Guns Safe is Foolproof – Until Kids Crack the Code

Somewhere in Bass-ackwards, USA a modern day June Cleaver feels secure because “Ward” has assured her that his arsenal of funs are perfectly safe from the kids who often romp around their home unsupervised with pals. Why does she feel so secure? Well, shucks honey, because we have a gun safe! You can’t open these babies without the code, June. They’re foolproof. Yes ma’am, this steel reinforced baby has a super secure, modern key less lock and is state of the art, no worries!

This may be the thinking of many parents and others who feel their guns are safely put away. This would be wrong thinking, since a 10 year old boy, his older brother, and a cousin came across one of those super safes at Sam’s Club.

Mom claims she was distracted for only five minutes. In that five minutes, the boys played with the key pad on the lock and managed to open the door to the 5' by 30” safe. This indicates a vocational tendency toward cat burglary, or more likely he’s a normal kid. Of course, the 10 yr old crawled in to see how it looked from that vantage point which is when it was discovered that while he couldn’t be locked out, he certainly could be locked in. While the fire department prepared to force the door, employees placed a frantic call to the manufacturer. Fortunately there was an override code, unfortunately another safety feature was a five minute delay so the code cannot immediately be changed. Obviously the manufacturer was thinking of emergencies where people would be on the outside, the guns inside. This gave the 10 year old more than enough time to examine the inside, and become hot and frightened.

As with most things which require a keypad, the manufacturer might consider employing a team of kids to safety check these things, it would be well worth the money. In their off time, the group could travel the country programming digital clocks, DVD’s, VCR’s and other every day devices which are still a mystery for some, but seem to come naturally to those in a certain age range. I can even imagine national competitions. It makes more sense than stuffing hot dogs, and might help the industry. I know they could beat their personal best now that they're more familiar with the lock system.Read rest of story here AP 8/14/07