If you drive and carry a gun, you need to know about the best gun hiding places in your car. Gun owners and law enforcement officers alike always tell stories of leaving guns in their cars for a few hours, only to find their windows smashed and their guns stolen when they return. This means that unless you have a gun safe bolted to the floor of your car, you're always at risk of having your firearm getting discovered.
This is especially true when you leave it in the usual hiding spots: the glove box, the center console storage, or under the seat. In fact, thieves should still have no problem locating it even if you stash it in a toolkit in your trunk, under the jack, or alongside the spare tire.
Best Gun Hiding Places in Your Car
Great Gun Hiding Places Thieves Don't Expect
Leaving your concealed carry weapon (CCW) unattended in your car is like leaving an invitation out for burglars. This is why even if you're just going to the coffee shop, convenience store, or gas station bathroom for a couple of minutes, it's still important to keep your gun safely hidden. After all, a couple of minutes is all it takes for a resourceful crook to get the job done.
There are times when you may not be able to bring your CCW into an establishment because of legal or logistical restrictions, so you have no choice but to leave it in your vehicle.
Don't worry if you don't have a small gun safe in your car. All it takes to secure your firearm is a little creativity. My threat assessment colleague, Gary Hickox, from STARR Systems, in Broomfield, Colorado, recently gave a great workshop on hidden weapons. In his presentation, he not only talked about what we can learn from crooks about hiding weapons, but also what we can do to hide our own firearms from them.
Hide Your Guns In Trash
If you're like most people, you probably already have a lot of unexpected gun hiding spots in your car in the form of garbage. All you really have to do is hide your gun in something that an in-a-big-hurry thief wouldn't bother to check.
Examples would be an old pizza box, a big crumpled empty box of candy, or even one of those huge Big Gulp soda cups, with the straw still inside the lid.
Fast food bags also work great for this purpose. As a general rule, the dumber the idea sounds as a hiding place, the better it is at keeping your guns safe. In fact, some people even use bags filled with seemingly used (i.e., squirted with chocolate sauce) diapers. Using props like this effectively provides camouflage for your firearms as they create an environment no thief would bother looking into—unlike your bag, suitcase, or blazer pocket.
Long story short, pretty much anything that doesn’t look valuable will get the job done. As a matter of fact, we’ve seen plenty of “stash cans” that are made to look like soda containers, salt jars, and even bags of chips. There are also people who cut out gun storage holes in books like the Bible.
What To Remember About Gun Hiding Places In Your Car
There are two things to keep in mind when using either homemade or store-bought gun storage devices. First, always use the same item. Second, don't forget that your gun is in it.
The last thing you want is to end up throwing a $600 handgun away because you forgot that you hid it inside an old pizza box.
Also, be sure to not hide your guns in places that can cause them to go off—even if you're storing them at home. You wouldn't want to end up like former Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief Richard Williams, would you? He forgot that he kept a Glock in the oven, turned it on and was surprised when the gun went off, putting a bullet through his kitchen wall. Other places to avoid storing your firearms are anywhere people can accidentally sit on them or anywhere they can fall off of.
A Final Word On Hiding Your Concealed Carry Weapon
Of course, all these tips only work if no one else—especially children—has access to your car. Keep in mind that given enough time, people would still be able to find your gun, no matter how well hidden it is. This is why you also need complete control over your keys and the locks on your car at all times if you want to keep your guns safe.
The good news is that we are creatures of habit. As long as we follow the exact same routine every time when it comes to hiding our guns in the car, our risk of forgetting to secure them (and the car itself) becomes significantly lower.
Do you have any unexpected gun hiding places to share? Let us know in the comments section below!
Contact Steve at [email protected] or on Twitter @DrSteveAlbrecht
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My Question is why would you Hide a gun in your car. It’s meant to be on your person and concealed. If it don’t show. They don’t know.
Cannot go into Federal Buildings nor many others legally. Airports, etc.
As stated in the article:
“Still, there are just times where you may not be able to bring your CCW into a place because of legal or logistical restrictions. This could include a necessary visit to a government office where they use metal detectors, a professional sports event or Disneyland, where they screen you, or any place you can’t safely carry or store your gun outside your car. Places like the beach, a water park with no lockers, or even visiting someone in certain hospitals where the guards wand everyone who comes inside”.
you have 3 choices
1). carry your firearm and risk the consequences
2) leave your firearm at home
3) leave your firearm in the car
Many professional sport venues wand everyone, some choose random people.Some places guns are “banned”, (stores, banks, events), and you’ll get turned away. Some places guns are illegal to carry, (federal buildings, schools), and you’ll get arrested.
Thanks for telling all the car criminals about where we might hide our firearms from them.
Sometimes the internet hurts so bad!!!
Disagree totally with trying to hide your weapon in a disguised trash bag, pizza box, candy box, etc. Spend the money, get a durable, lockable, and concealable car safe or lock box. These can be totally hidden and also difficult inaccessible by anyone but you or those to whom you share this information. You are taking an unnecessary risk by doing anything else. If I was looking to steal a weapon I would quickly look quickly to determine hiding places and throw anything around like trash to find a weapon as the trash would be in my way. Certainly a weapon hidden would be found quickly. Lock it up, one way, same way, every time.
when you can computor hack a car. like the rash of high-end car burglaries in SF,CA. last year and that many cars can be opened with a tennis ball with a small hole cut in it ,no way can you leave an unlocked gun in your locked vehicle,get safeand chain or cable one under seat if you can’t weld one to the floor ,the way things go you go from theft victim to the guy who didn’t use due diligence to secure your rosco.i’ve seached places before and as professional i can tell you the fifteen minutes for a kid to find it is genorous ,and if you don’t care about damage it takes little time with a good light to search for a gun sized object first everything goes on the pavement… that is everything ….go through all that removed stuff shredding what you must… then back inside all nooks and crannies inside are eyeballed closely,nothing yet ?now you start yanking every piece of plastic that will tear loose by force or feel ,pulling flooring, rugs those little tilted floor plates nothing yet you do it again give the suspect his keys thank them for their cooperation ,give him a business card for future snitching ,and leave usually saying catch you later
It’s a good thing car burglars don’t troll the internet looking for idiots who post places people hide their guns from car burglars!
Yup, good point.