Best Ima…
You are asking a very reasonable question.
Since some family members (i.e. children and grandchildren) do know me by my A.O.M. name on YWN, and might possibly (though I doubt it)read this, I will not answer TOO specifically, but suffice it to say, that the magazine of bullets, is kept in a seperate location from the gun itself (which is kept unloaded).
Both the gun and the magazine are out of sight. Obviously I know where both are, and the gun can be taken from it’s hiding place AND loaded in less than a minute.
I am extremely safety conscious. Just as a point of interest, when I was in my early twenties, I spent a year and a half on a border kibbutz in Israel. I would constantly get into an argument with my Israeli roommate who often did night-time shmira (guard duty). He had a habit, when he would drag himself into our room around sunrise, of leaving a loaded Uzi on our desk. I would yell at him about how dangerous that was because young kibbutz kids would often come visit us in our room. When I saw he was ignoring my warnings, I started removing the magazine from the gun myself and hiding both the gun and the mag in different places. After his having been annoyed by my actions several times, and having to get me to give him back the Uzi and the ammo, he finally got the hint, and started to do the right thing on his own.
So, yes, keeping a gun safely is an extremely serious responsibility, but, it CAN be done.