullets is more better. So anybody able to make a revolver that could safely carry all 6 shells and only discharge when the hammer was cocked and the trigger pulled would be a HUGE advantage.
All my carry guns are dropsafe as well.
Under the pillow in the theatrical sense? Are you crazy? That’s about as unsafe a scenario as one could imagine.
That said, I have slept with a pistol under a pillow. Many times. And, in every case, whichever pistol I slept upon was holstered either in a SafePacker under the pillow or in my Maxpedition Mongo, which served as the pillow.
Usually while traveling or camping.
The biggest reason, though, is because I can.
— though, in retrospect, that last sentence makes me sound a bit like Tackleberry from the Police Academy movies.
While I’m sleeping, my carry gun stays in a holster on my bed but not under a pillow. (I don’t have a nightstand, I sleep alone, and my bed is large, so I can keep it out of potential sleep flailing range while still having it close at hand.) As a college student living at home (free rent is free ya know?) my bedroom is a converted den at the front of the house, so my bed is literally 6 feet away from the front door. If a home invasion were to unfortunately occur, I would have almost 0 time to react, so being able to access the gun without an inordinate amount of time or movement is important for my specific situation (more so than for many people whose bedrooms are relatively far from the most likely points of entry).
I keep mine on the nightstand next to my bed (loaded of course!) Under the pillow just seems like an accident waiting to happen.
It was just an interesting question I was wondering about. I think I agree with you Weer’d–there are better ways to have a gun handy than under your pillow.
It was an interesting question, and I’m happy to see all the answers over at your place.
While I’ve never slept with a firearm under my pillow, I have slept with an M16A1 inside my sleeping bag. My primary concern in that situation, though, was keeping my drill sergeants from disarming me in my sleep during our basic training FTX…. 😉
AuricTech,
I ended up sleeping with 2 M16s through some of Marine combat training because they guy I shared a tent with on a few field exercises couldn’t deal with having a rifle in his sleeping bag.
s
You heard it first here, People! USMC Condones polygamy! 😉
Yeah totally gonna be quote of the day!
Didn’t FDR and his wife sleep with loaded guns under their pillows named “His” and “Hers”?
I know they were big carriers of guns as well as being filthy commies and the first American Dictatorship.
IIRC FDR carried a .32 Browning and Ellie packed a S&W M&P .38
Dunno how they managed them in the sleeping arrangements, but I suspect the two had separate beds anyway.
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I have a rig I’ve made for myself that will be stable between the mattress and box-spring. It works quite well, has excellent retention, and avoids the ‘fall out of bed’ syndrome.
When I have a bed with a frame which has a lip, I have been known to also put a holster (typically the clip from the ‘in-the-pants’ style) on that, and leave it there. Cheapy Uncle Mike’s holsters tend to actually work quite well for that. Hey, everything has a use, right?
Brother Beard, I think the 1st American Dictatorship would go to Woody Wilson. Secret Police Force, Hundreds of Thousands arrested, First Major Attempt to set up One World Gov’t ( League of Nations), there is a lot of Crap that “Progressive” tried to pull.
Never been one for under the pillow (that’s where my arm goes, yo) but whatever pistol I carried that day (usually the CZ-82 or the Taurus snub) and its reload are on my nightstand, literally 12″ from my head.
BTW how do you carry the 82? Condition 1, or Condition 2?