By Donovan Beard

February 19, 2025

 

One of the challenges of having a concealed handgun license and carrying a firearm on your person is that you unfortunately are not able to carry your firearm concealed everywhere you want to go. The laws regarding where you can lawfully carry outside your home are getting better since the supreme court ruling on NYSRPA v. Bruen however there are circumstances that currently exist where you are going to be forced to leave your handgun in your vehicle because the location you are going into has criminal consequences for carrying concealed even if you have a CHL. The idea behind writing this is not to focus on where you legally can and can’t carry, but rather methods that can be used to secure your firearm in your vehicle should you find yourself in a situation where you decide not to have your gun on you.

The type of vehicle you have and what you have on it could be an indicator to people of nefarious intentions that you have a firearm inside. If you are looking in a parking lot and see a lifted pick-up truck with veteran plates and firearms related stickers on the back window, that might be a good indicator that a firearm can be found inside. Alternatively, if you see an 8-year-old Toyota Prius with an Oregon “wine country” plate and a UC Berkeley alumni bumper sticker, you would probably not expect a weapon to be inside. I bring this up to illustrate that if you are going to have firearms that are unattended in your vehicle, it would be wise to avoid having stickers and license plates that highlight the fact that you own, use or even are interested in firearms. The less you broadcast to the world when you are driving the better off you will be.

As far as places and methods of securing your pistol in your vehicle, the first method would be to lock it in the glove box or center console. However, I look at this as a small step above stuffing the handgun under your seat. I would generally only use this if I were not going to be away from my vehicle for very long and I am in a relatively low crime area. The reason being is that regardless of the fact that those compartments lock, they typically have a lot of plastic and injection molding in their construction and can be broken into with relative ease by someone with a few tools and some know how. Having said that, If I am leaving a gun in a locked glove box, it may not be such a bad idea to disassemble your firearm and take the barrel with you. That way if someone did break into your gun and take your firearm, at least they don’t have a fully functional firearm with which to engage in criminal behavior with.

Generally, when you purchase a firearm from a gun shop, the manufacturer of the firearm will have a cable lock inside the box. If for some reason you don’t have one, you can go to any gun shop and ask for one and they will give you one for free. Most people let these cable locks reside for eternity inside the box the firearm came in and some people simply throw them away. I, however, have been recommending for years that you should have one or even two cable locks inside the glove box of every vehicle you own. This gives you the ability to lock your firearm to a fixed point on your car. You could run the cable through the gun and the mounting hardware for your seat, or alternatively the u bolts used for locking points in the rear seat area that are included for installing a child car seat. It goes without saying that you would want to make sure that you do not have the firearm visible from outside the vehicle.

Another method I use is a console safe, there are a few companies that have safes that are designed specifically to be bolted inside the center console of your vehicle that are of metal construction with a robust locking mechanism. This is a good way to secure not only your firearm, but other items that you may want in your vehicle that would otherwise be items of value to a person breaking into your car.

One of my favorite methods of securing a handgun in a vehicle is by using a small lockable TSA approved travel safe which has a cable that would allow you to secure the safe to a fixed object. I personally use a “Vaultek lifepod” and find it very useful when I am traveling or using rental cars. This allows me to secure the firearm in the safe and secure it not only to the vehicle, but if I am in a hotel or other area, I can usually find a fixed object to secure the safe to using the cable. Another thing I do when I am using this method is to place an apple air tag inside the safe. That way, if for whatever reason someone cuts the cable and leaves with the safe, I can track where the safe is and work collaboratively with law enforcement to retrieve my stolen property. If I am traveling with larger firearms or several firearms and I need a larger case, I will generally use a pelican hard case with robust locks and use cable or chains to secure the case to the cargo tie downs in the trunk or cargo area of the vehicle, then use a blanket or other object to cover the case so it is not immediately visible to someone looking in the windows.

I want you to remember that vehicles are incredibly easy to break into and leaving a firearm in a vehicle is something you want to avoid if possible, however sometimes you really have no other choice. A small amount of planning and preparation can increase the chances that your firearm is not stolen and used in the commission of a crime.

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