Do YOU own any of the following? If the answer is YES, you should consider getting safe:
| 1. Guns — anything from a M1911 to an AR-15 2. Firearms records and receipts 3. Cash that you want to keep close at hand 4. Gold, silver, other precious metals 5. Stock certificates 6. Savings bonds 7. Insurance documents — life insurance policies, fire insurance records (pity if those burnt!) 8. Birth certificates (don’t forget your kids and other family) 9. Death certificates (not for yourself, obviously) 10. Real estate documents — home titles, rental agreements 11. Social security card | 12. Military records (and military decorations) 13. Passports 14. Valuable digital data (external hard drive) 15. Medical records 16. Diplomas, vocational certifications 17. Estate planning documents, wills, power of attorney 18. Any valuable collectibles — coins, baseball cards 19. Valuable jewelry — grandma’s diamond ring, perhaps? 20. Family photos that you don’t want to go up in smoke 21. Tax returns (never know — god forbid — when the taxman might come knocking) |
Why might you want to get a safe for all that stuff above?
Well, just read the following 11 statements out loud to yourself. If you AGREE with any one of them, you ought to get yourself a safe!
Table of Contents
11 Reasons to get a safe
1. I don’t want to lose everything I hold dear to a fire
Fire doesn’t care about your kids’ birth certificates.
Fire doesn’t care if you were planning to pass that bottle of whisky down to your son on his 21st birthday.
Fire doesn’t care that you visited ten different gun shows before you finally found that genuine Singer M1911A1.
Fire destroys, and it destroys without mercy…. unless you have a safe.
Don’t think that fire’s going to ignore you.
In America, a structure fire gets reported around once every minute. Close to half a million structure fires happened in the US, and that’s just in 2016.
How much value went up in flames, you might ask? Well, according to companies that provide fire insurance, between 2011-2015 the average damage from each structure fire reported to them was $43,983. $43,983… let that sink in. That could be a whole year’s salary!
Sure, you might say “I’m going to be careful, I’m not going to let some spark in the kitchen burn down my house!” Sometimes, it’s not up to you. Even if you’re careful, your neighbors might not be. Mother nature sometimes will do her thing too… just think of those forest fires that happen in California every year. Each one of those fires causes BILLIONS in damage.
And that’s just monetary value. Don’t even get me started about sentimental value. There’s no way to quantify how many family heirlooms, how many photo albums of beloved children, have just gone up in flames as a result of fires.
Then there’s also the practical issue of recovering from a fire. Let’s say you’ve got all the insurance in the world, and a bunch of cash stashed away in case something bad happens. Well, insurance documents and cash just happen to be flammable… so if you leave them exposed… oof! When a fire happens, you are going to be out of luck.
That cash will just be burned to a crisp. Sure, you might be able to phone your insurance company and wrangle back the details of that insurance policy. But just think about it. Do you want to get put on hold for hours? Do you want that big insurance company to take advantage of you at your most vulnerable point?
If you ever find yourself in that kind of situation, I offer you my most sincere condolences. But I’m also going to offer you a solution so that you DON’T have to get into that situation to start with!
There’s an EASY way to protect your important documents, and other valuables — whether they have monetary or sentimental value. That way is called a SAFE.
There are many safes that provide fire resistance. You stick your valuables inside, and even if — god forbid — a fire happens, those valuables stay safe inside.
Of course, you’ve got to make sure you get a safe that’ll actually withstand the fire long enough, but no worries there. You can check out my thoroughly researched lists of fireproof home safes and gun safes and get started with protecting yourself.
As I said, fire doesn’t have mercy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared.
2. I don’t want some dirty thief to rob me blind
As a gun owner, I once thought “heck, if anyone tries to come in and burgle my house, I can stop them with no problem.”
Well, as it turns out, the vast majority of burglaries happen when you’re outside the house. So I was pretty wrong back then, because I wouldn’t even be around to stop those burglars!
One of the worst things you can come home to after a long day of work, or a couple hours of lugging shopping bags for the missus, is finding your house broken into and your valuables stolen.
It happens more often than you think. Someone in America gets burgled every 18 seconds. According to the FBI, in 2015, there were almost 8 million reported property crimes in the US (there could be far more unreported crimes). All that resulted in losses exceeding $14.3 billion, which is almost $2,000 per crime.
Adding insult to injury, the vast majority of property crimes never get solved. Most cases aren’t reported to start with, and only 1 out of 10 cases that are reported get some kind of resolution. When a burglar takes something away, you can be pretty sure you’re not going to see it again.
Of course, if you put your valuables in a safe, a burglar is going to have a very hard time robbing you blind. Once you get a safe that’s strong enough to withstand some nasty burglar’s assaults, you can feel a lot more at ease.
3. I don’t want a flood to wash my valuables away
If you live in hurricane territory, you better pay close attention to this one. Heck, even if you don’t around where hurricanes strike, you still ought to pay attention. You might live near a river, or a pipe might burst in your basement.
Floods are actually the #1 cause of disaster in the United States! According to FEMA, you have a 26% chance of experiencing a flood within the life of a 30 year mortgage. That’s a one in four chance!
Imagine this: Your family’s out of town for Christmas, driving to your favorite Aunt Janie’s place. You’ve got the car radio on, but suddenly those Christmas carols get interrupted by a news alert.
WARNING: there’s a flash flood back in Maycomb! Anyone around Elkhorn Street — protect yourselves!
Maycomb? That’s your hometown.
Elkhorn Street? That’s where your house is.
Your heart starts to race. Aunt Janie’s place is 100 miles from home! You’re not going to be able to get back in time to line your house with sandbags, or move things to higher ground. The waters are rising fast!
Christmas happens at Aunt Janie’s, her house is safe. But the holiday cheer has been sucked dry.
The day after Christmas, there’s darkness in the air. Fortunately the floodwaters have receded, but the radio said Elkhorn Street was struck hard. You drive back along roads still choked with muck. Your kids, your wife — everyone in the car stays silent.
Home comes into view. A knot tightens in your stomach, because you know it’s been hit. There’s an obvious line — three feet high, caked with mud and grime — that marks where the floodwaters reached.
There’s two ways this story can end.
Ending #1….
You step into the house. Everything’s gutted. It smells like a funeral parlor. You rush for your desk, where you’ve kept your daughter’s birth certificates. But your mind’s also on rebuilding — which doesn’t come cheap. Grandpaw gave you some bearer bonds that were also in the desk… If you could just find them….
And find them you do. Except those bearer bonds don’t look like bearer bonds anymore. They’re brown, soggy… like used toilet paper. Your daughters’ birth certificates? Melded into a fat wad of half-rotted, useless dead trees.
Ending #2…
You step into the house. You know it’s going to smell like a funeral parlor, and you know there’s been damage.
But — you have a waterproof safe. You don’t open it immediately, but once you clean things well enough, you spin the lock and… pop! Your daughters’ birth certificates? Good as the day there were born. Those bearer bonds? Haven’t aged a day, and they’re now going to help you rebuild.
How do you want YOUR story to end? I’m guessing you’d want Ending #2… heck, that’s what I’d want. Not all safes are waterproof, but there are many that are. So if you’re at any risk for floods, I’m going to trust you to be proactive about it and get one of those waterproof safes. I don’t want your life to get washed away.
4. I want my family heirlooms stay around for future generations
Family comes first, and a big part of family is heirlooms. In my opinion, when you don’t protect your heirlooms, it’s like you’re not protecting your family.
Unfortunately, there are thieves out there with no morals, who think of your heirlooms as something that they can make a quick buck off of (maybe even to buy drugs with).
Ugh — imagine that. Some good-for-nothing thief snatching Aunt Maude’s old brooch, made around the time of the Civil War, and selling it for a quick high. Or maybe that thief saw Greatuncle Richard’s Silver Star from Guadalcanal and thought it might be something worth bringing to the pawn shop (which would be a federal crime, good riddance — but some heartless people still do it!).
Fortunately, it’s easy to protect your family legacy with a safe, and there are plenty of safes out there that are perfect for heirlooms like jewelry and more.
5. I’m a gun owner who has kids
You want your kids to grow up in an environment that respects the Second Amendment. As part of that, you want them to know that, when it comes to guns, safety always comes first.
There’s no better way to keep your kids safe than to put your firearms in a highly secure safe. You never know what the tots might get up to and, god forbid, what might happen as a result.
According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2,549 children died by accidental gunshot wounds in 2014, and 13,576 were injured. 89% of those accidental gunshot deaths happened at home, when children were playing with loaded guns while their parents were away.
Your children deserve better than to become yet another statistic. Children, after all, are more precious than even cash and gold. This isn’t something you should cut corners on.
6. I live in one of the 28 US states/territories with a firearm access prevention law
You’re a law abiding citizen… and if you live in any of the 28 states listed below, there are laws on the books that require you to restrict access to weapons stored in homes with children.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin (Source)
Without getting into too many of the details, specific requirements will differ from state-to-state.
California, DC, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Texas (yes, even Texas!) have some of the strictest laws. In those states, you will be criminally liable if you simply allow a child to gain access to a firearm, regardless of whether the child uses the firearm or causes injury.
Putting your firearm in a highly secure safe will guarantee that you comply with even those super-strict states, and give you additional peace of mind. It’s a simple step that will pay big dividends.
7. I don’t want some gang member to break in and steal my gun
It might seem like something out of TV, but it’s more likely than you think.
On average, one gun is stolen every single minute in the United States. Those guns then go on to get used in vicious crimes — even murder.
With sanctuary cities popping up all over our country and gangs like MS-13 plaguing our neighborhoods, you never know if some hooligan is going to come for your legitimately obtained firearms.
Locking your guns up at home, and adequately securing them in your car, will go a long way to keeping legitimate guns out of the hands of illegitimate criminals.
Legitimate gun owners like you and me should take a stand against these hooligans and lock our guns up! It’s that simple.
We must protect ourselves, we must protect our guns, and we must protect our country!
8. I don’t want to get sued
God forbid your legitimately owned gun gets stolen and used in a crime, or otherwise discharged without your knowledge.
As it turns out, you might end up getting sued for failing to secure your weapon.
Take it from Tom Gorman, head of New Orleans’ Sheriff’s Office Investigation Bureau, who compared firearm liability to liability for automobile negligence: “Anyone who owns weapons, whether it’s a .40-caliber handgun or a 2,000-pound car, needs to act responsibly to protect their property from criminals.”
9. I live in a shared setting (dorm, roommates) and I want peace of mind
Let’s say you’re a college kid who has to live in a dorm, or some budget apartment in a shabby part of town. You didn’t get to pick your roommates, and the other kids on your dorm floor are known for their hijinks.
You’ve got a Dell laptop bought using student loan money, and a camera that you brought from home in order to take pictures for the school paper. If anyone swipes those, you’re out of luck. You can’t get your next loan installment until the new semester, so you’re stuck writing your final papers on some shared library computer and dropped from the school paper. Do you really want to risk all that?
There are plenty of affordable safes that’ll fit in a dorm room and provide you with security in your new surroundings. Even if you’re not in college and live in another shared environment, these safes will protect your valuables just as well.
10. I’m the head of the family, and I want my family to feel safe!
Being the head of a family is a sacred responsibility, one you shouldn’t take lightly. By keeping your family’s valuables safe, you are keeping your family safe.
Imagine this: the missus has a pearl necklace, which she only wears for special occasions. How would she feel if some burglar broke into her house and swiped it away? Now think of the alternative — how would she feel if you took charge and put that necklace in a highly secured safe?
Being a responsible guy who cares for his family isn’t hard. All it takes is a safe.
11. I want to be ready when SHTF
If you’re someone who wants to be prepared for any catastrophe, then you should own a safe.
We already talked about fires and floods. But if push comes to shove and S**** Hits The Fan for real, then a safe’s going to do you real good too.
If there’s any breakdown in social order, there’s bound to be looting and anarchy. A safe at home will protect your valuables during those trying times. Just imagine if you’d gone to some bank and gotten a deposit box there instead… if SHTF, good luck getting what you need out of there. You want to keep your most important possessions close, because when disaster strikes, you’ll want to access them right away.
Give yourself a pat on the back! You’ve made it through the list.
I bet you’ve agreed with at least one of the items listed, which is great. That means you’re someone who’s going to accept responsibility for his possessions, a sacred responsibility of protection.
Protect yourself. Protect your family. Protect your valuables. It’s the SAFE thing to do.