Where to Hide the Guns

[MTT TL]

Iraq has on paper... the right to keep and bear arms. According to the law, every household may have one rifle and one pistol for every adult male member of the household as well as ammunition and one magazine for each. Shotguns are not restricted (although quite rare). Mosques and certain businesses are allowed weapons based upon the size of each respectively.

In practice due to nearly eight years of continuous civil war and high levels of corruption the law is often not respected or followed by the police or other security agencies. A lot of it depends upon the perception of a police or security force commander. He will favor one area that he believes is supporting his efforts for security and punish another with searches and weapon confiscations if he believes there is a threat there.

There is no effective way to redress for grievances for weapons that are confiscated as the court system is also quite corrupt and not interested in supporting rule of law but in ending the civil war by disarming the populace.

Weapons are easily available however with a full auto AK (with mag and ammo) being available for immediate purchase in most markets with no waiting period for $120-200 USD. A Glock 19 or Berretta 92f is about $900 and may take a few days to acquire due to inventory. There are no official gun shops of course.

While there I noticed that most everyone had a different way of hiding weapons. Most of the weapons were AKs (90%) or Glocks (5%), with a smattering of Sterlings, Enfields, various pistols and a laundry list of others. Most of the AKs either had folding stocks or had the stock removed altogether in order to make it more easily concealed (note: this would be illegal in the US without a permit if the weapon were made too short).

My question is if you lived in Iraq or a similar environment how would you go about hiding your guns to keep the police and other security agents from taking them? Assume that you are living within the legal requirements by law but you could be subject to confiscation at any time any way. You actually really NEED a gun as just about everywhere is unsafe, crime rates are too high to publish and nearly all your neighbors are armed already too.

Most of the areas I observed large caches (held by terrorist cells) were:

- Sewage ponds and sewage tanks
- Various plumbing pipes disguised to look as functional (most plumbing is exposed and not in walls as in the US)
- Buried
- Behind false walls

Areas used by common citizens:
- Under the bed
- In the oven or the pot holder under the oven
- The fridge
- Inside a large cabinet TV with a loose back

So where would you hide yours?

[Doc Intrepid]

Here are some thoughts you might want to consider:

http://www.hiddendoorsbydesign.com/

http://hiddendoors.com/galleryThumb.asp?category=13

http://hiddendoors.com/

http://hiddenpassages.com/

You get the idea...

[MTT TL]

Not a bad idea but likely expensive.

[JWT]

Guns, what guns?

[orionengnr]

Once upon a time I lived in an apartment that had several walls that were wood-paneled (yeah, it was the early 80s).

There was a half-height wall between kitchen and living room that was wood paneled. It was directly adjacent to the front door--when the front door was swung fully open, it would hit this wall.

I carefully removed a section of the wood paneling (about 36" wide, full height) and thereafter stored an AR15, a .22 rifle and a shotgun behind the panelling. The rifles would stand up, leaning against the studs, which were 18" apart.

The piece of panelling was a snug enough fit that I could replace it, and it would stay in place without nails. The seams in the panelling helped in the camoflage. The piece was easily removable to allow access.

I lived there for almost two years, and removed/replaced that piece many times. It was a perfect example of "hiding in plain sight". When I moved out, I put a few small nails in that piece of panelling to secure it in place. These days, I would probably add a piece or two of double-sided carpet tape...but in those days I had never heard of it.

From time to time, I wonder if anyone else has done the same thing. It was an elegant yet simple solution at the time.

These days I have a safe, but I understand this may not be the best option for the OP. And the point is that there is more than one way to skin a cat, especially if you are creative.

[Lee McNelly]

then they can be placed in dishwasher or clothes washer

[Doc Intrepid]

Originally Posted by MTT TL

"Not a bad idea but likely expensive."

Well, it could be I think, but it's all relative.

Example: The Hidden Door company had one of their book cases listed on sale at around $3K. That's about as much as many decent gun safes cost. To conceal a gunsafe behind the bookcase would cost between $6K-$10K perhaps.

But recently I added up the replacement value of all the items in my gun cabinets, including my wife's jewelry, some coins I own, and all the rest of the miscellaneous items. Including all the guns, magazines, etc, the total replacement value if I lost it all came to around $60K. This was for a homeowners insurance policy, and I'm sure that most of us have gone through a similar exercise (if you own a home)...

Considering that if thieves have to find the safe before they can crack the safe, it somehow seems reasonable to me to spend $6K-$10K to secure $60K or so...particularly if some of your guns are collectables or are otherwise not easily replaced.

But I realize that is a personal decision, and your mileage may vary...

[jason_iowa]

Floor to ceiling PVC pipe cut out on the back side. Duct work works well too. PVC sealed with some silicone packets buried in the back yard works too. Post hold digger. You wanna go a foot + deep to avoid typical metal detectors. You want to seal it well. With all the construction stuff around Iraq atm it will be easy to find stuff. Make sure you have a hand saw to open it incase you have no electricity to run a sawsall.

[kraigwy]

In my pocket

[armoredman]

Nowadays a lot of people are hiding their guns at the pawnshop.

[ripnbst]

My handgun is either hidden on my nightstand or on my hip and my shotgun is cleverly concealed leaning in the corner of my bedroom. You'd never see em in their storage locations because they'd be pointed at you before you got that far.

If you are looking to conceal them without easy access being a concern most have kitchen cabinets hanging on the wall that stop before the ceiling. On top of them would be a great place that many wouldn't even think to look.

I would say to sit down in each room of your house, and then look at places in the room that your eye never really naturally goes. This is actually not an easy task and requires a calm state of mind to do well. For example who ever looks at the terminating top of their cabinets? No one, its a forgotten area. Those are the types of places you want to put your stuff.

When I first thought to put stuff there I thought, "Do my cabinets terminate at the ceiling? I don't even know, and I am in my kitchen daily." But they almost never do.

[Dwight55]

One of the slickest I ever saw was a lady I used to work with. She was a single mom, . . . and to my knowledge feared no one and nothing.

She did have a couple of hand guns, though, and her "home" gun stayed in her bathroom, . . . on a cup hook, . . . hung just below the sink, . . . above the double door that accesses the sink cabinet.

I would have opened the doors looking for a gun, . . . checked the drawers, . . . but would never have thought to run my hand up to the sink.

She opined that since the bath room was her "hole up" room, . . . makes sense to have the firepower there too.

Made sense to me.

May God bless,
Dwight

[Ed Jaws]

Pretty nifty idea with the cup hook in the bathroom vanity except for the possible rust inducing high humidity in that area.

But... as a shout back to WildBill45's topic "Where do you draw the line?"... perhaps not a good idea to share hiding places for weapons as most break-ins are looking for guns in the first place.

Just a thought.

Ed

[carguychris]

FWIW when I was a kid, I lived in a house in which a previous owner had constructed a swing-out built-in bookcase with a rifle rack and a bunch of drawers behind it. It did not lock, but it had a magnetic closer that required a smart tug to open, so the shelves didn't wobble if you prodded them. The hinges were hidden behind the trim and were sturdy enough that the unit could be swung out while fully loaded with hardback books. The shelves were built across a wall at a doorless and windowless end of a room with perpendicular walls on both sides, so the extra thickness of the wall wasn't obvious; one would need to measure both the room and the adjacent one to realize that ~12" was "missing".

This always struck me as one of the most clever home security devices I've seen. I'd like to duplicate it, but my home doesn't have an obvious place where the extra wall thickness could be easily hidden.