Hide the Gun
“Someone is coming over baby so put away the gun.” This is normal conversation between my LEO and I each time someone new comes over to our home. I remember a time when my LEO first started at the police department. Seeing him handle his firearm so comfortably while I was so uncomfortable around it almost seemed unnatural to me. It was not that I was necessarily afraid of lethal weapon in my home. There was never a time in my life when I had exposure and experience with firearms up until my husband came into my life.
Officer 24/7
LEOs carrying while they are off-duty is a part of the job. When a LEO takes their oath, they understand their responsibilities even when they are ‘not on the clock.’ For the most part, many LEOs try to shut it off when they are not working. Turning it off tends to tune LEOs into the awareness of their surroundings even more. This results in them feeling the need to be protected at all times. I know that for my LEO, there are very few places that he ever goes where he doesn’t carry.
I Love Shooting Now
The more that I saw my LEO clean his firearms, the more curious I became. He started to educate me on some basics such as hollow point bullets and the standard operations of most firearms. Eventually this turned into him taking me shooting for the first time. It surprised me how comfortable I was to shoot a gun for the very first time. For several weekends, he would put up with my requests to go to the range. I fell in love with shooting and now my husband can easily accept the blame for my expensive habit.
Gun Safe
We do not have children in the home but we do have a gun safe that we use to store our guns that are not in use. If you own a firearm, I would recommend a gun safe and not just a safe place for your gun. We have found that this safe works best for us to keep track of and properly store everything in a gun safe. It wasn’t fun to shell out the cost of such a safe, but we are glad we did. We had several huge fires close to our home last year. The safe is convenient because we also store our important documents in it. We were evacuated, twice due to the fires. We were able to go to the safe to pack up the valuable forms instead of running around the house as the flames got closer. All was well for us after the fires, thankfully!
In the past there have been times when my husband is a little sloppy when he carries. I say sloppy because for him, he is so used to carrying openly at work. The transition from carrying at home makes concealing his firearm less important at times. This is something that used to drive me crazy but he has gotten a lot better with it.
Firearm Safety
If you aren’t comfortable around guns, there is nothing wrong with that. What I can recommend is that you ask your LEO to educate you on the fundamentals of a firearm. This will promote firearm safety in the home. You may hate to hear it, but you never know if you yourself will have to use a firearm one day. In saying that, it never hurts to learn anything.
Know today and always that I think that you are beautiful, you are strong, you are LEO Warriors.
