Just another day in New Orleans

I think if you have a bunch of hunting rifles or guns used for something not protection related, it’s not unreasonable to keep them in a safe. But if you’ve purchased a gun for home protection and there aren’t any children or unstable adults in the house, then the whole purpose of that gun is lost if it’s locked in a safe.

If a serial killer rapist is breaking into my home, I can’t be like “hold on sir. Give me a minute to go to my closet and unlock the safe so I can get my gun and protect myself from you”. I’d already be dead.

While this is an intuitively appealing argument, there is no evidentiary basis for the proposition that having ready access to a firearm in the home is effective as a form of self-defence (when compared to not having such access), but ample evidence to suggest that unsafe gun storage materially increases the risk of unintentional/accidental injuries or death:

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use/