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| Titan Handgun Safe |
I'm looking at handgun safes, small safes used to store handguns. People use them to keep handguns available in case of emergency. I live in a quiet neighborhood, but every so often you hear about somebody making trouble. The odds are against anything happening here, but you never know, do you? Like I am fond of saying - 'big rocks fall out of the sky'. Doesn't happen often, and they seldom hit anybody, but still, you wouldn't want to be standing there. Even if you magically knew where it was going to hit, there is enough randomness in the world that that rock would deviate just a smidge, so anywhere with a hundred yards of that magically spot is going to be very dangerous. And that's only for very small size rocks, say less than 10 pounds. I wonder if anyone has plotted the size of the danger zones created by meteorites of various sizes. I mean the one that took out the Yucatan was probably a pretty good sized rock, maybe even kilometers or so in diameter.
Of course, coming in like they do, a lot of it gets burned up on the way in, so how much of a meteor gets ablated away on the way to impact? I'm sure it depends on the angle the rock comes in on. Heading dead center for Earth, its trajectory would be perpendicular to the surface and it's passage through the atmosphere would be shortest. 100 miles straight down would be over in maybe 10 seconds. Coming in at something less than 45 degrees, you are going to be traveling through atmosphere for a much longer time, maybe even a minute. Plenty of time to ablate you down to nothing, you stupid rock.
Anyway, back on track. Bad things can just strike you out of the blue. The more you are prepared for, the better your chances of living to blog about your experience. I'm still alive and I'm still blogging, so maybe I know what I'm talking about. Or maybe I'm just lucky. Or maybe the hit squad just hasn't shown up yet.
So I'm looking at handgun safes. You ask the Google / Amazon and you get a zillion biometric gun safes. The problem with these things is that they require batteries. I am ambivalent about batteries. In this case I think it's a very bad idea. If I put a gun in a handgun safe, I want to there and accessible for the next century. I don't want to have change the fricking battery every month or year or decade. I don't want to have to change it ever. Smoke alarms are bad enough. I hate those motherfuckers. I put up with them for the one in one zillion chance of there being a fire. I'm not sure which is more paranoid, having smoke detectors or getting a COVID shot? But I use battery powered clocks, and once a year (or two) I have to replace the batteries. That's okay, they don't screech at you incessantly when the battery dies, it's usually pretty obvious when they stop, someone will notice. I think the big reason I don't mind changing their batteries is I like having them around. They are an emblem of stability. If the clock is on the wall, and it is showing the correct time, all is right with the world. If there is anything wrong, an investigation immediately commences. Apparently it is an emotional thing.
And battery powered power tools have taken over the world. The batteries are expensive, but the power! Hoo rah! I feel like a marine!
We've got more stuff being run with batteries now. Telephones, computers and even cars. Shoot, we've even got robots running on batteries. So now I'm envisioning a world where we are surrounded by a plethora of battery powered devices, devices that can perform any function we want, but their batteries are all dead. So now, if you want something done, you need to supply the power. I can see people carrying little pocket book sized battery packs to power whatever device they need to operate. Open the door? Give me a boost. Ride the elevator? Give me a boost. Open my handgun safe? Give me a boost. I don't think I like that, but that might be where we are heading in a hundred years or so. But in a hundred years who knows what the technologists will have come up with. Batteries that last 100 years might be coming out of the factory so fast that they have to pay you to haul them away. Unlikely, but stranger things have happened.
The other alternative is to have it hidden. If you have no kids poking around, then a hiding spot a burglar would overlook in a quick scan to grab and go would be fine.
ReplyDeleteI have a few DeWalt 18 volt battery power tools. I love them. When the batteries go bad, as they do after a few years, I thought your only option was either to throw them in the garbage, or pay to ship them to some "recycler". Yeah, right. Then (thanks to the Goo-Gul) I discovered MTO Battery rebuilding company https://www.mtobattery.com/. Instead of me paying $120 for a new battery, I could have MTO rebuild it (with brand new cells) for $45. The biggest expense was shipping the old batteries to them, so I asked them about options. They said that they had thousands of old battery shells lying around. If I was willing to accept a battery that was scratched, or scuffed, or had paint on it, I could have the shells for free. So I bought two and I was shocked at how well they performed. I asked them about that and they said that they have a system that inspects all new incoming cells and matches the good ones into batches. They reject the marginal ones. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteBTW, if you want to rebuild your own batteries, a set of replacement cells costs about $25. There are plenty of YouTube videos that show you how. But I'm too lazy. For $20 more, I'm getting my rebuilt batteries from MTO.